April 1, 2025 • 33 mins
Dive into the world of e-commerce with Chris Sheldon, a veteran in retail media, as he explores the complexities of omnichannel strategies and global expansion. This episode covers crucial insights from his work at Podia, focusing on how businesses can successfully navigate the shifting landscape of online retail. Shelton discusses the necessity for a customer-centric approach, unpacking the evolution of omnichannel and its impact on how brands connect with consumers across various platforms.
Listeners will learn practical strategies for global market entry and the unique challenges businesses face when expanding beyond their home shores. Shelton sheds light on Podean’s innovative solutions that enable brands to thrive in diverse regions, utilizing expert insights to tailor their marketing efforts for each specific market. He further delves into the growing significance of social commerce, emphasizing the need for brands to adapt their strategies in response to the shifting consumer trust landscape, heavily influenced by social media and influencers.
As the episode wraps up, Shelton teases an exciting mini-series focused on omnichannel journeys, promising to equip retailers with essential tools for navigating the evolving dynamics of the industry. Tune in now to gain actionable insights that can help propel your business toward success in the ever-changing world of retail. Don't forget to subscribe, share, and leave us a review!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Well, hello everyone and welcome to Doing Business in
Bentonville.
I'm Andy Wilson, I'm the hosttoday and I want to welcome back
my guest today, chris Shelton.
Welcome, thank you, andy, forhaving me.
Glad to be back.
Well, we have a lot to talkabout today and we're going to
get straight into this and youknow, one of the things that
we're going to do is going totalk about Chris's new role now
and get into the great companyhe's with today.
(00:29):
He's going to tell us all aboutit and all of what they do
around the world.
It's a major global company andI can't wait to get into that.
But we're going to chat amoment really about Omnichannel
for him.
You know, omnichannel iscontinually changing and moving
and improving and, as you know,I mean what Omnichannel does is
(00:51):
it helps us really focus aroundcustomer-centric approach to
retail today and it's awesomeand I'd love to hear some
thoughts you have overallOmnichannel.
And then I want to get intothis great company that you're
now working with and all thethings you do around the world.
(01:11):
But let's just chat a minute.
What are your thoughts as weget into this discussion on
Omnichannel?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah, omnichannel is a fascinating one because I feel
like we've moved the goalposton what constituted Omnichannel
about seven times in the sevenyears that I've worked in
Omnichannel.
When it first came out, it wasabout, you know, maybe you were
doing buy online, pick up instore, and if you were checking
that singular box, if you hadlike a iPhone photo of your
product on walmartcom that was,you were an Omnichannel supplier
(01:38):
and that was like you'recrushing it.
Maybe you were one of those likereally you know new suppliers
who was testing out Amazon forthe first time.
The definition was very looseand very like eh, it was a bad
stand back then, and what we'veseen is that every year on year,
folks have added a requirementto what means Omnichannel the
fulfillment options that you'reproviding, the effort you're
putting into your content, yourproduct design.
(01:58):
Hell, even today, some peopleare actually doing online
specific products to meet theircustomers where they need.
And even more so, omnichannelhas gone beyond Omnichannel at a
specific retailer.
It now means every retailerthat a supplier is now selling
for, and even for us at Podia,it now means Omnichannel
globally, and so I feel likenext year I'm going to start
talking about how to sellproducts in space, but at this
(02:21):
point we've now reached whereOmnichannel is coupling the
globe and covering all the mediaoptions that are within that
and all the ways that it'sfulfilled.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So really I have no idea what we're going to say
next year about Omnichannel, butI'm hoping that the growth
slows down a little bit so wecan calm down there.
But you know it was at thebeginning of this journey and
you know, and this journey, aquite just, really smooth
transition between all theseinteractive points.
And now what I've noticed isthese points are cleaning up,
they're getting smoother.
It's not as bumpy as it was.
(02:56):
It's still bumpy a bit, but notlike it was when we had some
big potholes early on sevenyears ago.
Like you said, I love your point, but what we're going to do
today, we're going to really getinto what Chris's company does
and how they can really help andnavigate you through this whole
transition to create the smoothtransition, if you will.
(03:21):
So let's talk about yourcompany.
Okay, Tell me about the company, how long you've been there and
why you chose this company, butthen let's get into the details
.
Yeah, absolutely.
So welcome back.
As I said, I'm glad you're backand I'm going to make a list
later in the show about Chrisand some of the things he's
(03:42):
going to be doing with us anddoing business in Bentonville.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
But tell us about your company.
Yeah, so Podian is a fullservice global marketplace
agency, which is I've talkedevery buzzword into that little
bit of definition but what thatsimply means is that we help
brands who actually need helpselling their products across
all of their marketplaces,whether that's in America, here
at Walmart, target, kroger,sam's Club you name it all the
way to retailers like Asda inthe UK or all the way out into
(04:11):
Shopee in APAC.
We do everything from content,media design, retail operations,
logistics basically everythingyou need to actually do to sell
your product online across theglobe.
Specifically, we're a remotefirst agency, so we're able to
service the globe because wehave team online across the
globe.
Specifically, we're a remotefirst agency, so we're able to
service the globe because wehave team members across the
globe.
We have managing directors inevery single major region across
(04:32):
the globe and those teams aresubject matter experts on how to
sell a product in Australiaversus how to sell a product in
Brazil or Argentina, and thatknowledge and expertise allows
us to take these brands who arevery interested in Glenn Gubble
but don't want to invest theresources and footprint into
having teams in every single oneof those major nations that I
just listed, to get more done,get it done faster and get it
(04:53):
done better.
Padeon also operates a smallpractice called Livecraft.
Livecraft is a social commercepractice, so social commerce has
been super buzzy in theindustry these days.
But really what the end of theday is that people are buying
more from influencers.
They're looking for people theytrust and they're transacting
that way.
We've seen that TikTok shop isbecoming one of the largest
retailers in the U?
S with the product that itmoves Um and the reason it's
(05:15):
moving.
That is just people trust thefolks on uh on TikTok.
They trust the folks onInstagram.
I trust those folks on Facebook.
So Livecraft helps those brandsengage with those mechanisms
that feel pretty scary and it'sreally hard to keep up with Gen
Z I'm right on the cusp of beingGen Z and even myself I
struggle to keep up with howthey talk, how they say and how
they want to buy things, and sowe help connect and bridge those
(05:37):
things to executives who aretrying to understand how they
can tap into the social market.
But that's Padilla and Ed's coreand I'll back into that last
question you asked about.
You know why did I come here?
I've been here 60 days now, sodrinking from a fire hose at
Padilla.
But really it came down to twothings.
One, our founders, mark and Trav, are incredible.
They've got a vision for anagency that operates and feels
(05:57):
and looks different than otheragencies.
We take care of our people, webuild a flexible work culture
that empowers folks to be thebest version of themselves, and
we actually mean that.
And that was an incredibleproposition to come join a
company where everyone I talkedto and how long they had been
there was extremely happy.
You go look at the seniorleadership of Odeon.
Almost every single one of themhas been there since the
beginning and has been promotedfrom director now to VP, now to
(06:20):
the C-suite.
It's a company that cares aboutits people, invests in its
people and, spoiler alert, we'rein the agency space and so the
only thing that actually mattersis people, and so if we don't
have great people, we don'tempower them, we don't take care
of them, we don't have anagency at the end of the day,
and that vision really drew me.
That and I'm watching theglobal marketplace world expand,
get more complex, seem like theplace to be, and I saw a
(06:42):
complete need for what Podiumwas going to be building in the
future Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
You know it's exciting and when you had
messaged me and told me aboutyour change and I'll begin to
research Podium and look at thatand get into the details of
that it just seems such a greatfit for you, just knowing you
and talking to you, and we'vehad many conversations about
Omnichannel, and so I'm excitedfor you and I know what we want
(07:10):
to do today is really have Christo get in to the details, if
you will and how as a business,that you can overcome these
complexities a bit.
We talked about early on aboutthe bumpy road and the
omni-channel, but I will tellyou, chris, I think you just
need to really begin and getinto some of the things that you
(07:31):
do as a company, and we canstart with this end-to-end
marketplace management if youlike, and then let's just
navigate through this.
Okay, yeah, absolutely so,about your services and all Okay
, yeah, so at the end of the day.
