SkinnyTok, Russian Propaganda, and PepsiCo’s Poppi Proposal

Phillip

Alright. I have no idea what is about to happen, Orchid, because you're always... You're like Seabiscuit. I'm just going to hold on today. Let's see what happens. Orchid, you're in, like, your third career, but I think that third career might be a TikTok career these days. But no. No. No.

Orchid

{laughter} A professional TikTok watcher?

Phillip

Yeah. You're in private equity now? I think that's a thing.

Orchid

Yeah. Apparently. Apparently. Yeah. I just, you know, I just ride the coattails of men forever and ever, and I will die being surrounded by them. So, you know, I was like, "A PE bro. Why not me?" Not wearing a vest today. I'm still trying to figure out the dress code. But you know I like to shop. So now we just shop for companies instead of shopping for clothes. And that's kind of fun.

Phillip

You saw Succession and you were like, "Gas up the PJ's." You're like, "That's me. That could be me."

Orchid

Yeah. Absolutely. And my 43rd birthday is coming up, and I've always wanted to rap on stage in front of a group of people and have a very loud midlife crisis. Now, I will never beat the loudest midlife crisis that anyone's ever seen, and that is from Mr. Zuckerberg. But I can try.

Phillip

I mean, you're not going to unless you actually give it a go. So why not? So private equity, I want to get into that a little bit later today. I think we're going to do Heros and Villains. I don't know if you've queued that up. I think we'll have a Hero of the Week. We'll have a Villain of the Week. We've been doing that on Future Commerce. And we're going to talk a little bit about and maybe Heros and Villains coded here. Aritzia and Sperry. I think that's little new. I don't know. We'll talk about that a little bit. Because part of my algorithim...

Orchid

Should I say that they're a hero.

Phillip

I don't know. I mean, well, I'm foreshadowing.

Orchid

They're not. {laughter}

Phillip

I'm foreshadowing. {laughter} Because some of my TikTok algorithm these days is sort of like the quality of apparel and whether you should be shopping at Aritzia and whether it's good or not and whether it's worth the money or not. And then Sperry, I just think is like, very, I don't know, it's very bro coded. I don't know. That's a whole thing. I'm curious why that's even happening. I want you to tell me. We talk a lot about culture and commerce. I think you talk a lot about the culture in particular on your TikTok. Love following you, by the way. And I think you go through bouts.

Orchid

I do. Yeah.

Phillip

You're very online sometimes and then you're very quiet sometimes. Are you very quiet or you very active right now?

Orchid

You know, I really... So my TikTok focuses on brand collaborations just because that's a thing that I like. And when I feel inspired by the brand collaborations out there, I will create content. If it is all very uninspiring, I will not create content. So that's what the cycle is. {laughter}

Phillip

Alright. Let's talk about some things that are inspiring right now. What's out there right now that you think is worth talking about and why?

Orchid

The Aritzia and Sperry collaboration for about two styles of boat shoes in two colors each, so four color ways. Overall, though, I know we're talking how boat shoes are very, like, old money. They're very yacht club. They're very New England. Well, those have been trending, I want to say, over the course of the past couple of years. You first saw it... Well, I first saw it through Miu Miu. So Miu Miu has been actually doing well. When we look at all the luxury brands over the course of the past few years, a lot of them have been suffering a decline. Miu Miu's been top of the list for multiple seasons. So they came out with a very low profile slim boat shoe. I think a lot of what was getting them press was actually their collaboration with New Balance, which we can address differently. But part of their style that they were bringing was paracords, right? So those paracord shoelaces, laces, they were bringing them into more traditional profiles like a boat shoe. So I actually, I should probably grab my pair. So they have a low profile one. We know that's trending. And so what I really liked about Sperry and Aritzia and there are flaws to this collaboration strategy. But generally, Sperry's known for boat shoes. I think they're going to have a great year regardless. But to your point, there's a very clear stereotype of who the Sperry consumer is. It's the dad shoe. It's like for country clubs. It's not a Miu Miu. So, through their collab with Aritzia, they were able to bridge that gap into fashion and the fashion girlies who had not considered Sperry in the past. So of these two models that they have, one of them, the slim boat shoe, they actually sell on-site. So I was like, "I don't know that that's like that much of a departure." But the other one is a, it's more of like a boat moccasin. And just like the stitching is different, and it has like Aritzia on the tongue. But what's really interesting about it is the ability to customize. So you can actually take the leather laces out of the sides and replace them with this needle kit that Sperry includes, which you can buy separately on their site for $12 and then weave the paracord through the sides and so that you're personalizing it. And it actually just looks like a dupe for Miu Miu. From a cost perspective, and I've done a lot of research on this, so this is like my special interest for the past few months, is that the Miu Miu boat shoes are roughly $1,000. Okay? Sperry's, on average, I would say on the high side, they have, like, $300 boat shoes. Otherwise, you can get them for, like, maybe a $120 on average.

Phillip

Yeah.

Orchid

A hundred and 20, if not less, on sale. You can get them for, like, $60. Right?

Phillip

Sure.

Orchid

Haven't even talked about channel two. So we won't get that detailed into it. And so the Aritzia Sperry collab, they were $120. It included the personalization kit. Again, that's a $12 value. And when you hold that against maybe like a Frita Salvador who's selling $300 boat shoes or even Everlane that's selling $200 boat shoes, I think that's a really great price point for Aritzia as well because we know a lot of the online conversation has been that they've been increasing their prices and the quality has gone down. So in terms of their go-to-market strategy, it was also really interesting because all the press was around Sperry and Aritzia, but it only featured the Aritzia launch date. And so on the day of, I think it was like maybe the day after, they were largely sold out of all sizes on Aritzia. And you could not find the collab on Sperry's site until about five days later. And Sperry started to run, you know, just paid meta ads against it, which is how I found it, but not much fanfare and they did not sell out as quickly. So I was like, "Oh, that must have been really interesting in the contract negotiations where Aritzia is like, "Oh, okay, well, we need to develop a boat shoe because it's on trend, but we actually want all the press centered around driving customers to us, the retailer,'" because then it probably allowed them to place a higher PO against Sperry.

Phillip

Wow.

Orchid

Anyway, thought it was really interesting.

Phillip

No. I think that's... I think the strategy of that's really interesting too as as far as the driving interest and where you drive the traffic. So and then Sperry has their own owned DTC.

Orchid

Yes.

Phillip

And then stock, I think, ostensibly kind of just sat there.

