Climbing New Heights: The Future of Outdoor Retail

Phillip: [00:00:08] Hello, and welcome to the Future Commerce Podcast, the podcast at the intersection of culture and commerce. I'm Phillip. And today, we are going to pack our gear. We're going to take a trip. We're going to Salt Lake City, so I hope you are ready for a big outdoor event. That's right. The Outdoor Retailer event just took place in Salt Lake City last week, and we just flew [00:00:30] back in. And boy, are my arms tired. Just kidding. Brian and I hosted and held a bunch of panel talk sessions and hung out for a full day of action-packed leather crafting and art creation, and we made s'mores. And we hung out with a jam band, and we saw our friends Anne and Chris from the OmniTalk podcast. We saw a whole new gaggle of folks from the outdoor retailer industry, and they all came [00:01:00] together for a summer camp that we co-hosted with our friends at BigCommerce. And what an incredible time. I have a little bit of a sunburn if I'm being honest. But we talked about this future of outdoor, and we talked about the future of how you build digital marketplaces, how you bring your products to market, and how you create the sense of buying products that people otherwise need to experience. They depend on for things like safety and comfort in the outdoor retail industry. [00:01:30] But how do you do that online? And how do you do it in an increasingly online-to-offline world? And that is what we're doing here this week at Future Commerce. We're going to bring you two panel conversations in two different episodes, four in total, where Brian and I talked about what it means to be an outdoor retailer and what it means to, hey, go to a summer camp for adults. That's a fun thing. First up, we are going to go to a panel conversation we had with our friend, Kohl Perkins, who is over at Walmart Marketplace. He's talking about how [00:02:00] this future physical footprint and digital space intersection is creating opportunities for brands of all sizes to have same-day delivery, and how that is completely changing the game when it comes to Gen Z and Gen Alpha purchasing. Also on deck is Chris Deck, from Deck Commerce. He's going to talk about the complexities of order management, all those unsexy things that fulfill on the promises of things like next day, same day, 2 day delivery, and why it's easier to say it than it is to do it when you're a brand or a retailer [00:02:30] of any meaningful size. Those big players, yes, Walmart, they can deliver on 1st party deliveries. How do you leverage a marketplace in the 3rd party capacity where you're fulfilling on a promise to a customer? And then finally, Sharon Gee from Feedonomics is probably one of the smartest people I know, and she is going to talk about how you manage product information and all this new channel emergence and channel divergence that's coming down the pike and how retailers have to play in every channel and future proof their company and their technology investments. [00:03:00] So, okay. I've set us up. Get your gear on. Take a big sip of water, maybe something a little cold and refreshing, and join us as we go live to Outdoor Retailer for our first of two panel sessions hosted at the BigCommerce Summer Camp presented by Future Commerce. Let's take a listen. If we could give a warm thank you to our Premier sponsors for making this happen. This is Summer Camp. And [00:03:30] to our Gold sponsors as well. Thank you so much. And you'll be hearing from a few of them in just a little bit. But first, Brian, who the heck are we, and why are we here?

Brian: [00:03:42] We believe that people really power commerce. We need to understand what people believe, how they think, what their philosophies are, what they care about, the art they're involved in, and the lives that they have, in order to understand the context in which the person is. If you can understand how those things are changing, you can understand how commerce is changing.

Phillip: [00:03:59] Yeah. [00:04:00] And that's how you tell the future. It's not just necessarily what the next technology trend is. It's how people want to integrate it into their lives, and that's what we do. Commerce is the authority that drives relevancy in all of our worlds and creates context for the world around us, or as we like to say, it's a little snappier... Commerce is culture, And that is what we're going to talk about here in these sessions. That's going to book end a beautiful dinner and this amazing venue. Anything you want to add to that, Brian?

Brian: [00:04:27] No. I'm just excited for the lineup that we have tonight.  [00:04:30]I think it's amazing how this idea that commerce is culture actually applies to every industry. And so outdoor in particular, I think, has so many different things happening. Context collapse. It's happened even in the outdoor industry, and we'll talk a little bit about that as we get into some of these panels. So thank you all for being here.

Phillip: [00:04:51] Thank you so much for coming to BigCommerce Summer Camp. One more round of applause for our partners, and let's go and get right into our content. Please welcome to the Summer Camp stage from Walmart, [00:05:00] Kohl Perkins, the Senior Director of Business Strategy for Walmart Marketplace, and from Deck Commerce, Founder and CEO, Chris Deck. And please welcome the SVP of Sales and Partnerships from Feedonomics, Sharon Gee. Emerging behaviors in [00:05:30] outdoor purchasing. And what's really interesting about the emergence of behavior well, first of all, it's happening all the time. It happens on the biggest brands' platforms in the world, but we get to see what the world wants before they actually get it in their homes. And I have kids that are doing this right now. They're a little younger than, you know, prime purchasing power generation.   but I think that this is an interesting way to start this panel because [00:06:00] why? The generational brand relationships that we create are formed before we can ever really buy those brands ourselves with our own money. Let's talk a little bit about how companies like Walmart and Walmart Marketplace are thinking about this and how you enable other brands to take part in the attention that you're helping drive to that platform. And how are you thinking about how the next generation is forming brand [00:06:30] relationships?

Kohl Perkins: [00:06:31] I think that's a great question. Thank you, Phillip. First and foremost, what a beautiful venue. Thank you to Big Commerce for having us. Thank you so much for attending tonight. This is my home state, Utah, and I'm so excited to have everyone here. I represent Walmart Marketplace, Senior Director over Business Strategy and Acquisition. And to answer the question, I think when we think about the different population groups, Gen Z, millennials, and boomers, we see that Gen Z and [00:07:00] millennials have very similar shopping behaviors. They're twice as likely than a boomer event to shop within omnichannel ecommerce. I think the thing that makes us really special at Walmart is that omnichannel piece. We have the opportunity to welcome, and I can throw out a lot of stats here and I'll be very biased to Walmart obviously, because I represent it. But 145,000,000 people shop on Walmart US every single week. And so we get to see different trends. And so when we think [00:07:30] about millennials and Gen Z's and their buying behavior within Walmart and Walmart Marketplace, I think the big thing that we see is that they love a branded experience that's catered to them. When they come to buy from us, they want to know that we remember them, that they have a shopping experience that's catered to them. So for me, in particular, I love Diet Coke, Cherry Coke. I'm definitely not endorsing those brands, but that's my thing. And I want it delivered to my house in a certain time frame. Obviously, I'm not going to put myself in one of those population [00:08:00] groups, but have that branded experience where Walmart Marketplace or dotcom knows me and delivers that product in real time to my door, matters a lot. And then additionally, what I would say is they want to shop through an app. We're learning that Gen Z and millennial customers, they love to shop through an app experience. And so I always like to say the closest Walmart store is in your pocket. And Walmart ecommerce is growing. We just hit $100,000,000,000 in annual [00:08:30] sales. And so understanding and analyzing those demographics matter a lot to us, Phillip.