Yeah, absolutely so about yourservices at all.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Okay, yeah, so at the end of the day, we've watched
the world become some morecomplex place.
What you needed to operate one-comm five years ago is not
what you need today.
The number of problems areinfinitely larger than the
number of teams that you wouldneed.
We estimate, generally speaking, that there are 24 different
subject matter experts that putD&N employees in order for a
single brand to sell globally.
(08:03):
Now, if you were a CPG makingan investment to sell globally,
that is a lot of money that youare investing to employ the
staff to set up legal entitiesto sell in those places and to
actually get the work done.
And, frankly, you don'tactually need 24 full-time
people to get that work done.
You may need 10 hours ofsomebody who understands
logistics in Brazil and 20 hoursof somebody to design your
content.
You do not need somebodyfull-time for 12 months of the
(08:25):
year to help do those things.
So what Podian is able to do isthat we have a stable of folks
who are incredibly talented,understand those areas and are
subject matter experts in thespecific parts that they need,
whether it's marketing, content,design or retail ops and we can
give those services, in abucket of retainer hours to our
clients, say 100, 200, 300 hoursa month that they can access
and use as they need to servicetheir global, the service their
(08:48):
brands as they sell across theglobe.
And that's really importantbecause we don't want to just
sell retail ops, because onemonth you may have a whole host
of problems and we may bebattling tons of third party
sellers and dealing withvariation authority and really
struggling to get items set up,and the next month those
problems may be completely goneand our team and our flexibility
of what we're able to do is tothen take those hours and focus
(09:09):
on something else.
We can put more effort intomedia, put more effort into your
planning for big deal days, forprime day, things like that,
and so that model really allowsus to support really flexibly
and meet brands where they arewith what they need and also
help brands from very smallselling $5 million in product
all the way up to brands selling$500 million in product.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
So you don't have a one-size-fits-all here.
That's what I like about yourcompany.
As I've done my research isthat you really collaborate
closely with your customer orclient and able to tailor what
they need Is that correctExactly and, I'd say, one of the
(09:48):
things that Bodine at its core.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
We are an agency that's designed to move units of
product off of digital shelvesright.
That is the number one impetusthat we get hired by our clients
to do, and we take great pridein taking clients who sell $5
million in product to selling$25 million in product.
We are not doing that, we arenot succeeding as an agency, and
so it is our job and what westaff to be able to do is to
(10:10):
deliver that end result.
We want to be great folks indesign, we want to have great
folks who do retail media reallywell, but at the end of the day
, if our clients' businessesaren't growing, we aren't doing
our job, and so I think that'sbeen a plague that's been
affecting the agency world forthe past couple of years is that
we've all been very focused ondoing the big shiny retail media
thing really really well, butno one is asking did your brand
(10:30):
actually grow when you spentthat $20 million last year?
Did it actually drive yourbusiness results?
We've become very divorced fromthose two things being together
, and so by having all of thoseteams under one focus, under one
leadership, to actually go sayeverything we do, whether it's
designing content, optimizingyour PDPs or building
advertising campaigns.
All of that, the end goal is todrive your business and if you
(10:54):
don't do that, you're notsetting up those brands for
success.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Right, absolutely Well, let's, let's take it and
let's just let's talk about this.
Your about your marketplaceconsulting, so you have a
product.
How does that work If they wantto contact you?
What would you do with acustomer if you will?
Yeah, so walk us through thatso that our viewers can get a
(11:23):
glimpse of what would happen inthe process.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, so I'll zoom out briefly.
Just talk about PadillaConsulting and why it existed.
Mark and Travis, our founders,have been doing consulting for
brands for basically since theystarted.
It was actually almost becamewhat Padilla is today was
supposed to be consulting, andover time they pivoted towards
the marketplace agency world.
But they've always been doingthis, and so for me, what it
came to is that I saw and as Iwas looking at this opportunity,
(11:48):
I saw a crisis of execution,and what I mean by that is that
we had all of these agencies andI was guilty.
I worked for them, I did thistoo.
There were so many newfangledtoys and platforms and
e-commerce systems to learn thatwe stopped asking the strategic
questions.
We stopped trying to figure outhey, why actually?
Why, I know I had these.
(12:09):
You know, a great example iswhen Omnichannel first started,
most suppliers just took theirentire catalog and put it online
.
Right, that makes sense.
Should we have done that?
Why did we do that?
Was it?
You know, you knew that you'regoing to take certain cost
increases for fees and shippingand logistics, but we didn't.
We just kind of did it becauseit was the thing to do was to
move to e-com, and the samething as you move and move
(12:29):
product from Walmart to Amazon.
Plenty of suppliers here inBentonville have copied their
catalogs from Walmart straightto Amazon and haven't really
asked the question why did we dothat?
Was that the right decision?
Is my catalog from five yearsago serving me today in the same
way that I designed it to andyears ago serving me today in
the same way that I designed itto?
And the agency partners thatthey're working with don't have
an interest in really helpingthem solve those questions.
And so what we realized atPodian was that brands are
(12:52):
hungry for those big strategicquestions and the answers that
come with them.
And so we launched PerdianConsulting to help solve those
big one-off problems that anagency really isn't paid to
solve in the first place.
Right, if you're one of the bigsix and you've got a giant
advertising contract, it's notyour job to go tell Kellogg's
you know which size of cerealthey should be selling on Amazon
(13:12):
.
That's really not a problemthat you're asked with solving.
But that problem, if you solveit and help them do their
catalog architecture correctly,could be a tens of millions of
dollars successful project ifyou optimize that correctly,
whether it's based on freight,packaging size or breakage rates
that come with that, and sowhat we're trying to do is help
(13:32):
answer those really hardstrategic questions that brands
are asking with a serviceoffering that doesn't come from
suits with MBAs.
Just because you went to Harvarddoes not mean you understand
e-commerce.
If you've not logged intoRetailLink, if you've not been
in Amazon Vendor Central, yousimply don't understand.
And no amount of those kind ofcertifications in those big
consulting firms can convince methat they have the expertise
(13:54):
needed to solve these questions,and a lot of our friends in the
CPG world use those consultants, they use MBB, they use
McKinsey Bain, they use thosefolks to solve these problems,
but they're paying somebody twoyears out of college to learn
these things instead of hiringexperts that are that know the
field, have been there, havehelped brands actually succeed,
and so our objective at BDMConsulting is to build an
offering that's stronger, basedin actual, real-world expertise,
(14:18):
and actually is driving towardsthat last goal that I talked
about, which is to actuallydrive sales for the business at
the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I think that's excellent.
I mean, I think you really doget it.
You get into the details inyour consulting, your market
consulting process.
It sounds wonderful.
Now you know the thing that yousaid to earlier.
Let's go back to for a moment.
You talked about your.
It's a global company, and thewonderful thing about
Omnichannel is you can reallybegin to sell your products
(14:45):
globally.
So talk about your globalexpansion.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, so it is extremely common right now.
Right, amazon has gotten harderand harder to sell on.
Walmart is getting harder andharder to sell on.
Right, you're kind of enteringthis, this Roman gladiator arena
.
You're fighting againstextremely smart, professional
sellers.
If you're not battling againstPepsiCo and these huge suppliers
, you're also battling againstsome of Amazon's most
sophisticated resellers, likePharmaPak.
(15:09):
One of the biggest Amazonsellers in the world is a
reseller.
It's incredibly talented atselling product and so when
you're selling on the Amazon inthe US, you are not to mention
1.25 million Amazon sellersentered Amazon this past year,
in 2024.
So not only is it alreadycompetitive, but more and more
and more folks are getting intothe market.
What that means is that you'vegot to be really good to really
(15:32):
succeed on Amazon and you'regoing to fight really hard for
very small growth.
And so what our brands arecoming to us asking is hey, I'm
tired of fighting in the US.
It's just not as profitableanymore.
Fees are increasing.
I want to go global, and thefirst thing they do is they pull
up the list of GDPs ofcountries and they go hey, it
(15:52):
looks like Amazon is huge in theUK and Germany.
I guess I'll just expand there.
And, like I said back to youknow it looks like Amazon is
huge in the UK and Germany.
Like, I guess I'll just expandthere.
And like I said back to before,it's a crisis of strategy.
You cannot just pull upeMarketer and find the size of
the market and tell me thatthat's where your brand should
expand.