Orchid

Yeah. It's been kind of sitting there. I've been surprised. I bought them the day of, so I think they're coming on Wednesday or something so we can do a follow-up. But we can do an unboxing. But they really, the large focus of the media and the earned media was around the launch and getting them on Aritzia. So if we think about the current Sperry consumer, even if they're using their own CRM, even if they're using their own consumer profile to target paid ads against, that's not necessarily the Aritzia consumer. I would also say from just an online experience, Aritzia did a really nice job with their PDPs... It's so tactical. With their PDPs of videos showing you how you can actually personalize the loafer or the boat shoe. Whereas if you look at the PDP on Sperry, they don't even include it as one of the PDP images. So I would just say from like a merchandising, online merchandising perspective, Aritzia is just so much better at that online storytelling than Sperry has been. Largely probably because Sperry is a large enough brand in enough retailers where dot com is just not a primary focus for them. Not knowing anything about the financials of the business, I would guess, I have to find the information, that online is probably only like 10% or less of their total business. That would be my guess.

Phillip

I think this is so fascinating too. I'm like watching the video on Sperry.com. We can actually drop the link too. And the way that they sort of take their time in showing you how the needle works and how you can sort of customize it as well. I I think it's an interesting dynamic in the way that they're, like you said, they're sort of flexing the brand into a new buyer and a new category because Aritzia to me is a different person altogether in who they're trying to target. Right?

Orchid

Totally.

Phillip

And that's to me, that's seems like a bit of a stretch for the brand. But if successful, I mean, what does that do? The sky's the limit then. Right? What's the next stage?

Orchid

I mean, I think for Arithia, it was to find a trusted partner in order to create a high quality product that meets the trend and consumer demand of the existing Aritzia consumer. Whereas for Sperry, it was about capturing a new consumer. So I would say their objectives are probably pretty different. And you'll start to look at brand collabs this way too. I'll give you another example. So just the pairings of Ulta and Target versus Sephora and Kohl's never made sense to me because I always thought it was closer with Sephora Target and then Ulta Kohl's in terms of their consumer sets. And then I realized, I was like, "Oh, If you're in a strip mall, you likely have a Target and you likely have an Ulta, but you don't have a Sephora. You also likely have a Kohl's." So what's interesting is like, okay, if Target and Ulta are in the same park, then are you actually cannibalizing Ulta consumers because they're just making the stop in Target? That said, if there's also Kohl's in the strip mall, because I would say and this is like a Midwestern strip mall sort of, you know, setup, then Sephora would never be in that location. But now Sephora is there in way of Kohl's. So it still doesn't really... Unless, you know, Ulta's just trying to capture new to category buyers into Target, like people who don't shop beauty at Target because Target's assortment is largely mass, whereas Ulta is bringing in more prestige makeup.

Phillip

Correct.

Orchid

That could improve the overall basket value. So that kind of makes sense.

Phillip

Do you have an Ulta in the Target near you?

Orchid

Yes.

Phillip

Okay.

Orchid

Yeah. It's fine.

Phillip

But it has its own checkout. Right? Like, you have your own...

Orchid

No. It doesn't.

Phillip

So in mine...

Orchid

It has its own build out, but you actually check out in the regular checkout.

Phillip

So that's interesting. So in mine, it has its own checkout. It has its own register.

Orchid

Oh that is interesting.

Phillip

What's really interesting is it's there's also, like, a Kendra Scott sort of...

Orchid

Yes. I saw that

Phillip

And Warby Parker is going to do a new collab or they're doing a shop in shop, I guess, now which is strange because I think Target Optical is its own thing. So I don't know how that's going to work in Target.

Orchid

Yeah. Unless they replace them. Totally replace them.

Phillip

Guess that would make sense.

Orchid

Because what does Walmart have? Walmart has one at LensCrafters or some one of the big...

Phillip

Yeah. They have a big one. Yeah. Correct.

Orchid

Yeah. I would just say from an operational... Yeah. I mean, I think that's the question. Because from an operational sense, if you're going to do a store within a store, I would do it where you don't want to hire specialized labor for that because that's a very different operating model than getting someone to stock the shelves. So I think it actually makes sense to bring in a partner who's known for being able to do that at scale in different footprints. So I think if you don't have a Target optical, it makes sense for Warby Parker to come in because I would imagine the demographic and just the overall audience is very similar. And if you're just trying to extend LTV, grow the basket size, and probably grow the number of shopping occasions into Target that seems to make sense to me.

Phillip

We have something to rep at Future Commerce. So if you'll do me the honor, we have a brand new book. It's called Lore. It's 280 pages. It's a journal from FutureCommerce. It's our annual journal, and this deserves a place in your own personal legend and myth. This is a Future Commerce book that is from Future Commerce Press and 14 individual contributors that helped to make this year's journal possible. Let me go to the overhead cam.

Orchid

It's so pretty.

Phillip

Thank you so much. And this year, we got together to ask ourselves, do we write the story or is it already written for us? This year our individual contributors got together and we said part of what makes the commerce industry so rich and so vibrant is that it takes an entire industry that comes around the story of commerce. The story is not just the story of a brand, but it's the story that consumers weave. And we live inside their world. They live inside the world that we create for them. But what's also really interesting about it is that it's very you know, often brands are very mythology coded. Right? Legends with lore and myth. Lore is a part of what we create in this world when we create a brand, and commerce is at the center of it all. And you can have this book on your coffee table. Why not have this live forever on your shelf? $75 from Future Commerce Press. Go get it right now. FutureCommerce.com/Lore and make it part of your own personal lore. We'll see you at Shoptalk just next week. We have a whole pop up just around this. We'll see you on the show floor, and come check that out. FutureCommerce.com/Shoptalk. Would love to see you there. So that's a little...

Orchid

I'm not going, but can you FaceTime me in?

Phillip

Yeah. I'll do that.

Orchid

FaceTime me in. Yeah. I'm on vacation. That's why. But FaceTime me in.

Phillip

I really wish that I could pick vacation.

Orchid

{laughter} You're like, "What's a vacation?" You're like, "How do I pronounce that?"

Phillip

Eight years I've had Shoptalk that it's fallen on my kid's spring break. For eight years. So there you go. That's my personal lore around this. But your lore... So you had probably the coolest role ever. You were in an innovation role at Nestle for many years. And then your personal lore with me is that you co-hosted Infinite Shelf here at Future Commerce. Then you did an agency stent, and now you're in private equity. That seems like such an interesting turn.

Orchid

That's a very generous way of saying, "Make it make sense." {laughter}

Phillip

Yeah. Make it make sense. Yeah. Tell me what you're working on.

