Navigating the The Holiday Period 2023 (Golden Quarter) Predictions: Insights from Salesforce Caila Schwartz Director of Consumer Insights and Strategy, Retail & Consumer Goods at Salesforce

🎙️ Welcome to another illuminating episode of The Retail Podcast, where we connect you with the retail industry's thought leaders. Our latest episode features an engaging conversation with none other than Caila Schwartz, Director of Consumer Insights and Strategy, Retail & Consumer Goods at Salesforce.

In a world where the retail landscape is rapidly evolving, Schwartz - a previously self-confessed public speaking apprehensive - has flourished into a voice that is both influential and insightful. She shares valuable lessons from her journey, advocating the importance of fostering one's ideas and not shying away from asking hard-hitting questions - a philosophy that's inspiring for today's business leaders.

In our fascinating discussion, Schwartz offered predictive insights for the imminent Holiday Period 2023 (Golden Quarter) - the critical period leading up to Christmas - based on Salesforce's extensive data analytics. At the heart of these predictions? A prominent role for AI in shaping retail's future, with a staggering forecasted impact of $194 billion on global sales!

But it's not all about technology. Schwartz reminds us of the necessity of customer-centric policies, highlighting the significance of transparent and reasonable return protocols. The retail world is undergoing a shift, moving from transaction-based interactions towards relationship-building and personalized customer experiences.

Schwartz noted that 39% of consumers prefer the omnichannel approach, choosing brands that offer "Buy Online, Pick Up in Store" services. An intriguing aspect of this trend is the potential for additional purchases during the in-store pickup. This blend of online and offline retail experiences, particularly popular among tech-savvy Gen-Z and Millennials, presents a game-changing opportunity for retailers.

Our conversation didn't stop there. We explored the expanding influence of social media, now driving approximately 10% of all e-commerce, a figure growing by 29% annually. The paradigm is shifting towards in-feed advertisements, emphasizing the need for authenticity in today's digital marketing landscape.

A new trend making waves is the growth of the resale market. Driven by cost-savings and sustainability, consumers are increasingly opting for resold goods, making it an area retailers must navigate to remain ahead.

This enlightening episode with Caila Schwartz drives home the point: The retail sector is a labyrinth of constant evolution. Survival and success hinge on adaptability, innovation, and a relentless focus on the customer. At Salesforce, the commitment is clear - equip retailers with the tools and insights necessary to navigate this change and seize the opportunities it presents.

As we head into the Golden Quarter, let's embrace Schwartz's insights: the future of retail transcends selling goods—it's about creating experiences, forging relationships, and nurturing customers. Retailers who can harness this philosophy will thrive in the coming years.

Stay connected for more inspiring conversations on The Retail Podcast. #RetailPodcast #SalesforceInsights #RetailTrends #AIinRetai

"Keep Your Loyal Customers Closer: 5 Holiday Shopping Predictions" https://www.salesforce.com/blog/holiday-shopping-predictions/

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello and welcome to the retail podcast that cell Source

(00:02):
connections. I'm here with Kayla Schwartz.
I butchered a title. The last time.
So Kayla problem, butchering your side.
So what are you eating? That's what are you doing sales
force? Majeure strategies.
So I'm all about understanding, how consumers are behaving and
bad attitudes in triangles that are happening in the market and

(00:23):
these are data from Salesforce. And I had the great privilege of
watching you on stage, who's theI did?
In get the name of the brand that you on.
You're on the stage with a retail, Taylor Snipes and shovel
cool Nikes. And that's what they're all
about. Right there all about the thing.
I was like yeah apparel it came across when she was lucky but
you were talking about your holiday predictions and so

(00:46):
before we get to that, why I normally like to do especially
with female leaders in their field it's the maybe if we could
do a little bit of a time traveland go back to Kayla wins when
she was young and Laquida was young.
If you could go back and talk toThat about how to get to hear if
there's an accelerating lesson, something you could have done

(01:06):
earlier on in your career, that would accelerate to where you've
got to have any thoughts on whatwould that be?
What would that Vise be? Well, you know, growing up.
I was very, very shy. Okay Wyatt.
And I hated public speaking and even through college is really
challenging and that held me back a lot because I had a lot

(01:26):
to say, and I didn't feel comfortable speaking up.
Up and didn't have that confident and I could go back to
my younger self. I would tell her that it's okay
to speak your mind and yeah, askquestions and that you can be
coffin and it's all going to be okay.
And and yeah you know what's really interesting I've asked

(01:48):
for cios and CEOs and one of them have said that, yeah, it's
fascinating and and like, I lookat it from a different
perspective of, is it permissionto speak?
You know, in terms of sometimes you were in meetings and we
don't show that we can speak butthey all said that they wish
they hadn't held themselves likesuper, super fascinating in the,

(02:08):
in terms of that sense is that in terms of you're just focusing
a bit on your younger self and stuff.
GTO the career that you chose. Was that attack?
You really chose me. You like it University.
We had to make those decisions on where to go.
How did you choose what to do? That's a great question.
I was on a completely different path.