If you don't have one, thelocal expertise you'll miss.
A very simple one is that inGermany they're very focused on
buying on e-com platforms Germanbrands.
(16:13):
If you go in thinking that justbecause the German home care
and home furniture market is a$300 million opportunity on
Amazon, but what you don'trealize is that that market is
owned by 94% of German sellersthemselves, you're never going
to actually hit the goals thatyou're trying to achieve.
If you enter the market that way, or if you don't consider the
logistics costs to get a productfrom the US to London, you may
(16:35):
not realize that the pack yousell in the US for $15, actually
with VAT and everything else isgoing to be $22 in the UK.
And where does your pricing andpositioning sit now that you're
$7 more expensive?
These are like the babyquestions that start getting
asked and when you really startlooking.
You have to start answeringsome bigger questions about
where should I expand and howshould I expand.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Right, well, so that's wonderful.
So you've talked about theconsulting, you talked about
what it's going to take, and youcan take people to the global
expansion of their business,which is phenomenal.
So talk about now what we calla marketplace media.
You know, as we said at the topof the show, is that early on,
in the only channel, it it wasjust a couple, just a couple
(17:17):
things.
Now, this whole channelexperience, what you're getting
is this how broad this is andand it's so important on the
media side now.
So how do you, how do you dothat?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
yeah, it's a.
It's certainly a challengingenvironment in retail media
today.
Uh, there are a bajillionplatforms.
We spend a lot of money withamazon, a lot of of money with
Walmart, and part of that isjust one having an expert team.
One of our largest staffswithin our cohort of subject
matter experts is in retailmedia.
But if you're going to launchproducts for the first time, you
have to have really dang goodadvertising strategy.
(17:48):
If you're going to go from zeroto 10,000 units in a month,
right, and so part of that isunderstanding one.
You know, what we benefit fromis that we've launched thousands
of products, if not tens ofthousands of products, globally,
so we understand what it takesto go from zero to 90 days and
to sell zero products on day oneand to sell 10,000 units in
(18:09):
month three.
And that's a really importantpart of our advertising strategy
is building it to actually growover time and grow quickly,
right.
We all wish we could sell intoour CFOs and our VPs of sales.
Don't worry, we're going togrow this very slowly over 12
months.
It's going to be really costeffective.
We're going to take our time.
I don't think I've ever been ina room with an executive who is
signing off on taking 12 monthsto do a very slow growth plan?
(18:30):
Right?
The expectation is always speedand rapid market share growth.
Right?
No one is really going to signoff on?
Okay, we can take our time.
It works out.
It works out.
If it doesn't, it doesn't.
You have to be laser focused onhow you succeed, how you play
around 10 polls and then, moreimportantly, how you change
advertising right, buildadvertising creative in the US.
You then have to change that tobe German, to be Spanish all of
(18:52):
these different languages andalso still be culturally
relevant.
The way that you market tosomebody in the UK is going to
be different than the way youmarket to somebody in Slovenia,
and so you have to have thatcultural context which Podian
has, because we have teams allthe way across the globe.
And I think another importantpart is that we're a great
partner of Amazon's In 2023, wewon their Global Expansion Award
because of the great work we doin helping brands go overseas,
(19:16):
and that deep partnership allowsus to understand their new ad
products, how they're workingtogether and how we can partner,
and that's really important.
If you're not aware of what'savailable to you in the first
place, you're not going tosucceed.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Congratulations on that.
That's a wonderful win forAmazon and that gives you so
much credibility also.
Now you have something that Iwas reading about.
It's called RPM.
Okay, I've found thatfascinating a bit.
Can you explain that process?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, so, like you said, as I said, omnichannel has
become a bajillion things.
Yeah, so has all the datapipelines that exist around the
world for everything we I meanyou just look at how many places
you now have to log in just forWalmart right, there's I just
got renamed so there's Centilla,there's RetailLink, there's
Vendor Central for Amazon,seller Central for Amazon.
Within each of those, there arelike nine or 10 different
(20:02):
places where you need to log inand grab data.
So if all you want to do isjust get the data from all those
platforms and then put it inone place, you could task an
analyst on your team with 20hours a week of just going in
and hitting download on thoseExcel sheets and merging them
Right.
And so what RPM does at its coreis take all of those disparate
data sets and puts them into oneplace.
So, like I said at the top ofthe show, all we care about the
(20:25):
end of the day is drivingbusiness results, and so if we
can't map retail media effortsback to driving sales, what are
we doing?
And so part of that is usingRPM to connect advertising and
sales data together so that wecan map those two things
together.
That's a home inbuilt tool thatPodian has that all of our
clients get access to.
It's an incredibly importantpart of essentially building a
synergy around everyone lookingat the same thing, everyone
(20:48):
marching to the same drum Great.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
I like it, I like how you're into the details, I like
it, I like, I like, I like howyou're into the details.
You know, and and as we again,as we're navigating through this
complexity of Omnichannel, andthen your solutions that you
have created, you've createdsome other solutions also around
retail operations and contentand creativity and social
(21:13):
commerce.
So let's you want to talk about, let's talk about some of those
Cause.
I think they're excellent atwhat you have, what you've come
up with.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, so one.
As I said before, when you goglobal, you take the complexity
scale and you turn that knob to11.
Essentially is what happens,right?
Yes, Every different Amazonlikes to pretend that they are
standardized across allmarketplaces.
And even even just if you goacross the northern border to
Canada, Walmart and WalmartCanada they share the same name,
they share the same branding,but even then, how they operate,
(21:42):
how the retail media is powered, how the commerce is powered,
how the website looks even, isdifferent if I just go above the
northern border.
Right, that's correct.
And so what we at Vodian have todo is essentially help brands,
which are typically veryUS-centric in most cases,
understand how they can take abunch of really great creative
work that they did for the USit's built on consumer insights
and information on a US customerand then go build content and
(22:04):
PDPs that sell in every majornation around the world.
That's a daunting task.
One to even understand thecultural context of all of those
Two.
We can't use Google Translateto translate the languages for
all of those.
You have to do really goodtranslation.
No one is going to buy yourproduct if you're mistranslating
something into bread byaccident when you're trying to
sell socks right.
That's just not going to be away that works, and so our
(22:26):
content design teams are expertsat taking that kind of content
and expanding it to all themarketplaces that you're
offering.
We also do design, so we willdo everything from helping you
repackage and rebuild.
If you realize that your UScentric brand just is not going
to sell well in Spain andPortugal, but you are really
focused on that market, ourdesign teams will help you
redesign your packaging,redesign your online profile and
(22:47):
PDPs so that it fits with thatmarket and you can kind of
reinvent the way you sell.
This is a really importantthing where, like where, you're
not going to get brandrecognition once you're moving
to farther out, especiallyoverseas, if you're a smaller
brand in the US, or if, for acustomer, this is the first time
they're going to be hearingabout it.
Oftentimes it's a chance to testor reinvent your actual product
and design, and so that's acore part of what we offer, and
(23:07):
we also offer audits for thosekinds of things.
So we'll look at your contentand look at it across the globe
and see how you stack up.
We have lots of great partnerswho you know.
They had a great year.
Last year they grew 20, 30%,but they're looking around going
how did I, how could I havegotten to 25?
How could I have gotten to 35%?
Growth and understanding howthey can improve as a critical
part of developing that contentas well.
It's an ever evolving battle,Unfortunately.
(23:28):
You're always going to beimproving that content, learning
new things and developing.
And then I'll jump to thatLifecraft side.
We have some amazingpartnerships with some very big
companies who are partneringwith us to figure out social
commerce.
Anyone were to come on thispodcast and tell you, Andy, that
they've cracked social commercethey're lying to you.
Everyone is just riding thebull and hoping that they can
hang on.
That's currently what'soccurring.
(23:49):
But social commerce has been agreat place for us to play.
Our brands are really investedin figuring out how to play
there.
And just to quickly define insocial commerce is everything
that happens with an influencer,a micro-influencer, to drive
product sales right.
It's all of those relationstogether.
Hypothetically, if I told youto go buy some P&G razors today,
that would be social commerce.
It's not a very measurable formof social commerce and my reach
(24:11):
is one-to-one, but it is aversion of it and that scales
all the way up to some of thebiggest YouTubers and TikTokers
in the world who, to tens ofmillions of fans, can say I love
dude wipes and I want you to gobuy that product today.
