"Sommoliers of Retail"

Future Commerce Podcast: eCommerce, DTC and Retail Strategy

Main Takeaways:

• Instagram discovers that Phillip has a thing for sneakers.

• Facebook wants to venture into matchmaking, and they certainly have enough data to do it.

• Can data-rich companies step up their security game?

• Retailers are using real-time data to put employees in the right place at the right time.

• Personalized wellness packs: The future of health?

• Professors are leaving the classroom for a better paycheck.

Facebook Uses AI to Mine Data it Already Owns:

• Facebook has decided to use artificial intelligence or AI to look at Instagram data, even though, they already have access to all that data anyway because they own Instagram.

• So basically Facebook is reading your Facebook posts?

• Instagram learns of Phillips very secret shoe obsession.

• Everyone learns that Instagram(owned by Facebook) is somehow tracking shopping that goes beyond Instagram.

• Phillip and Brian are shocked to learn that Facebook is sending out non-GDPR compliant emails.

Mark Zuckerberg Matchmaker Extraordinaire?

• Facebook knows everything about everyone, even people who don't use its service.

• Which means that Mark Zuckerberg knows you better than you do.

• Also cringy? Mark Zuckerberg vs. Judiciary Committee: full of dinosaurs who survived the stone age of social media,

• During the hearing, a Congressman thought it appropriate to discuss FaceMash, a pre-Facebook website that allowed users to rate other users based on their attractiveness. Zuckerberg called this a prank, but could that project be where his dreams of matchmaking emerged from?

• Phillip says that because Facebook has all the data of pretty much everyone, they probably would be pretty successful in this endeavor, and that's what makes it all the more terrifying.

• If you live in Columbia and trust Facebook's algorithms, Facebook has already launched a matchmaking service.

• Brian says that this is actually a huge opportunity for commerce, where companies could use this info to push projects, or services facilitated towards these matches made in data heaven.

• This could open up a massive market for experiential retail.

• Phillip and Brian agree that 90's era romantic-comedies are the best movies.

Can Humans Adapt to the World's Triumphs and Troubles?

• Since social media has changed everything, Facebook alone being home to 2 billion users, can humans catch us with the change in socialization?

• Brian references a former IBM strategist in saying that adaptability quotient (AQ) outranks both IQ and EQ especially as it pertains to marketability and leadership.

• Phillip wonders how long it will take for humans to be able to adapt to the current situation, in the days of information overload and global suffering.

• Are modern global social networks going to lead to a Darwinist phenomenon where only the strong survive?

Twitter Needs to Get Rid of Its Ponytail:

• 330MM Twitter users were sent into a possible panic after Twitter sent out an email that the user's passwords had been exposed.

• Twitter insists that even with this breach, the company didn't think that anyone's account had been compromised, but users should change their passwords anyway.

• Phillip says that Twitter handled this perfectly well.

• This was one of Phillip and Brian's predictions for 2016.

• Are companies getting better at security, or just at owning up that their security is terrible?

• Twitter was proactive in immediately making customers aware of this issue, but as Phillip makes clear, this breach wasn't as much a risk for customers, and showed Twitter putting their customers need for transparency first.

Can Stores Use Time-Tech to Improve In-Store Experience?

• Ripple Metrics is providing data to retailers that will allow them to more efficiently handle their store staff. This is accomplished by monitoring store traffic, which sounds like great news for all customers who get super frustrated when there's no one there to help them in a store.

• Brian is super excited about this tech, because it re-emphasizes that retail is becoming all about the in-store experience and how to provide that experience to customers.

• Now, in-store customer analytics do exist but, the really innovative part of this technology is that it gives retailers the ability to place employees in the store when there is a need for them to be there.

• This technology uses a combination of real-time analytics as well as predictive analytics to determine where and when to place workers in a way that would best serve customers.

• Now, Walmart has utilized similar tech in the past, to keep track of their employees schedules to keep their employees from going full time.

• Actually, Walmart has a somewhat checkered past of keeping their employees from benefits by keeping hours below full-time, and they were sued for it.

• Phillip says that in-tracking has been used in some pretty crazy ways, in order to better understand the customer.

• "Things that can be automated will be automated and things that can't require training and knowledge and those are the things you want to invest in".

In-Store Experience is Becoming a Mainstay For Retail:

• Macy's acquires Story, proving that experiential retail is a thing, and that in-store experience is everything.

• Phillip says that we are going to need "sommes of retail" to tell the story of how products come into being.

• Brian says Nordstrom has already accomplished this.

• And with experts in the field becoming necessary this may lead to even more automation of jobs that can be done by a machine.

Personalized Products Give Consumers a More Tailor-Made Fit:

• Phillip is super excited about Care/of, a company that is created personalized wellness packs based on a customers individual needs.

• This kind of product really drives the customer experience emphasis home: it doesn't just ask questions, it asks all the questions about diet, lifestyle, goals, allergies, and even your level of belief in supplements themselves.

• care/of also asks about mental health to ensure that there won't be any negative interactions with the recommended supplements.

• And if you are a skeptic like Phillip (and Phillip is indeed a skeptic), have no fear, because the service includes the number of double-blind studies on each supplement and its effectiveness.

• The entire process is incredibly personal, from the questions, to the 30 daily-use packets with the customers name on each one, even down to the various inspirational quotes meant to improve the overall experience.

Facebook is Hiring Professors Away From The Classroom:

• AI is growing rapidly, and salaries seem to match the demand for the skill set.

• Facebook, is working to stay as ahead of the data curve as possible, by hiring three robotics professors for their new AI labs in Seattle and Pittsburgh.

• Is it worth taking professors out of the classroom, and will this become a ongoing issue?

• Brian makes the point that we do need better ways of educating in AI, and if schools lose their academics to tech companies cushy salaries and benefits, this may impact the education system, and future generations.

Retail Tech is moving fast and Future Commerce is moving faster.

Go over to Futurecommerce.fm and give us your feedback! We love to hear from our listeners!