Brian: [00:08:36] That's super interesting. And, Kohl, and I think about what you just said, actually. It represents loyalty, actually. Yeah. People returning to make another purchase. And these repeat purchases are part of what inspires brand loyalty. The experience for repeat purchases inspires brand loyalty. And so Chris, as I think about the [00:09:00] experience and the concept of purchasing again, how do you feel like the commerce stack that you're building plays into that loyalty, and especially as we look at emerging behaviors?

Chris Deck: [00:09:15] Great question, Brian. I'm Chris Deck. I'm Founder and CEO of Deck Commerce, and we're an order management system. And when people ask me what does that do, what does that mean? My standard answer is, you know, you go online or you go on your phone [00:09:30] and you buy something and then yada yada yada, couple days later, maybe the next hour, it shows up at your door. Well, we're the yada yada yada. So we help take that order and get it to the customer's doorstep as quickly and as efficiently as possible. And the question on loyalty and especially with the younger generation, I myself have two daughters. They're seniors or they just graduated from high school, and one of them gave the commencement speech at her high [00:10:00] school graduation ceremony, and she talked about the biggest challenge for their generation is sustainability. It's the environment. And so one small way that we think order management helps to that because I'm always trying to connect that yada yada yada with a meaningful purpose for our employees, our customers, and whatnot. And if you can help a brand work on their sustainability challenges, shipping in [00:10:30] fewer packages, reducing the transit distance that it takes to get product to the customer, that hits the sweet spot of the younger generations because they are rewarding brands that are focused on sustainability. So we like to think that we contribute in a small way to their to brands ability to drive sustainability. And we know that that creates big impact on loyalty because that younger generation will support brands [00:11:00] that are focused on that as part of their core mission.

Phillip: [00:11:05] You said something... The two of you have now said something that I think is really interesting because I'm hearing purpose, sustainability, and sort of this purpose-driven framework behind a brand, which I think is really interesting. I've also heard that Gen Z is the most disloyal generation that's existed. I didn't even know that they installed apps [00:11:30] on the phones. I thought they just texted everything. It turns out maybe not everything is a monolith. You can't put everyone's behavior into one big bucket. And that's why when you see all of this new channel emergence and, of course, everybody here that's sitting at this event is thinking about what's new and what's next for their company. But how do you future-proof, Sharon, on some of those technologies? It's sort of like order management seems like, "Okay. You're going to serve a bunch of places where transactions happen." What are the other [00:12:00] pieces of that stack that also service all these new channels that, you know, the Gen Z and and the next generations want?

Sharon Gee: [00:12:07] I love the new channels question. Sharon Gee, I lead the revenue team in a company called Feedonomics, which was acquired by BigCommerce three years ago or so. And we power the product data and power feed management for 30% of the Internet retailer 1,000. So we take their catalog and we put it on the channels anywhere their shoppers shop, whether that's Google [00:12:30] or Walmart or Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Pinterest, TikTok, Snapchat, Ricardo Libre. All the channels. Right? Endless channels because it's just a catalog with a checkout, ideally with a spectacular promise on the other side of delivering that to me sub same day. And so when we talk about what new channels are coming up, it's everything from, like, every retailer's a marketplace now because now there's softwares that allow retailers to become marketplaces. Right? [00:13:00] It's not just a marketplaces game anymore. If you're, you know, with the marketplace operator platforms out there, you can literally become a marketplace. They don't do it nearly as well as you guys. But I think that in many cases, there are these new channels, and so there are becoming niche marketplaces that are focused on things like sustainable products or upcycling of products. You're seeing new marketplaces for b stock. You're seeing new marketplaces for fashion specific, regional specific marketplaces, for every [00:13:30] niche ever because the barrier to entry to get on to create a marketplace that specifically addresses a specific set of shopping desires, whether it's a certain category of products or a certain location, or the ability and promise to deliver it to you in a very short amount of time, means there's this proliferation of channels. Ads channels are becoming marketplaces because they can turn transaction on. Marketplaces are offering amazing media programs with retail media nowadays, which Walmart can certainly talk about the effectiveness of. And [00:14:00] so I think when we talk about what's a new channel, it's like anywhere someone is looking at anything. It's a new channel is a pop up shop where somebody walks up to me and says, "Scan this QR code and click a button on your phone." It's anywhere there's a catalog and a checkout is a channel. So a lot of people don't think about we have some email and SMS friends in the audience. People don't think about SMS as a loyalty channel necessarily. They certainly do. But anywhere you can send data [00:14:30] is a new channel. So we see a lot of focus on, I mean, plenty of focus on things like TikTok and social commerce, affiliate. And so what do new shoppers think about? It's how can we deliver a super good experience? And the way you have to do that is you have to refine the data you're sending to those channels. And so I think when younger generations are evaluating, what is my exchange for my time on this channel, it's very like, we know what the shoppertainment experience is on Instagram and [00:15:00] TikTok, on marketplaces where you have just the breadth of every SKU in the world you could ever think about buying... "I want that thing now. I want to be able to have that delivered to me with logistics and with the leverage you guys can offer. And so, certainly, exciting to see those kind of new programs come to light.