And that's a really difficultdynamic for brands to understand
, right?
They oftentimes we've had manycases where brands have come to
(24:33):
us and gone.
We just sold 7 million unitsacross the globe and we can't
figure out why we're out ofstock nationwide and we don't
know why.
And after a week of research wefind that a TikTok post went
viral and somebody was talkingabout their product and it wiped
their store across the globeand branches aren't ready for
that kind of demand, they aren'tready to capitalize on those
kinds of things, and so we atLivecraft are really focused on
(24:56):
developing those, giving brandsthe tools to respond, to react,
be proactive instead of reactivein a space that they've largely
been kind of trying to followthe coattails of these
influencers, right, right, yeah,now I know you do a lot of work
with Amazon and let's talkAmazon for a moment, okay,
because we all know Amazon.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
We know they do a very good job on a lot of things
and you know they have, I think, amazon.
You tell me, but tell me thework you're doing at Amazon, and
then let's just talk about howyou feel opportunities with
Amazon or whatever, and thenwe'll chat about that for a
moment.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah, so I'll say first, being here in Bentonville
, I'm a Walmart guy through andthrough.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
There's a bit of blue somewhere in this blood.
I love us.
Yeah, and I always feel like abit of a traitor Anytime I talk
about it.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
I'm like looking around, it was hard for me to
ask you that question.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
I know let's acknowledge the elephant in the
room and I'll say this aboutWalmart first, and I'll say this
about Podium we are amarketplace company.
If today Walmart launched astronger, more vibrant
marketplace than it has and in ayear from now was bigger than
Amazon, our focus would be onWalmart.
We do not care that Amazon is.
(26:10):
There's no loyalty to it beyondthat.
It is the market leader inmarketplaces right now.
The moment that Amazon orShopee or any other marketplace
takes that focus or takes thatgrowth and starts to really
develop something, podium willhelp you figure out how to sell
there.
That is our focus at the end ofthe day.
And so right now, amazon haskind of a death grip on a lot of
very specific marketplaces.
Walmart's doing great work togrow.
(26:30):
Their fiscal earnings just cameout.
They're doing a great jobgrowing marketplace.
It's just David and Goliathwhich is a weird thing to say
about Walmart being David inthis case but they are fighting
a huge battle and an uphillbattle to grow there.
But regarding our Amazonpartnership essentially, and why
Amazon loves to work with us, Ithink in general, and why our
partners love working with us,is that one we handle everything
(26:58):
right.
It's very hard for an Amazonvendor rep to recommend an
agency if they can't handle endto end, and that's a big part of
what we offer is every problemthat you can run into on Amazon.
We have somebody who's run intoit.
We have a Palo every week withour team where we just share the
crazy problems that havehappened on Amazon when a
three-piece seller has stolenyour buy box and is all of a
sudden selling product at sixtimes the price or has bought
all your product on aliquidation sale at Costco and
you're now trying to deal withthat.
(27:18):
We talk about all those things.
We've experienced all theproblems that Amazon has, and
Amazon is an experience oflearning right.
Every day there will be a newproblem, a new way that
something is broken, in the sameway that you're solving
problems at Walmart.
But it's about being aware andlearning from that and at the
scale that we are, we're able tohave experience with those
issues.
Rarely are we experiencing anissue with a client for the
(27:40):
first time and if we are, we'retrying to replicate that so it
never happens again for ourother clientele, and that's a
big part of working with them.
I think the other big part iswhen it comes down to the
advertising side of things.
We've gotten really smart withhow we do that.
Our entire staff at Podium isAmazon certified and Amazon DSP,
their search products, all ofthose things and that's a time
(28:00):
and investment that we've madeto make sure that our teams know
what they're talking about atall times.
There are a lot of folks whohave brought retail media folks
from Google and Meta and otherproducts and this is their first
or second year and they'respending tens of millions of
brands dollars without reallythe expertise to back that up
(28:21):
and so we've made a big effortto both train our teams and be
invested in keeping up withevery last trend that's
happening in that space.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Well, it's great.
Thank you for sharing that tothe smaller retailer today.
If you will, you cover all ofthat perspective, as you said at
the very beginning, from asmall amount to a large amount,
right?
And so I think we just want tomake sure our viewers understand
that you can work at all thosesize platforms, yeah, absolutely
(28:50):
.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
It's a core thing for us that if all you sell on
today is walmartcom and that'sall you do, we can support you.
We have experts who live here,like me, folks who can support
you in that business.
And the day that you make asale in the Sam's club, we can
support you there as well.
And the day that you finallyget that global ambition and get
that spark in you to try and gosell products somewhere else,
we have all the resourcesavailable to get you across the
(29:11):
pond to wherever you want to godo business.
And that's our big promise isthat we're going to service
every single part of the marketand we'll have the staff to grow
with you should you need to.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
And I think that's a good summary that you, in what
you said, you have the staff togrow with you, and I think you
know, and I have a lot ofsmaller retailers that come in
and talk and I give themopportunity as well as I do the
large ones, and I think it'svery comforting to know, if I'm
a small retailer today, thatthey can rest with assurance
(29:42):
that you can help guide themthrough this process and then
help them grow.
And you've done a great jobexplaining many of those facets,
how you've done that.
So I want to summarize this andthen I want to move on to
something exciting that I wantto announce about you.
But how would you summarize orany additional comments you'd
(30:02):
like to make?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah, I'll just make one last plug for Padilla and
Consulting.
If you have issues that you'retrying to solve or you've got
something that's been the stickywicket in your business for the
past couple of months, youdon't have the resources, you
don't have the staff and youjust need something solved
quickly, we are here to solvethose big strategic questions
that you have.
If you are interested in globalexpansion we've run over 50 of
those analyses for very largeand very successful brands who
(30:25):
are now crushing it across theglobe and if you are interested
in that, that's a service thatwe can launch for you today.
You can go to putdncom slashconsulting and you can reach out
to us.
That contact box goes straightto my inbox, so go say hello and
we'll get you sorted.
And if you are looking for anagency, of course reach out to
us as well.
Putdncom slash solutions youcan take a look at everything
that we've got there when itcomes to how we support brands
(30:47):
and how we help them grow.
But at the end of the day,right, find me on LinkedIn,
linkedincom Chris slash andChris J Sheldon.
I'm here for questions, right?
If you just got somethingyou're curious about?
You heard something on thepodcast today that you want to
talk about.
I'm more than happy to deepdive with you on that.
It's an exciting time to be ine-comm, and not everything has
to be for money, right.
(31:07):
We're here to take care of eachother, to do great work, to
share great work, and so ifyou've just got questions, just
want to chat, want to get coffee, find me there as well.
That's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Great, chris.
Okay, now, the thing that Imentioned at the top of the show
is that we're going to do someother things with Chris, and I'm
really excited to announcetoday that we're going to be
bringing Chris back at DoingBusiness in Bentonville and
we've created what we're calleda mini series, if you will, and
(31:36):
Chris is going to be coming backon with some subject matter
experts and he's going to bedoing even a deeper dive into
this omnichannel journey I'llcall it and he's going to really
educate us on the different andreally different facets of this
whole incredible universecalled omnichannel.
And I'm so excited about what'shappening in retail.
I started in brick and mortarand I will tell you every day
(31:58):
I'm excited about what's goingon in retail.
And so, chris, thank you forcoming back and doing this.
I'm really excited and we'll beannouncing soon Chris and I
will be this series and we'll besharing the Chris and I will be
this series and we'll besharing the content and the
journey.
And so, chris, thank you.
(32:18):
Thank you so much for having me, andy.
It was great.
Yeah, it's so great, and I lookforward to this relationship
and this journey, and you knowthe thing I do in business in
Bentonville.
We're all about OmniChannel.
We're here to really helpsimplify OmniChannel, if you
will, but also to educate you,our retailers, our viewers, on
how you can grow your business,how you can understand this
(32:41):
process of flow that's happeningaround us and the change that's
happening almost daily, and youneed experts to help you with
that, and that's exactly whatChris and his team is going to
do.
Yeah, you need an army, and wehave one.
I love it.
I love it.
Well, chris Shelton, it'salways great to see you.
(33:01):
Thank you so much for coming on.
Best to you and your newjourney.