Orchid

Well, I joined &vest, which is a boutique PE firm, about a month or two ago. And the reason why I really thought it was going to be the next step in my career was because, you know, I have a consulting background, agency background. And creating valuable companies, now, you can do that a couple of different ways. I think the very stereotypical PVE way of doing it is, you know, you become the villains of the story where you buy a mom and pop shop and you send them on their way and then you automate everything and then you sell this laundromat, right? So there is the turnaround story. I know that's like a very egregious example, but it's out there. So, one way is the turnaround is to capture companies coming out of bankruptcy, fix the underlying business model of that company, which, you know, I'm happy to talk at length about, and then turn it around and go from there. I think that's a very stereotypical path. I think the reason why I went to &vest was because we have a very different model of that. We're taking companies that have really great fundamentals, including brand and saying, "Okay, they're scaled to grow. How can we add more fuel to this?" Rather than saying, "Hey, here is a company where we're going to cut to the bone and turn it around that way." So, our whole mantra is really about transforming businesses into brands that matter. And we take a very consumer demand centric approach to that. So yes, there is finance. There are Excel spreadsheets. There are ways of making the PnL healthier. But at the end of the day, we really care about telling the brand story. And so we really focus on being very founder friendly, companies that are still founder-led because, and you've seen this too, I'm sure, there's such a huge difference between a company that is being managed by a bunch of people who maybe don't have the vision versus the founder really driving the creative vision, the ethos, the storytelling of the brand, and that's not something that a large company can easily replicate.

Phillip

Something we talk about forever on Future Commerce is sort of the strategy pyramid. People focus, especially in the content arena, on tactics. Right? So this is the bottom of the pyramid. Strategy. It's the thing that ladders the tactic like, ladder into strategies. And we talk a lot about goals. So goals are the things that you align your strategies toward. But at the very top is vision. Who creates vision in the organization? That's why we created our event series called VISIONS. We're really talking about who holds visions in the modern organization. And outside of the creative director in a modern fashion house, I'm not sure outside of the founder of an organization who has vision anymore. And so I like the idea that you're partnering with, you know, founder-led companies to help them create the next level vision for their their companies. Give me an idea of the brands in the portfolio at the moment.

Orchid

Yeah. So we're really squarely focused in beauty right now. So one of the cofounders, the two co-founders, actually, they sold their agency to Shiseido years ago. And so Doug Jacob, one of the co-founders, he became Shiseido's Global Creative Director for a few years. So very, very grounded in beauty. It's recession proof, and it's a nice to have. You don't actually need to buy beauty products to have a really fulfilling life, but it makes you happy. It's a way of artistic expression. And so it's really fascinating, I think, just coming from my background in food and bev, going into beauty, there are so many similarities and also, you know, obviously a ton of differences. But back to vision really quick though, I think a lot of companies try to create vision by committee. And that just doesn't work. And you've been in situations where you're all just kind of huddled around a deck or you go into a two day working session and you say, "Okay, what do consumers want? But what also helps us make money?" And like, it could be that. And then what happens is that there's typically not a very strong creative point of view. So you start to look at brands that do, and they end up being brands in niche categories, founder-led, clear point of view. And then what happens is that many companies kind of look at that as a playbook. So that's why for a while, every new brand we saw was sans serif and had pastel colors. And so, as a founder, the question becomes well, you are going to have other companies try to be a fast follow or copycat your idea, your vision. So, how do you continue to evolve it in a way that doesn't lose the core ethos of what your brand was and what it was founded on? And those consumers who have been very loyal to you since the beginning, But how do you get the permission to evolve in a way that allows you to continue to lead the field?

Phillip

Well, and that sort of bridges back into your cutting edge where I think you came out of innovation. So understanding who maybe has that eye for vision, who has that eye for innovation, and sort of can see the future. And you said to me many years ago, seeing around the next corner. I loved that. I feel like that's not like a new thing, but I think being able to see around the next corner is what a founder typically has been able to do, seeing somebody who was able to see what was coming and they built and manifested that in the world. And that's what brought them to the point of being able to have some sort of successful exit, brought them to that point saying, "Okay, we're going to take it to the next level. And I love that is saying that an exit to PE is actually not really an exit. It's like, "Okay, it's taking a leap forward to accelerate the business so that there's something beyond that," because PE is sort of like a gateway to the next exit. That's how you're thinking of it. Right? You're setting it up to the next the next stage.

Orchid

Yeah. Sure. Absolutely. And I think what's unique about &vest is that, you know, not only are we partners, we're operating partners as well. So we're actually embedded in the companies that we're working with. And it's a really fascinating dynamic where you have equity in the company. And so technically, the brands are working with you as you're the owner, but also you're there to help serve them and set them up for success. So it's a really fascinating dynamic. I don't know if it's just recency bias, but ever since I made the job change a lot of people have said, have approached me and they're like, "Hey, I've considered doing something like this as the next stage of my career because I felt like I've built onto my expertise over time. And now, I would love to work in a fractional CMO, fractional CFO capacity within a company in order to genuinely help them." And I think, too, at our age, there are certain tracks where as you progress, you kind of get out of the weeds. You're not an executive operator anymore. You're just kind of in people management. And so I found that my happy place is really still understanding the details of the work and executionally what needs to happen in order to bring the strategy to life. And I think that that's especially true when you have any kind of digital capability because... And I heard this years ago, but the average shelf life of a digital skill is roughly eighteen months. I would say it's probably even shorter now.

Phillip

Yeah. It's getting shorter every day too.

Orchid

It's gotta be. I think, based on what I've seen, I think it's three to six months. I think if you are not, you know, inside the platforms, knowing how much the platforms change, especially when they change without telling you, I think you have to be hands on keyboard, maybe not to do the full execution, but to be dangerous enough to know that whatever you're recommending as the strategy moving forward is actually possible.

Phillip

I had a bit of a existential crisis a couple years ago. I was in commerce...

Orchid

We have one every year. {laughter}

Phillip

Stop. I mean, yeah. {laughter}

Orchid

And so we call each other. {laughter}

Phillip

But this particular one that I was going to talk about was twenty years I've been in sort of the ecommerce industry in some way. Right? And I was a software developer for about half of it. And to me, there was the sort of the retail experience side of being in ecommerce. I was always in like vertically integrated businesses. So I knew how the entirety of the business worked. And for those who aren't familiar, like, the vertically integrated business means that business did literally everything. Manage their own supply chain, source their own materials, manufacture their own products literally in-house, and then fulfilled them. Right? And that means we manage all of our own channels too. I knew the marketing people. I knew the supply chain people. I knew the people who managed paid search. I knew the people who created the catalogs. I was literally, I was the people who made the print catalog and the website, so I knew how the whole business worked. And I felt like as ecommerce grew and as the demands and the scale of ecommerce grew over time, the role of what ecommerce meant in the ecosystem slowly shifted further and further up the demand funnel. And now ecommerce somehow weirdly means meta ad buying.