Kohl Perkins: [00:15:16] You mind if I jump in on that too? I love what you said there, Sharon. I think from a Walmart perspective, I think Gen Z gets a bad rep. You can create loyalty, but you have to play into their ethos. Meaning, with like, Chris talked [00:15:30] about his daughters. You have to drive what matters to them, And a lot of it is based on being sustainable and being eco friendly and the things that actually really matter to their lives.   We find that a lot of consumers really want to come to our marketplace because it's and one of our main ethos at Walmart is everyday low prices. We're driving that. And a lot of buyers today, we're seeing within Walmart, you know, they're buying more nondiscretionary [00:16:00] items because their dollars are stretched thin. And the idea that we're going to drive an etho based message and drive some of the things that we at Walmart, I think, really want to lean into, and that's reducing operational waste in 2025. And by 2040 reducing emissions completely from our global company. Those are things that matter to that Gen Z buyer. And then I'll lean into what Sharon said. For that, I think a lot about my shopping behavior and the behavior of those that [00:16:30] are coming down line. A recent stat that came out from Walmart that we're super proud about is 4,400,000,000 deliveries same day or next day last year. So when a Gen Z customer is looking for what they want and we can deliver it to their door same day or next day, you keep that customer coming back in and out.

Sharon Gee: [00:16:49] Yeah. We call this category instant commerce. It's this ability to send and here's the yada yada yada that you guys are so good at it. It's the ability to send that real time store specific inventory data to [00:17:00] any new channel that actually allows them to know, oh, this product is actually in store. So you don't offend the cardinal rule of selling something online, which is thou shalt not list a product you cannot sell.

Phillip: [00:17:12] Preach. Yeah.

Sharon Gee: [00:17:12] Because the worst experience in the world is, "Hey. This is available to you, same day." And it's, like, "Oh, actually, kidding." Like, that's the worst. And so that takes real time data to be able to support it. So, I think that there's some gotchas in terms of, like, how we actually make this possible, because the technology does exist. The handshakes [00:17:30] between the technology systems exist to make this a reality, which is if you're running a shopping experience, you can offer same day delivery from your specific location, and that hooks into the if you don't have to ship an iron bed frame from California to someone in New York, and I can just go to my local store, think about the ecosystem and the impact we just made on carbon footprint for the world. Right? That's like, oh, we can improve the world through the yada yada yada. It's cool.

Brian: [00:17:57] This leads to another [00:18:00] topic, which I think is super important to the emerging generations. We have a psychographic at Future Commerce that we pioneered called CARLY, Can't Afford Real Life Yet. And one of the markers of CARLY is that she really likes resale. And, actually, marketplaces are the first step towards this resale purchasing behavior. And it actually relates to trying to find a better quality good, a higher tiered [00:18:30] good, at a price that's affordable. And so I'm going to open this to all of you, but how have you seen emerging purchasing behavior in the category of resale and how are younger shoppers trying to think about resale? What has it meant for brands?

Kohl Perkins: [00:18:49] Yeah. Go ahead, Chris, and then I'll be happy to jump in.

Chris Deck: [00:18:51] Yeah. Because, yeah, you probably have a lot more insight on this, but, I mean, we sound like a broken record. It's about sustainability for these people. And [00:19:00] the ability to resell means it's not going in a landfill. It's also an economic component because to your point they can get at a better deal and keep the cycle going. You know, what I think about that, what I find interesting is how do you supply the reselling ecosystem? There's reverse logistics involved in it on [00:19:30] first purchases that go out. And then there's obviously overstocked scenarios where you're flushing it back through the system. And I'm sure Kohl will have a lot more insight on that.

Kohl Perkins: [00:19:41] Yeah. From my perspective, and I brought a lot of stats tonight. I'm kind of a stats guy. I love to go in and understand data matters. So a couple things that matter to brands and matter to consumers. One, I talk to brands every single day. I get to talk to these individuals. And our teams are trying to acquire thousands and thousands of brands that are signing [00:20:00] up for Walmart this year and into the future. But the core piece of that is data. The data piece of that that I think is really important is Gen Z and millennials matter. That Gen Z population is $450,000,000,000 buying power today, and that's going to turn into 1,000,000,000,000 in the next couple of years. How do you cater a message to them that really matters that is centered in sustainability? And resale, I think, is that big unlock for us. At Walmart, we're having amazing [00:20:30] programs that are coming down line. But just one that I'd like to talk about is our our Walmart Restored program. Walmart Restored is asking major brands to bring recycle, reuse, restored items to our marketplace and selling for a fraction of the price. Instead of it going to that landfill, instead of it going to a place where it can't be reused, we want that inventory back within our ecosystem. And a lot of people don't think Walmart and reused or restored, but it's something [00:21:00] that we're leaning into heavily as a company. And we are seeing great demand from that from that Gen Z and millennial population.

Sharon Gee: [00:21:06] And I think Walmart has an opportunity to flex really big tech muscle to do that. I think what we find is that depending on the size of company you are in the marketplace, one of the challenges is, I love this analogy of, like, we're like the dude who skipped leg day. We've got channel connections, and we've got product data, but, like, our reverse logistics and our like, we got, like, really, really, really weak little legs when it comes to the operational logistics [00:21:30] around multi location inventory order routing and splitting and reverse logistics re fulfillment and returns. And those APIs just, like, don't exist across the ecosystem for all of the technologies to talk to each other very well yet. And so, like, that's next, I think. When we say, oh, we know that this is something that this entire group of people care about, I think that's where your puck is going as a technology company, where you have to say, "Ah, we see what they're investing in. We know that this is important to our consumer. How do we make sure that the technology can support the data [00:22:00] flows back and forth to give optionality to people who actually run those platforms brands or merchants who are thinking about taking advantage of those solutions to be able to get their data in and out of those systems?" And so we spend a lot of time thinking about that, which is why we built real time sync. Because you can't  do it unless you know where the inventory lives or if it's been returned or what status it's in. So we have to fix that.

Phillip: [00:22:22] I'm going to take a little left turn here. There used to be an adage in this,   especially in  [00:22:30]digital commerce that there's no such thing as sort of, like, incremental improvement in back office software. So whatever you buy or you build right now is what you're stuck with until the next big platform rev. And it used to be that the software that you bought dictated the pace at which you did the rev. So when software was bought and installed and we had on premise software, that was pretty frequent. It was three or four years. [00:23:00] Right? We'd go through a big refresh cycle. That is not the world we live in anymore. And so I'd love, this is a jump ball for the panel, the software you have today is the software that you're probably going to be using four to five years from now when Gen Alpha starts spending money. And that is an important thing for us. I know we're not thinking about that right now, but especially in outdoor, especially in this idea of resale, it's incumbent on leaders for us to make these decisions [00:23:30] that are a little more future proof and think about what are the buying modalities of tomorrow right now, even though we may not use them now.