(02:28):
I was actually pretty Dad. I wanted to be a doctor for a
while since I was a very little girl, and I went to college and
got a degree in biology and said, all my pre-med
requirements, and then my senioryear.
I said, I'm not really into thisanymore.
Yeah. And I changed course, and I
landed intact, but I landed intact, because of my data

(02:51):
analytics are little, my abilityto think critically.
Yeah. And had a very interesting
educational upbringing and whichAnother story letters, light
itself, well to being asking credit Goldstein thinking bag
asking her to question then. And that's how I landed where I
am today. Wow, I did not anticipate being

(03:13):
in Tech, but I couldn't be happier.
There's something to that you wanted to help because that
comes across, right, in terms ofthe whole, wanting there to help
and do better, and be better. And provide people with more
than I can say, I can speak the caring better.
You know, because I can imagine you're gonna be a doctor or
something. You have to catch.
Ya, and so yeah. Anyways, I like problems.

(03:37):
Okay. So there's like, I think that
parse it being able to solve complex problems.
Yeah, yeah. I think that was.
What Drew you this sold in pain.Yeah yeah.
Are you don't actually care about people.
Well, I mean was super fascinating is Think about what

(04:00):
you were talking about yesterday.
Yeah, your holiday predictions. Holy mouling, really difficult
to sort of take a look into the Looking Glass and you put some
really big numbers. So obviously a lot of the
audience would have had a chanceto be there but I know if you
don't mind maybe spending a few minutes and just taking us
through your you know, top 5 predictions and the numbers

(04:22):
super fascinating, those numbers.
Yeah. Well you know this year where we
see the market Going and retailers and Brands really
going to be doubling down on customer retention strategies
and we've done a lot of research.
What is impacting us for Behavior?
What's driving? Us?
Mercy, stay loyal to Brands. And so when we looked out Trends

(04:45):
in the broader Market, narrowed it down to five me being the
first is all around generative and predicted a I do too.
Hot topic. Yeah.
For sure today, this conference show this year, in general.
Yes. And we anticipate It being a
driver of Revenue, go holiday. So around a hundred ninety, four

(05:06):
billion dollars were generated by a combination of generative.
And this really isn't that wild,and we think about how
predictive AI has been contributing to Commerce
experiences. Yeah, yeah.
So last holiday 15% of All Digital Revenue was generated by

(05:28):
consumers buying. A product that was recommended
to them from an AI. That's growing.
Exactly. So just acceleration
acceleration and I think, especially in retail, brands are
experimenting is really cool. Geez, consumer-facing models
using Ai and particularly Iraq at Bots.

(05:52):
And a really cool thing is one area of, especially when
experience it's going to drive humor.
Purchasing decisions because we know more and more consumers are
comfortable with this technology.
One is so there are a lot of returns last.

(06:12):
All day, I anticipate returns are going to continue to be an
issue this holiday season. But where the issue lies is
Policy is. Yeah, you seen a lot of brands
or pulling back on this generousreturn policies charging for
returns? Yeah, it does kind of have, you
know, I think we're weak. See the challenges lie in there

(06:35):
is just retailers, are big fear about the policy?
Joey, what we found in our research was that consumers are
less concerned about having freereturns.
Yeah. And more concerned about having
an understanding of that return policy.
Yeah we're having a degree symbol.
Yeah. And knowing that they're going
to get their money back refund and knowing that they can

(07:00):
understand. So the coast of the return isn't
necessarily the issue, it's knowing that you can return the
parameters of and those are return refunds and return policy
just Glory this British bases. Yeah, so it's a matte we
anticipate around 21% of online,orders are red.

(07:20):
And what we mean by it risk is that consumers might man in our
van baskets. Exactly.
Or returning product never come back again, but you're not real.
I'm facts. 81 percent of consumers say that they'll stop
doing business company altogether, just one bad return
X. Oh wow.
Okay so the stakes are really high sure.
Especially if you're trying to build brand loyalty lie that you

(07:42):
spent all that time, engaging you've got them to the website,
you've got something in the car.Exactly, I'm going off, just fix
it. It's like, is there a way that
you remedy that? Yeah, well, we did a lot of
research. Yeah.
Different types of policies. The biggest thing we saw brains
and each other's doing was putting their return policies in

(08:03):
the Footers of their website. Don't you Buried?
Buried, and so, it's really heart aren't.
And I think the biggest mix is making it permanent putting on
the product detail page and making a blank clear.
A lot of the lane and policies hungry.
These'll be friendly. Sure.
And so even if you did get to that part that page you might