Orchid

{laughter}

Phillip

And that's all it means. You're in ecommerce only if you are a Shopify app developer or you're a meta ad buyer. That's what it means. And it's weirdly relegated to those two things. And only those two things. And I feel like we're poor for that. And I'm lamenting a little bit, but I'm also feeling like I really feel strongly that very few people have the whole context of how the entirety of a business works these days. And that to me, that scares me a little bit. I also wonder if I'm just a dinosaur. But, like, there's very few people understand how the entirety of a business works. They've never seen the whole of a business. And I feel like we would be so much richer if people just could walk in and see how the whole of the business works. For instance, I have the great fortune of knowing a lot of business owners. And last week, I went to, there's a guy locally who, a team who was on Shark Tank a couple years ago, called the Boarderie. Boarderie.com, and they're killing it. Started as cheese boards and charcuterie, and they're scaling to lots of different things now.

Orchid

Did you have them at your house? You had them at your house.

Phillip

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Orchid

Yeah. That was so good.

Phillip

They're unbelievable.

Orchid

It was just such a great charcuterie board.

Phillip

Like, 200 plus dollar AOV. They're, like, killing it.

Orchid

They deserve every penny. It's delicious. I don't know what their margin is because it's, like, very high quality.

Phillip

It's bonkers.

Orchid

Is it? Ugh.

Phillip

It's bonkers. Yeah. And they've scaled down to, like, 40,000 square foot. Like, they're doing an unbelievable build out right now, and they're growing to every category. They're focusing, like, maniacally on EBITDA. And they're they're phenomenal business people.

Orchid

I'm surprised their margin so good? Because if they're shipping, refrigerated shipping and especially at that weight is insane. It's insane.

Phillip

Unbelievable. I think they're just very, very, very good at sourcing incredible suppliers, striking phenomenal deals. Their employment is incredible employment. They know how to really work. They've got a great system for employment. They take advantage of every single employment opportunity available to them. They've really got the whole system down.

Orchid

That's impressive.

Phillip

They understand how to run the business. It's not just about the ad buying. They know how to run the business. And so their options and their optionality for an exit are plenteous. All of their options to them are open, and they know that. And that to me is like, walk around their facility and I tour their facility, I'm like, "Oh, no, no, they have a million options available to them." So they're exploring all these options. For instance, they're asking about, well, I don't want to blow up their spot. They're talking about all kinds of really good opportunities...

Orchid

No charcuterie trade secrets.

Phillip

Right. They're talking about all these things that there's like I don't think any stone is left unturned as to all of the things that they could do in the future. And I think like they're not beholden to anything like technology wise or anything because they have no preconceived notions of what you do in this ecommerce ecosystem. For them, it's all about business efficiency, margin efficiency, driving EBITDA. And that is not how a lot of people approach this ecosystem. And I think that that's refreshing, actually, to be honest with you.

Orchid

I mean, two things can be true. You can be a dinosaur, and you can believe that ecom has become synonymous with ad buying. Yeah. I'm right there with you. I think I'll do you one better. Ecommerce has been synonymous with DTC.

Phillip

That's true.

Orchid

If you're an omnichannel brand, ecommerce as an umbrella, you have your brand.com, but you also have your retailer.com. You have your Amazon. You have your TikTok shops. There is just... Ecommerce is so much broader. And exactly to your point, you know, you're not going to optimize your meta spend to business health. You're actually like, whatever your ROAS is on the meta side is a function of how healthy the rest of your business is. Do you have your COGS in check? Is your shipping efficient? That's why it's like with ordering, I'm like, wow, refrigerated consumables as an overall category is hard without a retailer distribution and to do that at scale through ecom and shipping is bonkers. So they must be incredibly disciplined business people in order to understand all aspects of it. Because when a brand says, "Hey, my breakeven ROAS is like a 1:9," let's say, I'm like, "Okay, well, you know, it can actually be lower if you got your COGS under control, if you had like better shipping contracts, negotiated rates, your 3PL, you have better..." I've seen a lot of contract structures of 3PLs where I'm like, "Oh, that's not a good structure. You're never going to make any money here."

Phillip

Right.

Orchid

And then I think just understanding your business to your point of AOV $200, that obviously impacts CAC. And "Oh, can I charge a pricing premium here? What is someone's propensity to spend?" And I'm sure with Boarderie too, they've probably... And I don't know much about this company beyond having it at your house. It was delicious. They probably made the choice in...

Phillip

We should have one on the show. Yeah.

Orchid

Okay. Great. I was like, I could hold one up, and that would be great. So, I mean, part of it is they probably made a decision on corporate events versus individual consumers. Fulfilling large POs or selling eaches you kinda go from there.

Phillip

I told them I was really...

Orchid

Super easy.

Phillip

I know. When I talked to them two years ago, before they launched DTC, before they went on Shark Tank, I said, "I don't know, it's brutal. DTC meta ads sounds awful. I think that that's a terrible business. Maybe you should go after corp dev." And they were like, "I don't know." And then, you know, didn't listen to me, and now they have a great business. So I'm really glad they didn't listen to me. {laughter} And I tell them that every day. I was like, "Thank God you didn't listen to me."

Orchid

Yeah. That's alright. They probably tell that story, too.

Phillip

They probably do. Yeah. But we're friendly. But here's what I think it comes down to is, you know, I think being able to... I said all that to say, a lot of folks, I think, discount the whole of being able to see the whole of the business as an operation and not just your individual. I hear the word operator a lot. And I think that the operator of it all is really just understanding there's one role player in a business, but I think that the whole of the business is really a full operating entity. And I think that we're seeing less and less vertical integration these days. And so, yeah, I'm curious what you see in the PE side as what you sense as valuable and what you're seeing in sort of deal flow or what you think that the industry is going to see and what the PE industry is going to see a lot of in deal flow and what might be more valuable. Because I sense that there's a lot of businesses that will probably be looking for more exits in the coming years, especially within the tariff environment and we're going to be seeing a lot of... There's going to a lot of pain to come, I assume. And there's going be lot of people looking for the exit door. And I have to wonder that that a lot of businesses that have a lot of fractional ownership of their business where a lot of it's just been kit of parts that aren't really, they don't really own much. Right? There's things that have just been sort of cobbled together. It's a brand, but in reality, it's a lot of fractional ownership of things. It's IP at most and everything else is sort of like rented labor and rented factories and facilities and everything could go away overnight and they really don't have much. So I'm curious what you think is valuable these days.