Brian: [00:23:39] Can I add on?

Phillip: [00:23:40] Yeah. Yeah.

Brian: [00:23:41] Yeah. I'm glad you said the A word, finally. We haven't got the most emergent generation. One last thing I'm going to mention, and I just had a thought. You know, if you think about Gen Alpha and the way that they're purchasing, what they're doing now looks like emerging. They're using emerging channels often, [00:24:00] but that's native to them. For them, emerging channels might be the ones that are traditional. They haven't been as exposed to typical shopping patterns. They're used to, like, digitally native, you know, TikTok native experiences. And so, as you get into answering Phillip's question, I also would ask how you see involving Gen Alpha in some of the more [00:24:30] traditional buying patterns. Are you going to bring those to them as well? Because they're emerging for them, even if they're not emerging for us.

Chris Deck: [00:24:35] Alright. Let me take a first crack at this. Because that paradigm of you're stuck with this for the next four to five years, I think it's an old way of thinking. And I think us three up here represent a paradigm shift. And it's what's driving this technological innovation and retail in general and ecommerce and omnichannel commerce [00:25:00] specifically. Yes. If you're working in an old vendor technology set, you're going to be stuck with it until you replatform to an entire new technology set five, six, 10 years down the road. You do an in-house build and your R&D dollars, get it live and then it's quickly diverted to other things. But what you're finding with companies, like, that are up here and I gotta give a big shout out to Walmart. I [00:25:30] mean, they're the kings of the old way of retail, but they have adopted to the technology world better than anything that I've ever seen. I mean, I really admire what you guys have done. You take thousands of brick and mortar and all of a sudden five years later, you're a technology leader in ecommerce. You guys aren't taking five years to innovate. I know Feedonomics is innovating on a week to week basis. And same with us. Sharon mentioned it [00:26:00] before. You got APIs. You've got cloud based technology. You've got data at your fingertips and the tools to use it. This is a paradigm shift, and it's good and it's needed because Gen Alpha, they're not patient. They expect things now, and they don't understand that they're not getting the data now, the ability to order now, the order in an hour. And I think the other thing that [00:26:30] rings most clear to me from a Gen Alpha perspective, immersive technology for us is cool and new and something we get to play around with. It's baseline for them. And they don't know a world without Siri. Augmented reality, virtual reality... It's a toy for us. It's life for them. And so all these new technologies for them, it's just baseline, and they're going to expect it to continue that way. And companies [00:27:00] who are built on modern technology stacks are well positioned to support their needs as they come to age and stop having their parents put the credit card in, but start putting their own in, in 5 years.

Brian: [00:27:11] My 11 year old literally will, when we go on Amazon shopping together, he'll be like, "Oh, that comes in five days, and that comes in one day? I'm going to pick the one day one."

Chris Deck: [00:27:22] Yeah.

Brian: [00:27:22] Even if it's, like, $2 more. So yeah.

Phillip: [00:27:24] We have that in common. You're 11 year old and I.

Brian: [00:27:27] Yeah. Or Walmart. I was going to say, [00:27:30] Brian. Yeah. Walmart Plus week.

Kohl Perkins: [00:27:31] Walmart plus week's happening now. Love to have you be a Walmart Plus member. Come get it in same day.

Brian: [00:27:36] No. We use a lot of Walmart too.

Kohl Perkins: [00:27:37] Fantastic.

Phillip: [00:27:38] Yeah. Walmart Plus. It's Amex Platinum. Yeah. Yeah. Come on, Brian.

Brian: [00:27:41] I know. I know.

Brian: [00:27:41] That was the wrong A word. Yeah. Sorry.

Kohl Perkins: [00:27:43] Shameless plug for Walmart Plus.

Sharon Gee: [00:27:46] I think modern technology stack was your trigger for me, where I was like, yes. So, I left the agency world specifically to go work on the problems of interoperability. Right? Like, we're kind of in this new, like, the inter operability of changeable parts [00:28:00] where cars needed to be able to swap out stuff. Like, we're in that phase, but for the Internet. Right? Where it's, like, we need to be able to send data in a schema in a way that they can pick it up, take it, and then push it, and then personalize it, because if data's the new oil, we're the refinery. We have to send really good data to the channels, or else you don't get good conversion and you don't get good return on your advertising spend. And so, when we think about what does the modern data tech stack need to look like, for ecommerce, specifically, we have to be thinking about [00:28:30] how do you choose partners that are open. So, you know, whether you've heard of the Mach alliance or you're, you know, composable curious or any of those things, I think some of the things that BigCommerce is doing is our recent release of catalyst that's built on completely modern Next Js React front end components, composable front end that means you can actually do that without having to staff a giant engineering team to support that. These are examples of how can you future proof a tech stack but gives you the flexibility to not have to be one of the lemmings that says, oh, this is what the software company offers [00:29:00] me. Great. That's how I'm going to run my business. Right? I was talking to a merchant the other day who says, "Oh, on this platform, I can't sell all of these products because I can't use a payment processor that actually allows them to because they're regulated." And I was like, "Well, that sounds like a platform dictating to you how you're going to run your business." So I think it's about how do you choose partners that actually fit your business needs, because you need to know what your business value proposition is that's different than your competitors, and then choose solutions that are open enough and interoperable enough who've already done the data handshake, because you need both the leverage of the existing partnerships that [00:29:30] are... Because you don't want to have to pay for a partnership that we've already integrated. Right? You don't want to ever want to have to go pay an agency to build that integration. So I think that's, that would be my recommendation around, gotta go modern, but it has to be interoperable and give you flexibility because fast is the new like, you can't test and learn new channels unless you are able to turn them on and turn them off based on what's working.

Kohl Perkins: [00:29:51] Just one comment on that. I probably won't comment on the Gen Alpha, but the thing that I think you hit the nail on the head. I've been in ecommerce for 10 plus years, worked for lots of different companies. Investing [00:30:00] in the pipes, connecting to a marketplace matters.