Thank you so much, andy.
Okay, all right For you joiningus.
Thank you so much.
I want to thank you all so youcan reach out to LinkedIn.
I'm Andy Wilson at LinkedIn.
Reach out to me and you canmessage me on questions.
The people in the back roomtold me this morning that we're
(33:26):
now over 2,000 views a day, andthen we're also now in view to
90 countries, and that's becauseof you.
So, thank you.
We really appreciate that youare listening and watching doing
business in Bentonville.
Have a wonderful day, everyone.
Goodbye.
Thank you again, chris.
Thank you.
Well, hello everyone and welcome to Doing Business in
Bentonville.
I'm Andy Wilson, I'm the hosttoday and I want to welcome back
my guest today, chris Shelton.
Welcome, thank you, andy, forhaving me.
Glad to be back.
Well, we have a lot to talkabout today and we're going to
get straight into this and youknow, one of the things that
we're going to do is going totalk about Chris's new role now
and get into the great companyhe's with today.
(00:29):
He's going to tell us all aboutit and all of what they do
around the world.
It's a major global company andI can't wait to get into that.
But we're going to chat amoment really about Omnichannel
for him.
You know, omnichannel iscontinually changing and moving
and improving and, as you know,I mean what Omnichannel does is
(00:51):
it helps us really focus aroundcustomer-centric approach to
retail today and it's awesomeand I'd love to hear some
thoughts you have overallOmnichannel.
And then I want to get intothis great company that you're
now working with and all thethings you do around the world.
(01:11):
But let's just chat a minute.
What are your thoughts as weget into this discussion on
Omnichannel?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Yeah, omnichannel is a fascinating one because I feel
like we've moved the goalposton what constituted Omnichannel
about seven times in the sevenyears that I've worked in
Omnichannel.
When it first came out, it wasabout, you know, maybe you were
doing buy online, pick up instore, and if you were checking
that singular box, if you hadlike a iPhone photo of your
product on walmartcom that was,you were an Omnichannel supplier
(01:38):
and that was like you'recrushing it.
Maybe you were one of those likereally you know new suppliers
who was testing out Amazon forthe first time.
The definition was very looseand very like eh, it was a bad
stand back then, and what we'veseen is that every year on year,
folks have added a requirementto what means Omnichannel the
fulfillment options that you'reproviding, the effort you're
putting into your content, yourproduct design.
(01:58):
Hell, even today, some peopleare actually doing online
specific products to meet theircustomers where they need.
And even more so, omnichannelhas gone beyond Omnichannel at a
specific retailer.
It now means every retailerthat a supplier is now selling
for, and even for us at Podia,it now means Omnichannel
globally, and so I feel likenext year I'm going to start
talking about how to sellproducts in space, but at this
(02:21):
point we've now reached whereOmnichannel is coupling the
globe and covering all the mediaoptions that are within that
and all the ways that it'sfulfilled.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So really I have no idea what we're going to say
next year about Omnichannel, butI'm hoping that the growth
slows down a little bit so wecan calm down there.
But you know it was at thebeginning of this journey and
you know, and this journey, aquite just, really smooth
transition between all theseinteractive points.
And now what I've noticed isthese points are cleaning up,
they're getting smoother.
It's not as bumpy as it was.
(02:56):
It's still bumpy a bit, but notlike it was when we had some
big potholes early on sevenyears ago.
Like you said, I love your point, but what we're going to do
today, we're going to really getinto what Chris's company does
and how they can really help andnavigate you through this whole
transition to create the smoothtransition, if you will.
(03:21):
So let's talk about yourcompany.
Okay, Tell me about the company, how long you've been there and
why you chose this company, butthen let's get into the details
.
Yeah, absolutely.
So welcome back.
As I said, I'm glad you're backand I'm going to make a list
later in the show about Chrisand some of the things he's
(03:42):
going to be doing with us anddoing business in Bentonville.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
But tell us about your company.
Yeah, so Podian is a fullservice global marketplace
agency, which is I've talkedevery buzzword into that little
bit of definition but what thatsimply means is that we help
brands who actually need helpselling their products across
all of their marketplaces,whether that's in America, here
at Walmart, target, kroger,sam's Club you name it all the
way to retailers like Asda inthe UK or all the way out into
(04:11):
Shopee in APAC.
We do everything from content,media design, retail operations,
logistics basically everythingyou need to actually do to sell
your product online across theglobe.
Specifically, we're a remotefirst agency, so we're able to
service the globe because wehave team online across the
globe.
Specifically, we're a remotefirst agency, so we're able to
service the globe because wehave team members across the
globe.
We have managing directors inevery single major region across
(04:32):
the globe and those teams aresubject matter experts on how to
sell a product in Australiaversus how to sell a product in
Brazil or Argentina, and thatknowledge and expertise allows
us to take these brands who arevery interested in Glenn Gubble
but don't want to invest theresources and footprint into
having teams in every single oneof those major nations that I
just listed, to get more done,get it done faster and get it
(04:53):
done better.
Padeon also operates a smallpractice called Livecraft.
Livecraft is a social commercepractice, so social commerce has
been super buzzy in theindustry these days.
But really what the end of theday is that people are buying
more from influencers.
They're looking for people theytrust and they're transacting
that way.
We've seen that TikTok shop isbecoming one of the largest
retailers in the U?
S with the product that itmoves Um and the reason it's
(05:15):
moving.
That is just people trust thefolks on uh on TikTok.
They trust the folks onInstagram.
I trust those folks on Facebook.
So Livecraft helps those brandsengage with those mechanisms
that feel pretty scary and it'sreally hard to keep up with Gen
Z I'm right on the cusp of beingGen Z and even myself I
struggle to keep up with howthey talk, how they say and how
they want to buy things, and sowe help connect and bridge those
(05:37):
things to executives who aretrying to understand how they
can tap into the social market.
But that's Padilla and Ed's coreand I'll back into that last
question you asked about.
You know why did I come here?
I've been here 60 days now, sodrinking from a fire hose at
Padilla.
But really it came down to twothings.
One, our founders, mark and Trav, are incredible.
They've got a vision for anagency that operates and feels
(05:57):
and looks different than otheragencies.
We take care of our people, webuild a flexible work culture
that empowers folks to be thebest version of themselves, and
we actually mean that.
And that was an incredibleproposition to come join a
company where everyone I talkedto and how long they had been
there was extremely happy.
You go look at the seniorleadership of Odeon.
Almost every single one of themhas been there since the
beginning and has been promotedfrom director now to VP, now to
(06:20):
the C-suite.
It's a company that cares aboutits people, invests in its
people and, spoiler alert, we'rein the agency space and so the
only thing that actually mattersis people, and so if we don't
have great people, we don'tempower them, we don't take care
of them, we don't have anagency at the end of the day,
and that vision really drew me.
That and I'm watching theglobal marketplace world expand,
get more complex, seem like theplace to be, and I saw a
(06:42):
complete need for what Podiumwas going to be building in the
future Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
You know it's exciting and when you had
messaged me and told me aboutyour change and I'll begin to
research Podium and look at thatand get into the details of
that it just seems such a greatfit for you, just knowing you
and talking to you, and we'vehad many conversations about
Omnichannel, and so I'm excitedfor you and I know what we want
(07:10):
to do today is really have Christo get in to the details, if
you will and how as a business,that you can overcome these
complexities a bit.
We talked about early on aboutthe bumpy road and the
omni-channel, but I will tellyou, chris, I think you just
need to really begin and getinto some of the things that you
(07:31):
do as a company, and we canstart with this end-to-end
marketplace management if youlike, and then let's just
navigate through this.
Okay, yeah, absolutely so,about your services and all Okay
, yeah, so at the end of the day.
Yeah, absolutely so about yourservices at all.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Okay, yeah, so at the end of the day, we've watched
the world become some morecomplex place.
What you needed to operate one-comm five years ago is not
what you need today.
The number of problems areinfinitely larger than the
number of teams that you wouldneed.
We estimate, generally speaking, that there are 24 different
subject matter experts that putD&N employees in order for a
single brand to sell globally.
(08:03):
Now, if you were a CPG makingan investment to sell globally,
that is a lot of money that youare investing to employ the
staff to set up legal entitiesto sell in those places and to
actually get the work done.
And, frankly, you don'tactually need 24 full-time
people to get that work done.