Orchid

Yeah. It's really interesting being outside the walls of PE and staring in, you're like, "Oh, I'm sure there's some kind of magic sauce here in what they identify as something that is high potential." And then when you get on the other side, it's not rocket science. It's, again, it's business fundamentals. So we know that growth is harder to find these days. Obviously, we've said this a million times, but the days of Warby Parker are over getting cheap CPMs on meta and all that fun stuff. We've been saying this for years. And so when you're looking at... And a lot of it is just looking at the business's PnL and saying, Okay, over time, has your CAC really skyrocketed? Or is it actually consistent and you're still growing at a good clip? Is your AOV increasing? Okay, of this category, what does LTV actually look like? Because I think it's unfair to expect high LTVs from a category where there's just no switching costs. So if your LTV is not great, but your customer acquisition is super efficient and you continue to grow that way, great. Okay. Well, in an omnichannel environment, are you getting more contracts? Are you getting within the contracts, retailer contracts that you do have, are they giving you more doors? Are they giving you more shelf space? Those are all really good indicators that there's really good consumer acceptance of those products within that space. What's interesting, I think, coming from a very dot com centric world is the changing role of dot com. So a lot of businesses that we're looking at are omnichannel. And even in my previous experience in talking to various companies, they're like, "Okay, well, what is the role of dot com considering it's not going to be your growth driver anymore?"

Phillip

Right.

Orchid

I think we're seeing Amazon as a huge growth driver for a lot of businesses. And candidly, selling your product on Amazon is a lot less heartache than it is operating your dot com.

Phillip

Yeah.

Orchid

I can speak from experience, and so the question becomes in order to avoid channel conflict, well, a) do you think channel conflict is an issue or do you not? Meaning, okay, I'm selling one product on, let's say, Sephora for $20. I'm selling it on my website for $20 but Sephora is going to have their mid summer sale. So is that a problem that I'm going to have it at a higher cost on my site or at a lower cost? If I have a lower cost on my site, then the retailer, are they going to be mad at me? Is the assortment the same? Is the assortment different? Does the consumer have a reason to actually come to my brand dot com when actually Sephora's loyalty program is much stronger and much more compelling, especially in a category where people are fairly brand agnostic, right? You're going to buy your blush from one company. You're going to buy your eyeshadow from another. You're not necessarily going to buy soup to nuts, like your entire makeup bag of products from one particular brand. So in that case, then what is the expectation of dot com? Are you happy if dot com is just stable as long as it doesn't decline? Does that just mean your expectation is for a 10% growth rate rather than 30%? And so, a lot of what we look at in the financials is, yes, you're staring at someone's PnL and you're trying to analyze it based on saying what are the decisions they're making? Do we believe that the assumptions that they're making over the course of the next three to five years actually hold up against the current business environment, against the known knowns? And then to your point about vertical integration and just like knowing the total business, yeah, product mix is really important. So, is 70% of your revenue from your core products and you're getting 30% from newness and from product innovation? Okay, is that actually growing over time? Does that mean that your core portfolio is actually a little weak and that means that you have to focus on new innovation? Are you developing new innovation in a very data driven way so that you know it's going to hit or you know it's not going to hit? Or are you just trying to take a lot of shots on goal and say like, "Hey, I'm going to launch like 10 new products this next year. I think only three of them are going to hit. But if they hit, this is how much that franchise is going to be." And so, I've never been like a finance person, but it's really fun to just look into a company's PnL, especially with their forecast over the next three years and start to see where they're making key assumptions about the business and whether or not you agree with it.

Phillip

Okay. That's a great pivot because what does the next three years look like given how in the world would you even forecast the next three years given all of the current environment? There's not a lot of certainty. How are you doing deals right now? Because I think every other week, it's tariff this, tariff that.

Orchid

Yeah. I think it's really hard to break through that noise because one week, it's like, "Oh, we're doing tariffs." And like the next day, it's like, "No, we're not doing tariffs." It's like, "Oh, we're doing tariffs in thirty days." So it's like, yeah, of course, in that environment, I think it's not certain what the next three to five years are going to look like. And I think this is the same thing as working out. For people to have better health.

Phillip

No, it's exactly the same way. Yeah. Yeah. Keep going.

Orchid

Yeah, yeah. It's like for you to be in good health, you need to eat whole foods or watch your calories...

Phillip

Mhmm.

Orchid

And then also work out. Right? Or even the entire narrative around losing weight. At the end of the day, you need to be at a calorie deficit. You got to like burn more calories than you intake. People don't like to hear that. It is boring. And, you know, it's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." They're like, "But what about Ozempic?" "Okay, not Ozempic?" "Okay, what about this other thing?" "What about creatine?" "What about just eating a lot of protein?" It's like we're trying to do all of these things to get away from the fact that like if you want to lose weight, you need to be at a calorie deficit. And in order to be in good health, you have to move your body. And I think that that's the same thing with what we're going to see in business, is that everybody wants to look to a different thing. So that's why a lot of the conversation has been like TikTok Shops, affiliates. Okay. Well, the financials of affiliates, you have to watch it very closely. Otherwise, you're going to go upside down on it.

Phillip

Right.

Orchid

You have to decide if that's going be a marketing expense or if you're actually, you know, expecting revenue from there. And so my TLDR for the next three years, it goes back to business fundamentals. And I think that you just have to be so diligent about every dollar in and every dollar out and run your business in order to maximize EBITDA. If you get to a point where you have too much cash on hand and you want to reinvest in the business, then reinvest in the business. I think what happens a lot of times is that companies, when they start to build up a bit of cash, they're like, "Oh, well, who knows about a rainy day? I'm okay." "Oh, what can we reinvest in the business?" "Oh, okay. No, no, no, no. I really like to have cash on hand." And so, the end of the day, it's you make the business choices that are right for your brand, your category, and what your overall goal is. A lot of people, they like to have lifestyle businesses. I don't really understand it. Seems cool. But that's their goal, so I'll leave you with one story. I was at this I forget which winery I was at in Napa. And I was with a couple of girlfriends and we're just going around and wine tasting, and they said, "Oh, well, we have this one bottle, and it sells out every year." And I'm annoying, okay? So I was like, "Well, have you considered maximizing production? That to me clearly tells me that the demand is there. You could be producing..." And they're like, "No. We're actually just really happy with selling out every year." I was like, "Oh, okay." I just had never considered that as a response before, you know?

Phillip

Just, you know, like, no. We're totally happy just selling out. That's totally fine.

Orchid

Yeah. And I was like, "But you have all this excess demand. You're not servicing it." And they're like, "Yeah."

Phillip

So with the way that the economy, there's a lot of uncertainty. And I think that's...

Orchid

Has there ever been certainty, though?

Phillip

I think that's a fair question. Has there been certainty? I don't know that there's been certainty. I think there's been sort of directionality, maybe. I think that there's not a lot of... There's not a lot of clear directionality. I think a lot of people assume and maybe falsely assume that the point of the presidency was to grow the economy.

Orchid

Oh, yeah. Well...