Sharon Gee: [00:30:03] Yeah.

Kohl Perkins: [00:30:04] And to answer your question specifically, five plus years, three plus years, you can make changes tomorrow. Find the right partner. The way you connect into a marketplace ecosystem matters. And if you invest in the right places, it can bring incremental growth for your business long tail. The other shameless plug that I'll put out there is if you're not selling on Walmart Marketplace today, such a low barrier of entry. Come in, gather data, understand what our [00:30:30] consumers are doing. 255,000,000 people shop in Walmart globally every week. You want to understand what your consumers want, how to price your product, come sell within our marketplace, low barrier of entry. But the piece that I'll just double down on is connect with the right tools. If you can build it in-house, great. If you can't, partner with great companies like BigCommerce and others, like Chris' company, and connect into the ecosystem with the right product, the right pricing, and invest in catalog images, the things that are going to help [00:31:00] you win.

Phillip: [00:31:01] Wow. We have time for one or two questions if anybody wants to queue one up. Just a last little thought here. We had a summit last week in New York, and something that struck me that was said is that old channels never actually truly die. They're always here. So we're really just in the business of additive, and these new channels have to coexist. And the pie [00:31:30] gets bigger, and we have to slice the pie thinner so that customers find the personalized thing that works for them. And that's the job now. It's not only web. It's not only marketplace penetration. It's we're in the business of identifying where the consumer's moving to. Any questions? None. Not a single one. Stunned mind. Pull hearts. Here we go.

Audience Question: [00:31:59] I'll [00:32:00] apply this to the topic at hand, but if you go and shop it for outdoor gear, especially, and you want quality, there's a physically tactile experience that you typically have that differentiates the quality of a good. So online shopping, how do you create, I guess, like, an emotionally tactile experience for users to have that same trust?

Kohl Perkins: [00:32:21] I'd love to tackle that one. Again, I'm from Utah. I love the outdoors. Here with my wife, our kids. If we're not in the outdoors, we're at a [00:32:30] a lake, we're doing something fun for the weekend. The gear that you use matters, and I think from a Walmart perspective so I'll speak from a marketplace, Walmart perspective. The thing that's pretty incredible today is the ability for our digital assets to be shopped online and in-store. If you walk down the aisles of your local Walmart store today, you'll see digital assets that you can... If I see a product that I like and it's not in stock of my size, I can scan that QR code and have it delivered to my house same day [00:33:00] from another Walmart store. So I like the idea of it's very difficult with really high end gear. If I touch it, feel it, and I want it, doing that online is pretty impossible. That's where I think we differentiate ourselves in Walmart. You can scan it, touch it, be in store, have it delivered to your house. It's all one ecosystem for us at Walmart.

Brian: [00:33:21] I'll tell a little story as well. I think, brand really matters here. And I think that's something that's super important, we didn't touch on that too much, actually. But,  [00:33:30]my kids, my older two have been saving up for dirt bikes. First, they were enamored with what was available to them on Walmart and other marketplaces as well. And they were looking at those and I was like, "You guys, have you ever heard of those companies before that make these?" And they're like, "Oh, no. You're right. We haven't. We need to [00:34:00] get something that's really good, but we don't have enough money." And they ended up buying used Honda because they trusted the brand based off of what their other friends had told them and the adults in their lives had told them and personal recommendations. And so I think that in emerging channels, the value of brand and the value of personal connection, even among kids, is essential when they see adults or people they respect or the mimetic models in their lives [00:34:30] say something to them about that brand.

Chris Deck: [00:34:33] And, Brian, let me add on to that because you talked about outdoor retailing, the ability to touch versus you can't do that online. There are two elements that I think that build off what Brian was saying that you can do online. If you're a Gen Xer like myself, you can research and you can do a lot of data gathering to understand what you're buying more specifically [00:35:00] than just going in and touching and not having data in front of you. But, the younger generation, which was our focus a little bit today, it's social shopping. It's recommendations. It's influencers. It's the reviews. And, yes, far cry from touching it and lifting it and holding it, but, man, there is a ton of value for the Gen Z and the and Gen A's in that social shopping piece. And I think that's a [00:35:30] key element whether you're an outdoor retailer or in any retail space in this new digital era.

Phillip: [00:35:36] That's about our time. Thank you so much. What an incredible panel. Give it up. Thank you. Thanks. Okay. So we just heard about a technological revolution that's happening in our businesses from customer experience. Right? Working backwards to the employee experience, the culture in commerce and technology adoption, working all the way back to the [00:36:00] future. Right? The future consumer, Gen Alpha, and what they're going to experience, and how they're making important decisions around what brands they know and love and will frequent in the future. So Walmart is a big part of that. But also, we're looking out into customer loyalty, and that's what this next session is all about. So we're going to hear from a different side of commerce, one that's driven by purpose and authenticity. So we're going to go live to a session with Mikaila Ulmer, who is the Founder of Me & [00:36:30] the Bees Lemonade. She started this journey so many years ago as a child with a lemonade stand. Now she is powering the future of entrepreneurship by helping other kids launch their lemonade stand. Why? Well, because they're connecting to this amazing brand and lemonade that they've created at Me & the Bees. Her story is challenging. Everything that we think about how we create a brand, and what it means to understand loyalty in the next generation. Also, we're going to hear from Nicole Thomas of BigCommerce, and [00:37:00] Wayne Stratbucker of American Eagle, who will talk about how brands balance digital innovation and authentic storytelling. So remember, this conversation, how does this link up? Well, it's not just about the culture of commerce and technology or marketing strategies. It's that there's also a story about the customer's values that drive our businesses and change how we make decisions. And so as we dive into our next segment, just consider it. Like how can business, regardless of the size or the industry, create those meaningful connections in an [00:37:30] increasingly online world? Let's take a listen. Please welcome to the summer camp stage from AmericanEagle.com, Wayne Strattbucker, and Nicole Thomas, Senior Partner Marketing Manager from BigCommerce. And please extend a warm welcome to Author, Founder, and CEO of Me & the Bees, Mikaila Ulmer.  [00:38:00]I'm going to move over and be a little bit more cozy with you all. Oh my goodness. I don't even know how we take a hard left turn here because my mind is still reeling from the last conversation. We're going to talk about this idea that we cover a lot at Future Commerce about this [00:38:30] multiplayer dynamic. Now those are big words. When you hear multiplayer, you often think of games. But for a lot of us in this room, we take a lot of the data and feedback that our customers give us every day, and we use that and put that right back into the business for learning. And so when we are thinking today about how customer experience is really crafted, I think that it really matters having a unique and authentic connection to [00:39:00] customer, and sometimes that comes through them shopping because they love you and they support you and they love your brand. They love what you sell. Sometimes it's something deeper than that. So, Mikaila, tell us a little bit about what Me & the Bees is means to your customer and how you are connecting with them in order for you to learn how to build what they want in the future.