You may need 10 hours ofsomebody who understands
logistics in Brazil and 20 hoursof somebody to design your
content.
You do not need somebodyfull-time for 12 months of the
(08:25):
year to help do those things.
So what Podian is able to do isthat we have a stable of folks
who are incredibly talented,understand those areas and are
subject matter experts in thespecific parts that they need,
whether it's marketing, content,design or retail ops and we can
give those services, in abucket of retainer hours to our
clients, say 100, 200, 300 hoursa month that they can access
and use as they need to servicetheir global, the service their
(08:48):
brands as they sell across theglobe.
And that's really importantbecause we don't want to just
sell retail ops, because onemonth you may have a whole host
of problems and we may bebattling tons of third party
sellers and dealing withvariation authority and really
struggling to get items set up,and the next month those
problems may be completely goneand our team and our flexibility
of what we're able to do is tothen take those hours and focus
(09:09):
on something else.
We can put more effort intomedia, put more effort into your
planning for big deal days, forprime day, things like that,
and so that model really allowsus to support really flexibly
and meet brands where they arewith what they need and also
help brands from very smallselling $5 million in product
all the way up to brands selling$500 million in product.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
So you don't have a one-size-fits-all here.
That's what I like about yourcompany.
As I've done my research isthat you really collaborate
closely with your customer orclient and able to tailor what
they need Is that correctExactly and, I'd say, one of the
(09:48):
things that Bodine at its core.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
We are an agency that's designed to move units of
product off of digital shelvesright.
That is the number one impetusthat we get hired by our clients
to do, and we take great pridein taking clients who sell $5
million in product to selling$25 million in product.
We are not doing that, we arenot succeeding as an agency, and
so it is our job and what westaff to be able to do is to
(10:10):
deliver that end result.
We want to be great folks indesign, we want to have great
folks who do retail media reallywell, but at the end of the day
, if our clients' businessesaren't growing, we aren't doing
our job, and so I think that'sbeen a plague that's been
affecting the agency world forthe past couple of years is that
we've all been very focused ondoing the big shiny retail media
thing really really well, butno one is asking did your brand
(10:30):
actually grow when you spentthat $20 million last year?
Did it actually drive yourbusiness results?
We've become very divorced fromthose two things being together
, and so by having all of thoseteams under one focus, under one
leadership, to actually go sayeverything we do, whether it's
designing content, optimizingyour PDPs or building
advertising campaigns.
All of that, the end goal is todrive your business and if you
(10:54):
don't do that, you're notsetting up those brands for
success.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
Right, absolutely Well, let's, let's take it and
let's just let's talk about this.
Your about your marketplaceconsulting, so you have a
product.
How does that work If they wantto contact you?
What would you do with acustomer if you will?
Yeah, so walk us through thatso that our viewers can get a
(11:23):
glimpse of what would happen inthe process.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Yeah, so I'll zoom out briefly.
Just talk about PadillaConsulting and why it existed.
Mark and Travis, our founders,have been doing consulting for
brands for basically since theystarted.
It was actually almost becamewhat Padilla is today was
supposed to be consulting, andover time they pivoted towards
the marketplace agency world.
But they've always been doingthis, and so for me, what it
came to is that I saw and as Iwas looking at this opportunity,
(11:48):
I saw a crisis of execution,and what I mean by that is that
we had all of these agencies andI was guilty.
I worked for them, I did thistoo.
There were so many newfangledtoys and platforms and
e-commerce systems to learn thatwe stopped asking the strategic
questions.
We stopped trying to figure outhey, why actually?
Why, I know I had these.
(12:09):
You know, a great example iswhen Omnichannel first started,
most suppliers just took theirentire catalog and put it online
.
Right, that makes sense.
Should we have done that?
Why did we do that?
Was it?
You know, you knew that you'regoing to take certain cost
increases for fees and shippingand logistics, but we didn't.
We just kind of did it becauseit was the thing to do was to
move to e-com, and the samething as you move and move
(12:29):
product from Walmart to Amazon.
Plenty of suppliers here inBentonville have copied their
catalogs from Walmart straightto Amazon and haven't really
asked the question why did we dothat?
Was that the right decision?
Is my catalog from five yearsago serving me today in the same
way that I designed it to andyears ago serving me today in
the same way that I designed itto?
And the agency partners thatthey're working with don't have
an interest in really helpingthem solve those questions.
And so what we realized atPodian was that brands are
(12:52):
hungry for those big strategicquestions and the answers that
come with them.
And so we launched PerdianConsulting to help solve those
big one-off problems that anagency really isn't paid to
solve in the first place.
Right, if you're one of the bigsix and you've got a giant
advertising contract, it's notyour job to go tell Kellogg's
you know which size of cerealthey should be selling on Amazon
(13:12):
.
That's really not a problemthat you're asked with solving.
But that problem, if you solveit and help them do their
catalog architecture correctly,could be a tens of millions of
dollars successful project ifyou optimize that correctly,
whether it's based on freight,packaging size or breakage rates
that come with that, and sowhat we're trying to do is help
(13:32):
answer those really hardstrategic questions that brands
are asking with a serviceoffering that doesn't come from
suits with MBAs.
Just because you went to Harvarddoes not mean you understand
e-commerce.
If you've not logged intoRetailLink, if you've not been
in Amazon Vendor Central, yousimply don't understand.
And no amount of those kind ofcertifications in those big
consulting firms can convince methat they have the expertise
(13:54):
needed to solve these questions,and a lot of our friends in the
CPG world use those consultants, they use MBB, they use
McKinsey Bain, they use thosefolks to solve these problems,
but they're paying somebody twoyears out of college to learn
these things instead of hiringexperts that are that know the
field, have been there, havehelped brands actually succeed,
and so our objective at BDMConsulting is to build an
offering that's stronger, basedin actual, real-world expertise,
(14:18):
and actually is driving towardsthat last goal that I talked
about, which is to actuallydrive sales for the business at
the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
I think that's excellent.
I mean, I think you really doget it.
You get into the details inyour consulting, your market
consulting process.
It sounds wonderful.
Now you know the thing that yousaid to earlier.
Let's go back to for a moment.
You talked about your.
It's a global company, and thewonderful thing about
Omnichannel is you can reallybegin to sell your products
(14:45):
globally.
So talk about your globalexpansion.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, so it is extremely common right now.
Right, amazon has gotten harderand harder to sell on.
Walmart is getting harder andharder to sell on.
Right, you're kind of enteringthis, this Roman gladiator arena
.
You're fighting againstextremely smart, professional
sellers.
If you're not battling againstPepsiCo and these huge suppliers
, you're also battling againstsome of Amazon's most
sophisticated resellers, likePharmaPak.
(15:09):
One of the biggest Amazonsellers in the world is a
reseller.
It's incredibly talented atselling product and so when
you're selling on the Amazon inthe US, you are not to mention
1.25 million Amazon sellersentered Amazon this past year,
in 2024.
So not only is it alreadycompetitive, but more and more
and more folks are getting intothe market.
What that means is that you'vegot to be really good to really
(15:32):
succeed on Amazon and you'regoing to fight really hard for
very small growth.
And so what our brands arecoming to us asking is hey, I'm
tired of fighting in the US.
It's just not as profitableanymore.
Fees are increasing.
I want to go global, and thefirst thing they do is they pull
up the list of GDPs ofcountries and they go hey, it
(15:52):
looks like Amazon is huge in theUK and Germany.
I guess I'll just expand there.
And, like I said back to youknow it looks like Amazon is
huge in the UK and Germany.
Like, I guess I'll just expandthere.
And like I said back to before,it's a crisis of strategy.
You cannot just pull upeMarketer and find the size of
the market and tell me thatthat's where your brand should
expand.
If you don't have one, thelocal expertise you'll miss.
A very simple one is that inGermany they're very focused on
buying on e-com platforms Germanbrands.
(16:13):
If you go in thinking that justbecause the German home care
and home furniture market is a$300 million opportunity on
Amazon, but what you don'trealize is that that market is
owned by 94% of German sellersthemselves, you're never going
to actually hit the goals thatyou're trying to achieve.
If you enter the market that way, or if you don't consider the
logistics costs to get a productfrom the US to London, you may
(16:35):
not realize that the pack yousell in the US for $15, actually
with VAT and everything else isgoing to be $22 in the UK.