Phillip

And that seems to not be the point at the moment. It seems to be the point at the moment to impose some austerity measure. And that seems to be causing a lot of people to scratch their heads. And to me, I feel like that's a really interesting turn of events because I don't think we've seen that in my lifetime. And so that seems like a challenging market to invest in. And it seems like a challenging market to build a business in. And I think it's a challenging market, especially in retail to have to accomplish marketing in. So I think that that intellectually, that's an interesting environment for us to have to navigate. I think a lot of people are going to find that it's a very frustrating time. But I think intellectually, it's an interesting environment. I don't think we've ever had this before. I think that's interesting. I think a lot of people are probably...

Orchid

{laughter} Well, that's what Twitter is for.

Phillip

Yeah. {laughter}

Orchid

But, yeah, I mean, I would argue that a lot of things that are happening now have been happening for a long time. They're just being accelerated. So as an example, erosion of the middle class, the bifurcation of the economy between, you know, the rich are getting richer, the poor continue to be poor, and that middle class just continues to go away. So I think the presidency now, yeah, there are a lot of people who, you know, maybe supported the current presidency, who they're not getting what they thought they were going to get. I would argue we're getting exactly what, you know, a lot of us thought we were going to get. Which was that the rich are going to continue to get richer. The tax breaks are going to go to the rich. The erosion of public programs and public funding. And so, I think if we were to bring it to the very unpassionate world of business, then, yeah, if your target audience are people who consider you a luxury and will only buy you so often, they're going to vote differently with their dollars. So I think we see that with handbags quite a bit, the luxury handbag market. Where it's like, hey, you have like the Chanels of the world, their quality's gone down. A lot of their styles, and this is my opinion, but like a lot of their styles just don't look premium anymore. So people are going to go to like the counterfeit market. They're going to buy vintage goods. That's a trend that we're seeing time and again where things were made better. So I think part of it is these things were always happening. I just think the current environment is exacerbating and accelerating a lot of it.

Phillip

What else are we looking at on the TikTok trend side? What's kinda caught your fancy?

Orchid

{laughter} Skinny talk. So Skinny talk is just a bunch of hot, skinny girls telling other people how to be hot and skinny, but they like will neg you, right? So they do it in terms of instead of like empowering motivation, they will just criticize you. So like as someone who grew up in an Asian household, this is very familiar to me. So this is maybe why it like resonates so much. But as an example, skinny talk has a couple of sayings. So they'll say like, "Well, why are you treating yourself? Are you a dog?" They'll say, "Do you want a snack or do you want to be a snack?" They'll say, "I would sugarcoat this, but you would eat that too." "They're already talking about you behind your back. Don't make it bigger." And then a classic is "Eat small, be small, eat big, be big." And so this is obviously incredibly controversial because skinny talk also exists on a spectrum. You have some influencers who are very much about capitalism and like over consumption in America is something that, and I'm paraphrasing, driven by big food who just wants us to ingest more calories. And they've created breakfast, even though it's not a real meal. And just because it's that time on the calendar doesn't mean you need to eat. So there are some people who are there who are saying, "Hey, I'm actually helping you understand what proper portion size is." So a proper portion size for steak is four ounces. When was the last time you saw a four ounce steak on the menu at any restaurant? It's like 16 ounces, 32 ounces, like whatever it right?

Phillip

Sure.

Orchid

So that's one thing. It's like, "Hey, you need to move your body. You need to walk 10,000 to 15,000 steps a day. Go ahead and like eat clean. You should have a more balanced meal. You don't have to eat when you're hungry. Don't eat just because the clock says so." So that's one side. The other side is obviously incredibly toxic, right? And a lot of it is very questionable because it becomes, okay, you as the receiver of this content, can you take it for what it's worth and make the decisions that are right for yourself? Or are you someone who's going to take it too far? Are you, you know, a younger girl with like body image issues and this is just making it worse? And so, skinny talk has just like absolutely captured my attention because of the discourse around it, right? This decision... Because like there are some... It's kind of like how a broken clock is right twice a day. There are some things where I was like, "Oh, that actually like makes a lot of sense." And then there were others where I was like, "Oh, I don't know. Who knows how the algorithm is serving this up to someone?"

Phillip

Sure. I don't even know how you got there. I feel like that's not far off from what I caught in my algorithm recently, which was, I think it's Russian propaganda, which is...

Orchid

Which means it probably is.

Phillip

Which means it probably yeah. If it smells like Russian propaganda...

Orchid

{laughter} Right.

Phillip

It was, "Why is it that all the girls in Moscow are really hot?" And it was, like, basically, it was...

Orchid

Because they're driving skinny talk.

Phillip

Exactly.

Orchid

It's a Venn diagram.

Phillip

Scene after scene. It was scene after scene of basically, "Why is it that women in Moscow..." Basically, they're of a different breed. And then the comments are filled with people like, "Well, they're an oppressed people, and this is their only way that they can possibly escape their oppression is to marry a Russian oligarch." And I'm thinking like, there's something very strange happening. One, how did I get on this side of of the algorithm?

Orchid

That's a question.

Phillip

The other thing is there's a lot of cope happening on both sides of this conversation. {laughter}

Orchid

Yeah. It actually the Russian propaganda actually reminds me of when everybody went to Rednote for, like, two minutes.

Phillip

Yeah.

Orchid

Do you remember that? So a lot of the Chinese users were saying, "Welcome American" sort of thing.

Phillip

Yeah.

Orchid

And then Americans were saying, "Hey, I'm American roast me."

Phillip

Yes.

Orchid

And one of my favorite roasts, I still think of it. I probably think about it every other day. I used to think about it every day, but now I think about it every other day. Someone was like, "Hey, I have American roast me." And one of the Chinese users was like, "Why do Americans eat like your healthcare is free?" I was like, "Oh, no." Or they said things like, "Oh, is it true. We thought maybe it was just like Chinese propaganda against The US, but do you have to pay for your ambulance?" And we're like, "Oh, no. That's true." {laughter} You started this recording with like, "I don't know where we're going with this." Me neither. That's the fun of this.

Phillip

I like that. Just the analysis of, you know, the use of social media to like shape not just attention, but shape the way I think people think en masse. I did the code switch. Dang it.

Orchid

Bona fides. {laughter}

Phillip

Bona fides. But the way that we're sort of thinking in groups, I think we've come around to, I think, recognizing that that happens. I think we understand that that happens. I think maybe we're okay with it is the thing that's scary. I think we're...

Orchid

Oh yeah.

Phillip

I think we're okay with the fact that we're being shaped in the way that we think and we're okay with that now.

Orchid

Yeah.

Phillip

Gen Xers probably aren't okay with it. Everyone else is.