Mikaila Ulmer: [00:39:25] Ok so three part question. I might ask you to remind me of the second part, but Me [00:39:30] & the Bees is a for profit social lemonade company. I started as a stand when I was 4. So I see some of you have the product with you, but I started because I wanted to save the bees. So I made honey sweetened flax lemonade. I donated a portion of the profits to organizations that were saving bees. And we kept with that mission of bee conservancy as the lemonade company scaled to where it is today. And the original question of what Me & the Bees offers to customers is [00:40:00] that we're offering customers the fact that they know they're shopping from a sustainable brand as mentioned previously. They know that every bottle that they buy is going towards saving the bees. They know that they're supporting a small business and American business, and that they also know that the product itself is better for you. And we've kept that the same throughout the 15 years of having this lemonade stand and company and created a really strong community around it where they love the brand, they love the name, and they love the product.

Phillip: [00:40:29] And  [00:40:30]tell me a little bit quickly about the retail strategy for Me & the Bees. So you're online, obviously. Where else?

Mikaila Ulmer: [00:40:40] We're online. 99% of our sales are brick and mortar through our retailers.

Brian: [00:40:44] Wow.

Mikaila Ulmer: [00:40:44] So part of it is advertising to the customers, And that's earned media, press social media. And the other part of it is making the customer experience for our retailers super easy so that they can purchase our product, sell it on shelves, and [00:41:00] then deliver to the customers exactly what they want. So it's a little bit of both. Hopefully, I can get to the stage where we're selling pallets and cases online on our site, but right now it's mostly brick and mortar.

Phillip: [00:41:12] So we have this world now, especially in the last few years, where there's more technology in store than there has ever been, especially around the self-service piece, self checkout. There's also more technology integrated into packaging that brings [00:41:30] us into digital spaces. Nicole, figital? What is figital? And how does this play into this idea that we're simultaneously living in both analog and digital purchasing behavior?

Nicole Thomas: [00:41:46] Yeah. So if you think about how people purchase, I mean, me, personally, I was never a big online shopper. I was a big mall rat. I liked being there, touching things, kind of the tactile, [00:42:00] emotional feeling that you get from actually seeing a brand. And I think when we especially within the outdoor retail space, and you're looking at these products where it could be something like a ski or a mountain bike. And I personally, when I'm strapping something on my feet and going 60 miles an hour down the mountain, I probably don't go that fast, but bear with me, I want to actually have an experience with that brand [00:42:30] that kind of carries through for both online, which is more kind of a research part, and then I want to be able to go in-store and get an experience. And I think Canada Goose is a really good example of that, where they are a high luxury brand. They started as more of an outdoor, like, people that are doing arctic explorations, and now it's become this brand that's synonymous with high fashion and luxury. And so they were able to create an experience where the consumer [00:43:00] that wanted to buy online and was okay with dropping $1,000 on a coat with no research merging with also the customer that wants to be in-store and go into a cryo chamber and experience it in 0 degrees or negative 30 degrees, which I think is really cool, and it also drives kind of some of that hype, if you will, around actually going into the brick and mortar and experiencing it. And then a lot of those folks are still going back online and ordering it in either their size or their [00:43:30] color, whatever they would like.

Phillip: [00:43:32] And when you're bringing... I think it's hard to feel the cryo chamber through the screen, obviously. So this piece of sort of the research, it's really bringing the story into the digital experience. Wayne, I'd sense sort of your role at AmericanEagle.com is helping companies to tell that story better in digital spaces. Does it begin with you trying to understand what the physical manifestation of the product looks [00:44:00] like first, or how do you approach that?

Wayne Stratbucker: [00:44:02] Yeah. So Wayne Strabucker from AmericanEagle.com, we're a full service web development agency with the marketing... I do lead the BigCommerce practice there. But to that point, a lot of consumers, I kind of say it's sometimes a little bit of the comeback of brick and mortar occasionally, especially retailers that [00:44:30] do sell those tactile products, and they start their experience online, whether it's social media, whether it's the website, whether it's Amazon, Walmart. All of these consumers are constantly getting fed these products every single day. And we really see a lot of customer success when they really focus on who their customers are, what their customers' expectations are, and keeping that expectation [00:45:00] continuitous through their entire shopping experience, whether or not it's looking at a Canada Goose $3,000 jacket online and then going into the store. It is a very cohesive experience, and it helps really kind of keep the user engaged, the customer engaged just because there's all this distraction. There's all these channels. Feedomomics probably talked about 3,000 channels. So [00:45:30] you really have to in order to start kind of showing or standing out amongst the rest, you really have to really hone in on that experience and hone in on that user journey all the way through from ecommerce all the way to to potentially retail.

Phillip: [00:45:47] Alright. Digital spaces, Mikaila, have infinite space to tell a very big story. How do you put your incredible story on a bottle? And tell [00:46:00] us how you think about that. How do you solve that?