And where does your pricing andpositioning sit now that you're
$7 more expensive?
These are like the babyquestions that start getting
asked and when you really startlooking.
You have to start answeringsome bigger questions about
where should I expand and howshould I expand.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Right, well, so that's wonderful.
So you've talked about theconsulting, you talked about
what it's going to take, and youcan take people to the global
expansion of their business,which is phenomenal.
So talk about now what we calla marketplace media.
You know, as we said at the topof the show, is that early on,
in the only channel, it it wasjust a couple, just a couple
(17:17):
things.
Now, this whole channelexperience, what you're getting
is this how broad this is andand it's so important on the
media side now.
So how do you, how do you dothat?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
yeah, it's a.
It's certainly a challengingenvironment in retail media
today.
Uh, there are a bajillionplatforms.
We spend a lot of money withamazon, a lot of of money with
Walmart, and part of that isjust one having an expert team.
One of our largest staffswithin our cohort of subject
matter experts is in retailmedia.
But if you're going to launchproducts for the first time, you
have to have really dang goodadvertising strategy.
(17:48):
If you're going to go from zeroto 10,000 units in a month,
right, and so part of that isunderstanding one.
You know, what we benefit fromis that we've launched thousands
of products, if not tens ofthousands of products, globally,
so we understand what it takesto go from zero to 90 days and
to sell zero products on day oneand to sell 10,000 units in
(18:09):
month three.
And that's a really importantpart of our advertising strategy
is building it to actually growover time and grow quickly,
right.
We all wish we could sell intoour CFOs and our VPs of sales.
Don't worry, we're going togrow this very slowly over 12
months.
It's going to be really costeffective.
We're going to take our time.
I don't think I've ever been ina room with an executive who is
signing off on taking 12 monthsto do a very slow growth plan?
(18:30):
Right?
The expectation is always speedand rapid market share growth.
Right?
No one is really going to signoff on?
Okay, we can take our time.
It works out.
It works out.
If it doesn't, it doesn't.
You have to be laser focused onhow you succeed, how you play
around 10 polls and then, moreimportantly, how you change
advertising right, buildadvertising creative in the US.
You then have to change that tobe German, to be Spanish all of
(18:52):
these different languages andalso still be culturally
relevant.
The way that you market tosomebody in the UK is going to
be different than the way youmarket to somebody in Slovenia,
and so you have to have thatcultural context which Podian
has, because we have teams allthe way across the globe.
And I think another importantpart is that we're a great
partner of Amazon's In 2023, wewon their Global Expansion Award
because of the great work we doin helping brands go overseas,
(19:16):
and that deep partnership allowsus to understand their new ad
products, how they're workingtogether and how we can partner,
and that's really important.
If you're not aware of what'savailable to you in the first
place, you're not going tosucceed.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Congratulations on that.
That's a wonderful win forAmazon and that gives you so
much credibility also.
Now you have something that Iwas reading about.
It's called RPM.
Okay, I've found thatfascinating a bit.
Can you explain that process?
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Yeah, so, like you said, as I said, omnichannel has
become a bajillion things.
Yeah, so has all the datapipelines that exist around the
world for everything we I meanyou just look at how many places
you now have to log in just forWalmart right, there's I just
got renamed so there's Centilla,there's RetailLink, there's
Vendor Central for Amazon,seller Central for Amazon.
Within each of those, there arelike nine or 10 different
(20:02):
places where you need to log inand grab data.
So if all you want to do isjust get the data from all those
platforms and then put it inone place, you could task an
analyst on your team with 20hours a week of just going in
and hitting download on thoseExcel sheets and merging them
Right.
And so what RPM does at its coreis take all of those disparate
data sets and puts them into oneplace.
So, like I said at the top ofthe show, all we care about the
(20:25):
end of the day is drivingbusiness results, and so if we
can't map retail media effortsback to driving sales, what are
we doing?
And so part of that is usingRPM to connect advertising and
sales data together so that wecan map those two things
together.
That's a home inbuilt tool thatPodian has that all of our
clients get access to.
It's an incredibly importantpart of essentially building a
synergy around everyone lookingat the same thing, everyone
(20:48):
marching to the same drum Great.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
I like it, I like how you're into the details, I like
it, I like, I like, I like howyou're into the details.
You know, and and as we again,as we're navigating through this
complexity of Omnichannel, andthen your solutions that you
have created, you've createdsome other solutions also around
retail operations and contentand creativity and social
(21:13):
commerce.
So let's you want to talk about, let's talk about some of those
Cause.
I think they're excellent atwhat you have, what you've come
up with.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, so one.
As I said before, when you goglobal, you take the complexity
scale and you turn that knob to11.
Essentially is what happens,right?
Yes, Every different Amazonlikes to pretend that they are
standardized across allmarketplaces.
And even even just if you goacross the northern border to
Canada, Walmart and WalmartCanada they share the same name,
they share the same branding,but even then, how they operate,
(21:42):
how the retail media is powered, how the commerce is powered,
how the website looks even, isdifferent if I just go above the
northern border.
Right, that's correct.
And so what we at Vodian have todo is essentially help brands,
which are typically veryUS-centric in most cases,
understand how they can take abunch of really great creative
work that they did for the USit's built on consumer insights
and information on a US customerand then go build content and
(22:04):
PDPs that sell in every majornation around the world.
That's a daunting task.
One to even understand thecultural context of all of those
Two.
We can't use Google Translateto translate the languages for
all of those.
You have to do really goodtranslation.
No one is going to buy yourproduct if you're mistranslating
something into bread byaccident when you're trying to
sell socks right.
That's just not going to be away that works, and so our
(22:26):
content design teams are expertsat taking that kind of content
and expanding it to all themarketplaces that you're
offering.
We also do design, so we willdo everything from helping you
repackage and rebuild.
If you realize that your UScentric brand just is not going
to sell well in Spain andPortugal, but you are really
focused on that market, ourdesign teams will help you
redesign your packaging,redesign your online profile and
(22:47):
PDPs so that it fits with thatmarket and you can kind of
reinvent the way you sell.
This is a really importantthing where, like where, you're
not going to get brandrecognition once you're moving
to farther out, especiallyoverseas, if you're a smaller
brand in the US, or if, for acustomer, this is the first time
they're going to be hearingabout it.
Oftentimes it's a chance to testor reinvent your actual product
and design, and so that's acore part of what we offer, and
(23:07):
we also offer audits for thosekinds of things.
So we'll look at your contentand look at it across the globe
and see how you stack up.
We have lots of great partnerswho you know.
They had a great year.
Last year they grew 20, 30%,but they're looking around going
how did I, how could I havegotten to 25?
How could I have gotten to 35%?
Growth and understanding howthey can improve as a critical
part of developing that contentas well.
It's an ever evolving battle,Unfortunately.
(23:28):
You're always going to beimproving that content, learning
new things and developing.
And then I'll jump to thatLifecraft side.
We have some amazingpartnerships with some very big
companies who are partneringwith us to figure out social
commerce.
Anyone were to come on thispodcast and tell you, Andy, that
they've cracked social commercethey're lying to you.
Everyone is just riding thebull and hoping that they can
hang on.
That's currently what'soccurring.
(23:49):
But social commerce has been agreat place for us to play.
Our brands are really investedin figuring out how to play
there.
And just to quickly define insocial commerce is everything
that happens with an influencer,a micro-influencer, to drive
product sales right.
It's all of those relationstogether.
Hypothetically, if I told youto go buy some P&G razors today,
that would be social commerce.
It's not a very measurable formof social commerce and my reach
(24:11):
is one-to-one, but it is aversion of it and that scales
all the way up to some of thebiggest YouTubers and TikTokers
in the world who, to tens ofmillions of fans, can say I love
dude wipes and I want you to gobuy that product today.
And that's a really difficultdynamic for brands to understand
, right?
They oftentimes we've had manycases where brands have come to
(24:33):
us and gone.
We just sold 7 million unitsacross the globe and we can't
figure out why we're out ofstock nationwide and we don't
know why.