Orchid

Well, I mean, I think it comes out in a lot of ways. Right? It's like, you know, I sprinted to the comments. Right? And I think it's always interesting to run to the comments and understand what's happening because some people will say, "Oh, this is so interesting, but I have no one to talk to about this." Or, "Hey, consider me influenced."

Phillip

Wow.

Orchid

So when I see those things, that to me signals that we know exactly what's happening. And I make the joke too, which every funny joke has a bit of truth to it, is that, yeah, TikTok probably has all my data. But if it makes my algorithm better and gives me things that I like and spikes a little dopamine hit, like, yeah, you can read my texts. Also, I'm a 42 year old woman and a mom of two. You're going to find out that I'm organizing a play date? Like, I don't have anything juicy in my texts anyway.

Phillip

I think a lot of people too who have been, you know, really concerned about Siri listening to them for years have all just figured out that Siri was actually listening to them for years.

Orchid

Yeah. 100%. Yeah. People were saying goodbye to their Chinese spies when, like, TikTok was shutting down. You know? Or they make jokes about like, "Oh, for the FBI agent watching me, this is just a joke." So there's a part of it that, to me signals this acquiescence to the surveillance state or that in order for an algorithm to work really well, it needs a large amount of data.

Phillip

Yeah.

Orchid

But I tend to be a cynic. So take that for what it's worth. {laughter}

Phillip

Something that hits a little close to home, as we're kind of like bringing it back to the world that I live in, right, in the world that maybe you've come out of in your prior career. We have given our data to so many places. But we are jacked into the matrix. For instance, we shipped the Lore books to lots of folks in preorders, and hundreds of these books just went out. And I had people emailing and texting, I got dozens of emails and texts all at one time saying, "Oh my gosh. I'm so excited." And I was like, "Why did I get these all at one time?" Well, the Shop app sent everybody a notification that it shipped. Right? So I was thinking to myself, that's really interesting that everybody.... Just the realization to me is that everybody that I know, everybody has given all of their information. They basically opened their Gmail. We all have just allowed Shopify to just read our email. They're just jacked into everything that we do. They can just read our email. That's no big deal. That's fine. I'm sure Toby and Harley are doing great things with that. There's nothing wrong with fine.

Orchid

It's totally fine. Well, what's funny about that is that there are complaints sometimes that the message isn't even personalized enough.

Phillip

Yeah. I know. Right. I want this to be even more personalized. You need to know me more.

Orchid

This was your standard form email. What about the thing that I was looking at? Like, I want to get... You know what I bought. So if I bought a top, why don't you send me an email with three pants or different out outfits featuring the top that I can style with in order to jack up my LTV.

Phillip

That's, I mean...

Orchid

No consumer says that to be fair.

Phillip

Yeah. That's true.

Orchid

This consumer says it. But other consumers do not.

Phillip

But if they did, we'd be...

Orchid

That's what they would say.

Phillip

That's exactly how they would say it. That's what they want. All right. Well, I feel like we've had a really shockingly wide ranging discussion.

Orchid

Not that shocking. It's the two of us in a conversation.

Phillip

If we had to pull out some Heros and Villains this week, I feel like we have a lot to choose from. But before we do, I'll give you a second to think about it. We're going to hit it one more time, for those at home. We have the book of the year. This is our new journal. It's called Lore. We spun some Lore, you and me, in our day, Orchid. We have some lore between us, and you can have some lore of your own. Go get it today, FutureCommerce.com/Lore. $75 ships to 200 countries. That is if your country really allows it.

Orchid

There are 200 countries?

Phillip

There's over 200 countries. They do not allow this book. We figured it out. They do not allow this book in Qatar.

Orchid

Oh, okay.

Phillip

It's not allowed. We found out the hard way.

Orchid

Interesting.

Phillip

But most countries do allow it, and we do ship it same day that you order it. But the next shipment of books will be shipping April when we get the second edition in. So get your copy, FutureCommerce.com/Lore, and we'll see you at Shoptalk. Alright. Let's do Heros and Villains. Hero of the Week.

Orchid

Hero of the Week. White Lotus. White Lotus.

Phillip

Oh, wow. Give me why.

Orchid

So White Lotus and all of the brand collabs they've been doing, authorized and unauthorized. So Merit actually featured one of the actresses, I forget which one, who's on White Lotus right now in one of their paid TikToks. So I thought it was really interesting because I was like, "Oh, okay. Well, it's not like tied to White Lotus." But obviously, when the cast was announced, they reached out to the actress who was going to be in it and then released this TikTok around the time that there was like, this person was going to be everywhere anyway. So I thought that was cool. Tombolo, I don't know if you're familiar with them, but they sell like kind of like these short sleeve, like button downs for beach. So they actually had quite a few like the wardrobe stylist for White Lotus pulled a few of their designs for the show. So they've been putting that into ads. They've been putting it in emails. I don't know if they knew they were going to be featured on the show, but I think that they've done quite a nice job in telling everybody. It's like, "Oh, okay, this is the show." It's really funny. So, it's a white shirt that one of the characters is wearing and it has like alligators on it. So, the name of the print is Reptile Dysfunction. So apparently, it was apparently, it's sold out and now it's on preorder again. So I really love that for them. So winner of the week, White Lotus, obviously generating a lot of buzz and conversation and analysis of the different episodes, which I think is a point in the column for having episodic content that only releases once a week. And then all of the brand partners who have really leaned into their brands being featured on the show.

Phillip

Oh, god. Okay. I'll take that. Hero of the Week, you know, in that case, I will say the Hero of the Week... I was going to pull something from the show. You gave me license to go a little further abroad. I saw this meme, which somebody posted... I'll have to link it up here in the show notes. And it was somebody who posted a a custom T shirt that said, "I got severed at Claire's." And it made me think about a universe in which you could get just like you get piercings today at Claire's in the mall, you might be able to get this Severance procedure done at Claire's in the mall.

Orchid

I have a question. Yeah. Is this your innie or the is this your outie?

Phillip

Oh, this is definitely my innie.

Orchid

Oh, okay. {laughter}

Phillip

Yeah. This person right here is doomed to podcast every day for the rest of his life.

Orchid

What do you think your outie is doing?

Phillip

God. He's living his best life. He's not having to do this for the rest of his life. I had no idea what I was signing up for ten years ago.

Orchid

That's fair. Alright. Cool. That's like a fun exercise. And then, you know, I'm sure that turns into a therapy session when you ask people what their innie or outie is doing.

Phillip

{laughter} My outie enjoys long walks on the beach. So and then Villain of the Week, Orchid. Who's the Villain of the Week?

Orchid

Pepsi. Pepsi is the Villain of the Week for buying Poppy for $1,700,000,000.

Phillip

Billion dollars.

Orchid

Billion dollars.