Mikaila Ulmer: [00:46:02] Well, I want to make understand what you said. So the story of Me & the Bees would be 4 and a half lemonade stand Austin, Texas. And when you mentioned a cohesiveness between in-person experiences and online and on your products. We keep the lemonade stand and the origin for Me & the Bees wherever it goes. So the face is on the bottle, the signatures on the bottle. If it's in-store, we have end caps that are designed out of our lemonade stand. If we're doing pop ups or activations, it has the lemonade stand right there. Or [00:46:30] if it's with the beekeeper audiences, it has interactive hives. If it's with kids or business professionals, it has the fact that we went on Shark Tank. So keeping what people see online and integrating it with what people see in person to actually get that close and have them to pick up a bottle,   is really important. And then your original question, which is how do we tell the story and continue to tell the story? Obviously, it's it's evolving. I'm not 4 and a half years old anymore. But  [00:47:00]I think that when it comes to storytelling, I always say it's not just a product you sell, it's the story you tell. And we tell the story by having our customers be part of it. And that's the best way that I could put it.

Phillip: [00:47:18] Okay. Having your customers be part of it. Part of that is when I was doing research for this panel, first thing on the website that my kids saw was they can have their own lemonade stand. Y [00:47:30]ou're giving a new generation of entrepreneur the same experience that you had in enabling them. What spurs that idea as a product to lead with in the digital space?

Mikaila Ulmer: [00:47:41] Well, okay. What spurs the idea of having everyone be an entrepreneur, have their own lemonade stand? What spurs the product in the digital space? That correct?

Phillip: [00:47:51] That's correct.

Mikaila Ulmer: [00:47:52] Okay. So first of all, it's listening to what our customers want digitally. So we had customers say, "I have a young [00:48:00] kid that saw your story and was interested. What do I do?" We also had customers that said, "I wanted this flavor. What do I do? Where do I get it?" And so by figuring out exactly what they wanted and coming up with new and innovative product lines that offer that, that's how we're bringing in the customers with the story of the company and how the story is growing. And how we integrate that with the digital space is having multiple ways for them to try the product. They can get it online at the Walmart Marketplace. They can also get it on our website. When it comes to [00:48:30] lemonade, they can get it on our website. They can also get it through the 6500 stores that it's carried in. So figuring out what they want, delivering products based on that, and making sure that they can get those products anywhere.

Phillip: [00:48:44] There's in that space, sort of, like, I want to be part of the Me & the Bees story, so I'm going to have my own lemonade stand sort of rite of passage. Right? My kids crushed their lemonade stand, by the way, [00:49:00] a couple weeks ago, like, $200, like in a couple hours. It was incredible. Of course, you get the people that drive by that just like tip the kids really huge, you know. It's amazing. Of course, I never had that sort of success when I had a lemonade stand. We want to be part of that story. Right? We want to certainly emulate success. That feels like almost a loyalty play because it puts me in the feeling of being part of a brand [00:49:30] story. So, Nicole, you have a lot of thoughts about loyalty. When we're thinking about how loyalty programs work, especially like in a digital space, certain things come to mind. But is that really loyalty? Are the mechanics of how we put loyalty online different to how we might rethink about how a product offering or merchandising might be a form of loyalty as well?

Nicole Thomas: [00:49:55] Yeah. So I think there are two different types of loyalty. I think there are programs [00:50:00] where people just want rewards or they want deals, and so they stay attached to that brand. If you think about airlines or I'm a Marriott Bonvoy girl, I'm staying in one right now, and I get points. Those are loyalty programs where they're based on rewards, right? And then there's also the loyalty where it's deeper, where it's emotional, where it's multi generational, where, say, your grandfather decided that this [00:50:30] was the brand that your family uses, and then you keep buying that brand for years years to come. And I think Saddleback Leather is a really great example of that, where they give a 100 year warranty for all of their products. And if I was thinking about it from a monetary standpoint, I would be like, wait, that doesn't make a lot of sense, because you're not making any money, right? But if you do that and you build out loyalty and trust with a brand and give people that type of a loyalty program, [00:51:00] where if a strap breaks or whatever, they're going to get that fixed. It's not like they're going to throw it out and say, hey, this product is crap, we'll probably just buy another backpack somewhere else or I'll go to the store down the street and get a canvas bag or something like that. It's building that loyalty where, okay, this product is so good that they're willing to say, hey, we'll give you a new one in 50 years when your buckle breaks, then you're probably going to buy 15 other things, and your family's going to buy 15 other things, and your friends and word-of-mouth [00:51:30] of building a loyalty program that way, and not just basing it off of, which is also great, you need to do both, but also giving kind of these deals and discounts for the loyalty, I think it's kind of multipronged of how you really solidify yourself, especially depending on the industry that you're in.

Phillip: [00:51:49] Wayne, but we want the points program on the website, so show me how to do that. Right?

Wayne Stratbucker: [00:51:55] Yeah. So and I think that's right on the mark. I think [00:52:00] one thing that, the unique thing about the digital ecosystem is that it has allowed brands to connect with owners, connect with a story. It allows people to kind of see, and it has really driven that brand loyalty sense of I align. There are a lot of people talking about things like sustainability and things like that that's important to Gen Z, whatever [00:52:30] generation that you, especially with those generations. But the what we're really talking about is, like, that's not influencing one. That's influencing how they behave online, how they shop online, what they think about. And so, one, I think digital experience can drive that kind of loyalty where you're saying, "I'm loyal to this brand because I know this story. I love this story. I care about this story. And it aligns with me as a person." A [00:53:00]nd then, obviously, you have your points. So everybody loves their points. I personally, I love my Southwest points, because I'm from Nebraska, and it's the only thing that flies there. Things like that where there is a little bit of like, there's still that gamification of points, but I think that there are a lot of brands breaking that concept of oh, we just gotta give money away. And it's like, no, you don't have [00:53:30] to give money away. You can cultivate a program that goes beyond just throwing money at people. And I think that's where brands really start to unlock the power of the entire digital ecosystem, not just a website, but also a social media, whether it's TikTok or Instagram or Facebook, that all comes into the picture, and it can be really, really valuable to brands.

Phillip: [00:53:58] I've heard it said, Mikaila, [00:54:00] that the best form of loyalty is having a great product.   And then another one is a purpose that people can stand behind. And it seems like that's what you're about.