And after a week of research wefind that a TikTok post went
viral and somebody was talkingabout their product and it wiped
their store across the globeand branches aren't ready for
that kind of demand, they aren'tready to capitalize on those
kinds of things, and so we atLivecraft are really focused on
(24:56):
developing those, giving brandsthe tools to respond, to react,
be proactive instead of reactivein a space that they've largely
been kind of trying to followthe coattails of these
influencers, right, right, yeah,now I know you do a lot of work
with Amazon and let's talkAmazon for a moment, okay,
because we all know Amazon.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
We know they do a very good job on a lot of things
and you know they have, I think, amazon.
You tell me, but tell me thework you're doing at Amazon, and
then let's just talk about howyou feel opportunities with
Amazon or whatever, and thenwe'll chat about that for a
moment.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah, so I'll say first, being here in Bentonville
, I'm a Walmart guy through andthrough.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
There's a bit of blue somewhere in this blood.
I love us.
Yeah, and I always feel like abit of a traitor Anytime I talk
about it.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
I'm like looking around, it was hard for me to
ask you that question.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
I know let's acknowledge the elephant in the
room and I'll say this aboutWalmart first, and I'll say this
about Podium we are amarketplace company.
If today Walmart launched astronger, more vibrant
marketplace than it has and in ayear from now was bigger than
Amazon, our focus would be onWalmart.
We do not care that Amazon is.
(26:10):
There's no loyalty to it beyondthat.
It is the market leader inmarketplaces right now.
The moment that Amazon orShopee or any other marketplace
takes that focus or takes thatgrowth and starts to really
develop something, podium willhelp you figure out how to sell
there.
That is our focus at the end ofthe day.
And so right now, amazon haskind of a death grip on a lot of
very specific marketplaces.
Walmart's doing great work togrow.
(26:30):
Their fiscal earnings just cameout.
They're doing a great jobgrowing marketplace.
It's just David and Goliathwhich is a weird thing to say
about Walmart being David inthis case but they are fighting
a huge battle and an uphillbattle to grow there.
But regarding our Amazonpartnership essentially, and why
Amazon loves to work with us, Ithink in general, and why our
partners love working with us,is that one we handle everything
(26:58):
right.
It's very hard for an Amazonvendor rep to recommend an
agency if they can't handle endto end, and that's a big part of
what we offer is every problemthat you can run into on Amazon.
We have somebody who's run intoit.
We have a Palo every week withour team where we just share the
crazy problems that havehappened on Amazon when a
three-piece seller has stolenyour buy box and is all of a
sudden selling product at sixtimes the price or has bought
all your product on aliquidation sale at Costco and
you're now trying to deal withthat.
(27:18):
We talk about all those things.
We've experienced all theproblems that Amazon has, and
Amazon is an experience oflearning right.
Every day there will be a newproblem, a new way that
something is broken, in the sameway that you're solving
problems at Walmart.
But it's about being aware andlearning from that and at the
scale that we are, we're able tohave experience with those
issues.
Rarely are we experiencing anissue with a client for the
(27:40):
first time and if we are, we'retrying to replicate that so it
never happens again for ourother clientele, and that's a
big part of working with them.
I think the other big part iswhen it comes down to the
advertising side of things.
We've gotten really smart withhow we do that.
Our entire staff at Podium isAmazon certified and Amazon DSP,
their search products, all ofthose things and that's a time
(28:00):
and investment that we've madeto make sure that our teams know
what they're talking about atall times.
There are a lot of folks whohave brought retail media folks
from Google and Meta and otherproducts and this is their first
or second year and they'respending tens of millions of
brands dollars without reallythe expertise to back that up
(28:21):
and so we've made a big effortto both train our teams and be
invested in keeping up withevery last trend that's
happening in that space.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Well, it's great.
Thank you for sharing that tothe smaller retailer today.
If you will, you cover all ofthat perspective, as you said at
the very beginning, from asmall amount to a large amount,
right?
And so I think we just want tomake sure our viewers understand
that you can work at all thosesize platforms, yeah, absolutely
(28:50):
.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
It's a core thing for us that if all you sell on
today is walmartcom and that'sall you do, we can support you.
We have experts who live here,like me, folks who can support
you in that business.
And the day that you make asale in the Sam's club, we can
support you there as well.
And the day that you finallyget that global ambition and get
that spark in you to try and gosell products somewhere else,
we have all the resourcesavailable to get you across the
(29:11):
pond to wherever you want to godo business.
And that's our big promise isthat we're going to service
every single part of the marketand we'll have the staff to grow
with you should you need to.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
And I think that's a good summary that you, in what
you said, you have the staff togrow with you, and I think you
know, and I have a lot ofsmaller retailers that come in
and talk and I give themopportunity as well as I do the
large ones, and I think it'svery comforting to know, if I'm
a small retailer today, thatthey can rest with assurance
(29:42):
that you can help guide themthrough this process and then
help them grow.
And you've done a great jobexplaining many of those facets,
how you've done that.
So I want to summarize this andthen I want to move on to
something exciting that I wantto announce about you.
But how would you summarize orany additional comments you'd
(30:02):
like to make?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah, I'll just make one last plug for Padilla and
Consulting.
If you have issues that you'retrying to solve or you've got
something that's been the stickywicket in your business for the
past couple of months, youdon't have the resources, you
don't have the staff and youjust need something solved
quickly, we are here to solvethose big strategic questions
that you have.
If you are interested in globalexpansion we've run over 50 of
those analyses for very largeand very successful brands who
(30:25):
are now crushing it across theglobe and if you are interested
in that, that's a service thatwe can launch for you today.
You can go to putdncom slashconsulting and you can reach out
to us.
That contact box goes straightto my inbox, so go say hello and
we'll get you sorted.
And if you are looking for anagency, of course reach out to
us as well.
Putdncom slash solutions youcan take a look at everything
that we've got there when itcomes to how we support brands
(30:47):
and how we help them grow.
But at the end of the day,right, find me on LinkedIn,
linkedincom Chris slash andChris J Sheldon.
I'm here for questions, right?
If you just got somethingyou're curious about?
You heard something on thepodcast today that you want to
talk about.
I'm more than happy to deepdive with you on that.
It's an exciting time to be ine-comm, and not everything has
to be for money, right.
(31:07):
We're here to take care of eachother, to do great work, to
share great work, and so ifyou've just got questions, just
want to chat, want to get coffee, find me there as well.
That's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
Great, chris.
Okay, now, the thing that Imentioned at the top of the show
is that we're going to do someother things with Chris, and I'm
really excited to announcetoday that we're going to be
bringing Chris back at DoingBusiness in Bentonville and
we've created what we're calleda mini series, if you will, and
(31:36):
Chris is going to be coming backon with some subject matter
experts and he's going to bedoing even a deeper dive into
this omnichannel journey I'llcall it and he's going to really
educate us on the different andreally different facets of this
whole incredible universecalled omnichannel.
And I'm so excited about what'shappening in retail.
I started in brick and mortarand I will tell you every day
(31:58):
I'm excited about what's goingon in retail.
And so, chris, thank you forcoming back and doing this.
I'm really excited and we'll beannouncing soon Chris and I
will be this series and we'll besharing the Chris and I will be
this series and we'll besharing the content and the
journey.
And so, chris, thank you.
(32:18):
Thank you so much for having me, andy.
It was great.
Yeah, it's so great, and I lookforward to this relationship
and this journey, and you knowthe thing I do in business in
Bentonville.
We're all about OmniChannel.
We're here to really helpsimplify OmniChannel, if you
will, but also to educate you,our retailers, our viewers, on
how you can grow your business,how you can understand this
(32:41):
process of flow that's happeningaround us and the change that's
happening almost daily, and youneed experts to help you with
that, and that's exactly whatChris and his team is going to
do.
Yeah, you need an army, and wehave one.
I love it.
I love it.
Well, chris Shelton, it'salways great to see you.
(33:01):
Thank you so much for coming on.
Best to you and your newjourney.
Thank you so much, andy.
Okay, all right For you joiningus.
Thank you so much.
I want to thank you all so youcan reach out to LinkedIn.
I'm Andy Wilson at LinkedIn.
Reach out to me and you canmessage me on questions.
The people in the back roomtold me this morning that we're
(33:26):
now over 2,000 views a day, andthen we're also now in view to
90 countries, and that's becauseof you.
So, thank you.
We really appreciate that youare listening and watching doing
business in Bentonville.
Have a wonderful day, everyone.
Goodbye.
Thank you again, chris.
Thank you.
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