Phillip

What's your take on that story? What's the take on Poppi, and what's your take on Pepsi's sort of acquisition of it? What do they do with it?

Orchid

Oh my gosh. I have so many thoughts. So I think with Poppi, it's interesting because people don't realize that this packaging is actually part of their rebranding. So it's actually very similar to the Halo Top story where before, it seemed very crunchy granola packaging versus doing new branding that is a little more I almost said pop, but a little more fun, a little more colorful. And so Poppi, I think this speaks to the fact that branding and comms and marketing will really turn a brand around. I know that's, like, really obvious, but I think it's just really interesting to see that. And it's, I don't know if it's technically part of the category of permissible indulgence. Actually I think it's lower calorie than that. When you look at a Poppi, the entire premise is that it's good for your health, gut health. And it's also tastes like a soda. And it's like, what is it, like 20 to 50 calories or something like.

Phillip

Yeah.

Orchid

So I think that's still even when America was on this like health bent, people still... That's why Halo Top succeeded too. It succeeded under the entirely same premise. It was like, "Oh, you you can eat an entire container for the same calories as like a cup of another ice cream." Yeah, people are just going to be able to eat more. So I think permissible indulgence is alive and well. So I think Poppi did a great job with their rebranding and their overall positioning. They're speaking to like the basest consumer wants and needs. And then Pepsi will probably... They probably saw it. They probably saw a healthy underlying business model. And they probably said like, "Hey, by nature of us getting this into convenience stores, more grocery, expanding doors at grocery, this gets us an incremental X of like this type of brand." They're probably looking I mean, they're probably looking at the product formulation and they're going to say, "Okay, how can we negotiate better rates just based on our size and are there other ingredients that we're already sourcing from various manufacturers and or farmers ever? And how can we get a better rate on it?" So, they're probably looking at expanding distribution and decreasing cost of ingredients. It's a very typical playbook. But I will say large companies are not in the business of turnaround. So when they make an acquisition like this, it's not because they believe in the brand and the overall and things like the business model needs fixing. They'll probably get some cost efficiencies around that by saying, "Oh, there's probably redundant workforce. Our internal brand name or whatever..." Obviously, I have not never worked at Pepsi. I'm just kind of making wild guesses. This is just a joke. I don't know what you're supposed to say to not get sued. This is just my personal opinion of imagining what could be going on behind the scenes.

Phillip

Got it. There was a Twitter thread. This is always my perennial issue is still being on X.

Orchid

Yeah. I can't believe you're on there.

Phillip

Andrew Rimlinger did mention that there was a $300,000,000 net loss on Poppi's books, and then the 1.7 or 1.65 billion dollar acquisition sort of could potentially be, there's like a step up basis and like a tax benefit to that loss to Pepsi.

Orchid

Yeah.

Phillip

So I learned something in this process. It's something called Section 338 H10, which is something I didn't know because I'm not in finance.

Orchid

That's so fun.

Phillip

Future tax benefits and 300,000,000 in future tax write off in an acquisition.

Orchid

It's just numbers in an Excel spreadsheet.

Phillip

So interesting. Villain. Villain. Oh, interesting. Interesting. I think taking a brand and rolling it up that folds into our prediction this year of the age of agglomeration. I think that's where we're heading. Villain of the Week. Okay. So Villain of the Week for me, and I think this is going to be...

Orchid

...from White Lotus. I'm just kidding.

Phillip

I'm a little bit behind, so don't ruin it for me. I think it's going to be tough for me because it's sort of falling apart. The well, obviously, Forever 21 is declaring bankruptcy. All all Forever 21 stores are closing. Also, Dollar General is closing 100 plus locations, including a bunch of their pop store locations, which is a very far departure from their proposed December 6 opening of 545 stores. So I think the Villain of the Week is this new economic policy and tariff policies that seem to be, I don't know, it seems to be changing a lot of things. But I think on the positive side, if it shuts down our overconsumption and cheap goods that are creating a lot of trash in our world that we just dispose of, maybe that's a good thing. So silver lining question mark. But I don't like when the problems disproportionately affect people in lower and middle incomes. And I think that to me is those people always lose. And that is systemically in our society. That seems to be always the problem.

Orchid

So Temporarily 21?

Phillip

{laughter} Okay.

Orchid

Forever 21 also hasn't been relevant in the environment of Zara and H&M. Zara and H&M have been doing such a better job

Phillip

That's true.

Orchid

At just their value proposition and their overall styling. So, like, I would say Forever 21 might be hiding behind tariffs and new economic policy, but they haven't done a really good job in staying relevant.

Phillip

Been true for a long time. Well, they had the partnership with Shein for returns as well. I feel like they were...

Orchid

Why, though? Why do you? This is the problem. So we have a Lululemon pop up shop in our little, like, downtown area. And it's been a pop up for a year. And they're like... Well, I won't get into. Yeah. I'll stop myself. So but they've opened it up to return. And so people are still going to order online because there's a larger assortment. The sizing is better. They probably want to try things on in their own home, and then they just use that location as returns. So like you tell me, it just doesn't even make sense to me. Maybe you're saving money on like shipping and postage back and forth and like helping the consumer experience. You also have to have like retail associates who are well versed enough in order to save the sale or save the return and actually have someone convert on something else. I'm really sorry. My brain is entirely broken. It is all capitalism right here.

Phillip

I love it. Orchid, the hero in my eyes is you. Thank you for coming on this week in Brian's absence.

Orchid

Maybe the heros are the friends we made along the way.

Phillip

I love that. Where can we follow you on TikTok to get all the...

Orchid

Don't follow me on TikTok. I mean, you could. It's @OrchidBert.

Phillip

Great work.

Orchid

Have a 3,000,000 view TikTok where I made fun of Balenciaga's new shoes. The problem with that strategy is that I will never get anything free from brands if I keep making fun of them. So I need to rethink this strategy.

Phillip

We'll just launch a new one where you praise brands, and we have a very short half life of memory these days.

Orchid

Hashtag or, like, @BrandChill.

Phillip

I love that. I love that for you.

Orchid

Great.

Phillip

When you launch that, we'll promote that too.

Orchid

Okay. Sounds good.

Phillip

We'll link it down in the YouTube. Alright. Thank you for watching. And if this conversation sparked anything for you, want to speak back to us, we'd love for you to drop us a line at [email protected]. Also, like and subscribe and follow us wherever you get podcasts and hit the bell icon below. It helps you to follow this conversation. It helps more people find our channel. And if you want to bring Future Commerce into your world, check out our print shop at FutureCommerce.com, where you can find commerce and culture in your world with beautifully crafted journals and prints and zines and other collectibles. And remember, commerce shapes the future because commerce is culture, and we'll see you next time on Future Commerce.