(08:27):
not have fully understood, so just making it clear and making
plastic. Okay?
Number three, number three, I'm usually a child child child
countdown in and I'm gonna free holiday.
Thanks my my favorites because I'm a huge user of this fish buy

(08:48):
online pick up in store. Omni channel in general.
Yeah. A lot of the behaviors that
consumers picked up in 2020. Yeah, big digital stories that
we saw, we're on each in behaviors.
They were turning to social media, her product inspiration
and they were using tactics likebuy online store and buy online

(09:09):
pick up in store sticky. Its digital behaviors that
consumers adopted. Yeah that's 2020 and it.
Well continuing yeah fact, it is39 percent of shoppers They only
seek out Brands tellers offer, Ilike sort and another large
percentage I think it's around. Twenty seven percent say that
they will look for online or in-store inventory, on a

(09:32):
Retailer's webpage. Yeah, before making a purchase.
Wow. So he's on your channel.
Behaviors are sticking we anticipate or we wanted to
understand right, what's happening at the store, you
know, what's happening online? What the store, pick up that
online word or what are they doing?
And there. A lot of the time, they're
making an additional purchase and so we wanted to put a number

(09:54):
against that and just like a conversion or Apso exactly it
up. So they get to the store.
They make second part of that. Second purchase doesn't have a
hive, average order value. Yeah, and that online purchases,
but still, it's an additional incremental purchase.
It's a huge opportunity again, without to customer retention.
Yeah, build that experience. He can, you know, build a

(10:17):
relationship, sales associate care.
Would that in store buy our product thing about, you know,
having a high-powered product recommendations in the store
says the. And in order to engage that
online buyer when they come in to pick up their order.
Yeah, really powerful. So we anticipate around 20
billion dollars of additional incremental super fascinating I

(10:40):
interviewed the she's gone, the lady from see how it impacts on
obviously being uk-based didn't know the brand but I And look at
all of their stuff that they do really interested.
The one thing that I just to pick up on the relevant to that
was that she was saying that. They have what for her has
worked, is there buy online pickup in store or online?

(11:03):
Pick up curbside or buy online or iron store and get ship?
Yeah, I'm just curious in terms of when you saying buy online
pick up in store, is there a reverse of that?
Like you know, when people by installing ship out or is that
all different? Like data set?
That's different data. Assets is not.
That isn't the same incident. However, we are seeing a big

(11:25):
impact of in-store behavior on digital purchasing.
Yeah. So people will go into the store
to do a lot of research and thengo online to make a purchase go.
Yeah and in fact some of our research has shown that
specially urgency Millennials. Yeah they're more likely to be
the store empty-handed majority of them say that was in a week
my interest in which is really interesting.

(11:47):
Yeah. Okay, I want to go.
So in areas in a number for Holiday 2:37 show who called
prediction, number four is all around the particular, Mercy,
social media have it bigger and bigger impact every year.
And right now, which I've spent ten percent of all, e-commerce

(12:11):
are driven by social media and it's growing here by 29% and q1.
We anticipate when we look at what's actually influencing
traffic. What tactics been social media
are influencing, will be found really is.

(12:33):
It's not influence receiving. Younger generation are not buy
into influencer. No, I'm worried about
advertising. Okay.
Oh, consumers are much more likely to engage and Trust in
feet. Advertisements, go.
And they are other types of marketing.
And it's yeah, well it's the whole t-shirt and tote bag that

(12:56):
you get ticked up made me buy itfor anything in that that say
you in feed advertisement. Did you look at which?
And and to maybe do want to answer this but in terms of
Which social platforms are crushing it in that sense, all
should retailers. I mean is there a piece of
advice? Do I go off and integrate into
insta or Tick-Tock or do I buildmy own life Commerce?

(13:18):
Yeah. Solution of curious and that I
feel like so on aggregate. He see, but the majority are was
traffic coming. From social media channel to
econ, website is driven by Facebook, however, that mixed
changing. And so, we're seeing more
Instagram, or seeing Tick-Tock, it's still have issue a space.

(13:38):
Then in that sense, or is that aglobal number?
Well, you More Europe and North America but you know, Asia
Tick-Tock. Yeah.
What I would say is if you are thinking about this for your
brand it's more important to look at your specific audience.
Yeah. Where they are, yes, we talked a
lot about vetting, your brand onthe channel and devices that

(13:59):
your customers absolutely. So looking at your audience
saying okay what is my where is my audience today and then
engaging them on those channels?They're not going to follow you.
You have to follow them. Yeah and so I will.
I wouldn't say that there's a one size fits.
All that's what social media channels to invest more heavily
in. Yeah, more about using your own
data and it makes so much sense as you come into the holiday

(14:22):
season and you looking for ideason, who do I buy what from you,
it is going to be some sort of social something.
Yeah, that's triggered that. So it's really great.
I did. Okay in a number of fun in 2025
Fiction, it's all about resale, okay?
And so we asked her wanted to understand how does The resale
Market into consumers, purchasing a?