Mikaila Ulmer: [00:54:15] Yes. And it's not just Gen Z. Gen Z, we are not the only people who are looking for purposeful brands. For any brand out there, your purpose statement, your mission statement, your vision statement, whatever you call it, it's how you're serving your customer. And that is so key to building [00:54:30] customer loyalty and to building a fantastic user or buyer experience. It can guide internally what you do and the decisions you make. So for us, our purpose of we wanted better lemonade. We want a sustainable packaging. We want to save the bees. That changed whether or not we changed our recipe to integrate chemicals or preservatives to make it last longer. It changed whether or not we said yes to maybe less sustainable packaging because it would ship lighter. And so because it's guiding [00:55:00] our team's decisions, our customers know that they're going to have a great experience when they purchase our product. And then on the other end, the customer loyalty. Our customers know that for 15 years, however many plus years we've been in business, that we've continued to serve that mission, and we are continuing with that purpose. And there might be small things that change as our customer values change. But overall, keeping that purpose at the forefront,   with every decision we do, every product line we come out with, every collaboration we do, that [00:55:30] is so important to telling a story and building that loyalty.

Phillip: [00:55:33] And building a loyal base, I think often comes back down to how you quantify... I guess let me ask you in the form of the question. How do you measure your success year over year and that you are holding on to these customers when so many of them may be coming into one of these retailers? Is it purely just in that your retailers have this relationship? You're getting reorders, everything's up and to the right, or is it something [00:56:00] deeper than that that you're working on cultivating relationship with that customer individually, that person who is in Nebraska, who is in love with your product?

Mikaila Ulmer: [00:56:10] I'm going to think about it. Yeah. Can you come back to me?

Phillip: [00:56:12] Of course. For sure. Let's queue up. We do have time for probably one question here, so I'll let everybody percolate on that for a second. But just a quick hit across the panel. What are examples of brands that are doing all of this very well? I [00:56:30]f we have examples that are sort of queued up, who's doing it well online, offline, and who's doing it well with, like, product and purpose?

Wayne Stratbucker: [00:56:42] I mean, historically, the brand's done it well, which is not the case anymore, but fashion has always done it well. Your experience on the Gucci website, buying a Gucci shirt at Nordstrom, that experience [00:57:00] is very curated all the way through. Now even in, it sounds kind of crazy, but even in the B2B space, selling nuts and bolts. I know it's not the most, not the sexiest thing out there, but having that experience, having a really positive experience all the way through is now seen as kind oof an expectation. And we've started to see a lot of our clients really focusing, even if they're not necessarily a fashion person [00:57:30] or something like that, they're really focusing on making sure that they, whether you're walking into a showroom or you're getting a semi truck dropping off a pallet of bolts, that experience is continued through. So I think, the one brand that comes to mind is Ferguson, for example. Really big in the B2B space, really big in the distribution space. [00:58:00] If you've ever been to a Ferguson showroom, or you've ever seen a Ferguson product, or any of their products, or you've talked to a Ferguson person that works as a sales rep there, you you know, you know that they work for Ferguson. It's an experience through and through, and I think those are some brands that obviously not necessarily traditional brands that are in there, but I think they can be for any brand.

Phillip: [00:58:27] Nicole, any outdoor brands that come to mind?

Nicole Thomas: [00:58:31] I [00:58:30] think one brand that's not a specific product, but a reseller that I think all of us have probably been to or that you sell to, is the experience with REI, and how and they do have their own line as well, and so kind of finding that balance between manufacturing and creating their own brand, and it not feeling [00:59:00] like a generic brand, which I think a lot of stores kind of fall into that trap of selling other people's products, and then there's the generic one, or not selling other products because they have their own. I think they do a good job of pulling through the loyalty piece and also between the in-store and online experience, where you really feel like if you get the customer service online, you're getting the same in-store. Like, if you walk in, you've never been camping before, and you're like, "I don't know how to set up this tent." They [00:59:30] will show you. I've done it. And then online, they have a really cool way of showing you how to do a lot of these things. And a lot of the brands, if you think about outdoor retail as a whole, there's a lot of subsect of outdoor retail. There's food as part of it. There's technical gear. It's very hobby based, and so it can be outdoor furniture, even. So if you think about all those different pieces and [01:00:00] how they sell, you really need to make sure that people can, both like we talked about before, they can look and feel kind of online, almost. Where you have videos or you have testimonials from experts, if it's ski gear or hiking, then you're having people post online videos of them using it, and kind of giving that confidence. And so I think REI is a good example of someone that's taken all these pieces and all these different types within outdoor retail and combined them into one [01:00:30] marketplace that kind of merges the digital and the in-store experience.

Phillip: [01:00:35] These are great examples. Alright. Mikala, did you have enough time?

Mikaila Ulmer: [01:00:39] Yes.

Phillip: [01:00:40] Yes.

Mikaila Ulmer: [01:00:40] I think you actually mentioned it, which is looking at the numbers, seeing how the product is performing on shelves, and changing our strategy based on that. And because we have so many retailers and we try different things with each store and we just see how it's doing at each store and each shelf. And if something works, we'll carry that to the next. S [01:01:00]o paying for that data and for those numbers, because it's definitely worth it. And then for the outdoor brands that I enjoy or the outdoor brands that did a fantastic job, I'm a rock climber and Camp sponsors... I love the product, but they sponsor different lessons. And so at my climbing gym, they sponsored and led Beta for Babes. And it was really it was giving something to the climber first before they asked for their dollars in exchange, and I thought that was fantastic. And now that's what [01:01:30] I use when I climb.

Phillip: [01:01:31] Oh, that's fantastic. We actually now don't have time, but we do have a dinner coming, and we'll have a break. We'll be back here with a few more talks after that. But in the meantime, you should come grab some of our panelists and get to know them 1 on 1 because they're incredible people. Can we give everybody a hand? Thank you so much for all your time, and we'll see you around the dinner table, and we'll be back in just a little bit. Thank [01:02:00] you so much for joining us for this episode of the podcast. We have more content from the BigCommerce Summer Camp coming your way later this week. You can subscribe so you never miss an episode of the Future Commerce podcast, and you can get that at futurecommerce.com/subscribe. Totally free. Join the Future Commerce Plus membership though if you want to ad free versions of this podcast as bonus After Dark content and exclusive discount on print and merch plus private GPT. [01:02:30] You can get it all today and join the futurist revolution futurecommerce.com/plus. Thank you for listening to this episode of Future Commerce. Remember, the future of commerce is culture. Help us see around the next corner by understanding the world around us. Thank you for listening.