(14:45):
Yeah. And while we found that a large
percentage of consumers are buying silver themselves.
Yep, bar and also large all the lb Olympus on a percentage
planning on gifting resale or friends family this upcoming
holiday. Yeah, we're seeing retail in the
market continued to grow. Yeah.

(15:06):
Relevancy more. And more consumers are meeting
in to resell specially by a towel on the condition that way.
At CRC retails. I would she save on cost and
that was the number one reason why I can see all interest
during thing with the sustainability where they need
all the other seen abilities, number two, okay?
Okay, price price, looks like game.
Sure that you've got them. Like, you know, when you have to

(15:26):
say that the words, no cross comes up and their
sustainability. So, sustainability is number
two, actually the, the drive to reduce.
So, So there's been a bit of debate on this on whether or not
the resale Market is actually cheaper.

(15:47):
I mean, like significantly cheaper to nudge a conversion.
Yeah, I'll be looked at resale from a very holistic respected
digital marketplaces as well as we off property resale, like
it's the marketplace or other types of peer-to-peer type of
folly. So depending so there's a wide

(16:07):
variety and where consumers tendto buy.
Yeah, it depends on what they'rebuying.
So for example, if you're in themarket for furniture.
Yeah, hungate consumers are morelikely to turn to face
Marketplace but if are in the market for apparel shoes luxury
going to go to digital marketplaces where they know
that that purchase is verified authentic.

(16:29):
Going out and they're buying thereal deal.
So depending but and you know different motivation right?
Like for example if you're buying furniture place, probably
our motivations going to be availability.
Yeah. You know they can pick that item
up pretty quickly. Whereas, if you're going to buy
an item, you might take a few weeks or few nights ago, so
depends what the motivation is, what the product is, but on

(16:52):
average we anticipate this 70% holiday purchases will be or
holiday gifts will be up from resale resold goods and we asked
to meet it'll say traffic billion dollars out weights are
doing fantastic and that's goingto be a win.
I know if you looked at your watch how we doing for time?
We got five minutes left, fine. Okay.

(17:13):
That's fantastic. So as we come to the sort of
final stage of their, the pot, the interview podcast, I'm
curious on your sort of your, you must have an immense.
Why seemed immense access to a lot of data points.
How do you decide where to go for your data?
Yeah, right. I'm just curious, we're really
lucky because it's Outsource it.Access to.

(17:34):
So much data, in fact, our shopping look, just looking at
our shopping data, it's representative of one and a half
billion Global. Oh wow.
Manson Mercy, we're tracking data across all different
touchpoints, Social Mobile best man's, and all of that.
So we're looking at the trends and very holistic view all the

(17:54):
time and we're trying to find markers or indicators, ferns new
things coming up. For example, we never would have
been talking about social media.We hadn't seen some of these
Trends are too much on these aggressive growth rates.
So we're also just markets need to customers.
Yeah, do a lot of third. R&D research and understand
other people are saying, yeah. And so we're always trying to do

(18:17):
research and continue to make sure that we're aligning with
you, what the broader Market is seen, but also be a good.
So if I'm a retailer home, listening to this and I want to
access, you know, your font of knowledge, where do I go?
Where where, how would I find out more about some of the stuff
today? Yeah, well you have a whole

(18:38):
there. That's a battery of resources,
free. Sources for everybody to access
Connor website called her insights HQ, right?
And we have quarterly. And that's so it's a battery of
benchmarks that we update every quarter.
And we've been doing this ten years ago.
Well, yeah. So there's that, we also have

(19:02):
holiday insights on. And so that looks into those
Peak shopping movements holiday season.
And then we have a third page with all the other events
happening so long. School time, day, library of
knowledge. And it's right there.
It's all right. There is free for everybody.
And what's really cool about thedata is that depending on your
router goal or your region, you can split it a go deeper into

(19:24):
it. It's available final question.
What's on the radar? What's coming up next?
I will see. You've done your holiday
predictions bat. Is that coming out as a report
them? Yet this coming out as a report
middle of June. Okay.
So that will be life for everybody that access, okay?
And it'll be form of a block. Ugh, he wept a web page update,
okay? And then we'll be going deep

(19:47):
into that school, tries later this summer The Soma.
Okay. And then we'll come out in
September with like full forecast for holidays.
Follow him how much we anticipate our suspect where
growth will be online sales, things like that and then we'll
be tracking for the rest of the holiday season summer in

(20:08):
January. And then what will you be doing?
Live data? Updates are all.
I'll keep an eye out for ya. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Thank you.