Kelly Tutors… returnnnsssssss!! One year later, Ecommerce-Immersion!
Topics: ECommerce, Marketing Online, Sales, Networking, Sustainable Foods, Shipping, Logistics, Returns, Regenerative Trend, Microinfluencers, Authenticity, Networking
Wowww. I’m surprising myself with this one. Why? Uh… hahahaha. Cause I’m returning to an event. One year later. This event I attended the last time, and it was back in the days when I didn’t take good notes. I just remember one speech by a girl who worked for a photoshop company was super great (and so was her WARDROBE! hahaha). So… I think this year we’ll have even MORE significant takeaways. :)
Why Attend: This is the future, baby! Online retail. It’s already here. ECommerce is commerce, right? Eew. I’m so sick of the internet, huh? It’s good to have balance. I miss malls, reality. But… for now, the internet is a place too - and a place people shop, read blogs, etc etc. So, let’s learn how the world is monetizing it… and I am SURE this info (especially if I take good notes this time) will be useful in the future, as all of these businesses blossom and the world continues to innovate and be great!!! One thing at a time, gotta keep believing, keep working hard, and keep fighting for the future you want to see. Let’s go!
Overall Event Review: Venue (2/5), Food (3/5), Speaker Content (4/5), Networking (5/5), Likeliness to Return (4/5)
Photo Collage and Commentary:
NOTES FROM THE EVENT
— ( thsi first speech was so great btw)
Psychology + Ai to Market better
Nobel-prize winning concepts in behavioral economics:
- People buy on emotion 1 , then rationalize with logic.
SYSTEM 1:
Emotional, impulsive, automatic, effortless
System 2:
Rational, analytic, deliberative, effortful
In 95% of life, we think irrationally, emotionally… think about your Facebook and different ads like this.
When you’re building your website and more, sometimes people want to spend more cause they feel it’s worth more.
Choice architecture - he has some book he recommends with a big elephant pushing a small elenpant with his trunk, and it is a famous book.
You can recheck newsletter updates and you’ll see 50% better rates for your score
Idk what he’s talking about.
WOW amazing ideas here:
ADVERTISING IS NOT ABOUT CREATING DESIRE, ITS ABOUT CHANNELING EXISTING DESIRE OF YOUR CUSTOMERS THROUGH YOUR PRODUCT.
5 stages of awareness:
Unaware: I’m not even thinking about this problem
I got the rest on a picture hahha - you can see below -
DURING THE QUESTIONS - I’ll ask him to go back to that slide so I can take a pic.
Breakthrough advertising is an amazing book that will change your life - he says.
-Lower CPM due to higher relevance.
Ai Agents- they built ones trained on these novel concepts. And tehy do what your mind never did. The first stage is building a customer profile.
It tackles your persuasion triggers, how to talk to the customers, emotional-driven and then rational justification.
THIS GUY has amazing PPTS that now I get why my late business partner used to take pics of every slide sometime.
The motivation and instant click rate goes up when you have novel and (idk - it’s so hard to understand his accent! Haha so a lot of this idk what he’s saying and he talks so fast).
If you’re communicating something on Facebook, you need to make sure your website has that info, too.
-Go through and figure out the objections that your brand may get. It’s insanely helpful.
-To wrap it up, tehy buit more than this. .
-It has a whole understanding for your brand. It’ll compare your revenue to your competitors and figure out whats working. Facebook isn’t working, then do this… it has a full understanding of your brand. It can replicate whatever your marketing team is doing -b ut better.
- WOW. I think of how much money is spent on marketing teams attending these events. I wonder if they take his advice or just let that slide under the rug.
You don’t need more ads, you need smarter ads.
-Youdon’t need a/b testing, just a well thought out ad.
-Now he offers the first five people to scan this get a free audit from him - SO SMART!!
I asked him to go back to this slide, and then lots of pics took picture off of it.
-It’s not the same if your user is completely unaware of the problem they have. If they’re aware of the problem and not aware of the solution.
He said very good question - thanks.
I said this is so much to learn, so much customization.
-Terrible ads. There is so much threshold with ai. Peopel jsut using the first prompt that came to their mind. You can define things the smart way.
Suggest you to visit our booth.
I was totally his hype woman hahah. No one had questions and I even followed up just saying this was really mind blowing and its surper surprising how much Ai can solve and it’s super competitive.
NEXT they talk about the supply chain. Sustainable Supply Chain.
-This hostess is great - she has a lot of enthusiasm but it works. They picked a good hostess.
It’s funny how everyone went to sit down.
This supply chain conversation shoudl be super interesting for me!!! How I am so obsessed with an incoming amazon competitor. Right? Teddy holdings with flexport, right? hahahah. I’m your superfan.
There is a lot of balance and nuance.
Let’s talk about how to deliver on speed, costs, and sustainability.
Now everyone can introduce themselves - their work, and one thing they do in the name of sustainability -
Okay this does make me laugh outlaid - cause I love the truth of it, but I hate the commercialism and keywords nad test of using the right words to make a crowd clap. So I feel like we can hear that
One guy works on not filling up
One guy works for importing food from all over hte world - “it’s been a fun six months.”
20 years ago he wonders what is sustainability, its adding carbon rates, all those other things that keep coming up, so that’s what I spend my time doing
Lol totally
OH yeah the blue angels are here overhead being so loud hahaha
Everyone on stage is looking at the headshot pictures of themselves and distracted by hte screen
This lady focuses on packing - plastic film, plastics… inbound to fulfillment centers, and then item packaging
Oh yeah, I never thought of that that
She wants to get rid of that and reduce plastics.
The next guy says she’s awesome.
This next guy works for a company that sells furniture online. ITs a company I hear some strange things about so I”m not sure what I think of this. But, let’s har.
How do you ensure products reach costumers without and damages or defects. Then when the customer says, I thought I would like this rug, I don’t liek the color anymore, - it’s a e-commerce effort. How do you take it back all the way though the supply chain sustainable and have it not end up oin a landfuill. How do you share it back in a better way. That’s in a nutshell waht his team dow.
Now the next guy talks super fast, direct to consumer online meat marketplace. Connect consumers with sustainably oourced small farms tied to regenerative… packaging, if you wanna get into the most challenging when it comes to delivering… try delivering frozen cold chain.
My mission is to avoid sytorofm coolers. We’re not doing that. We’re focus on doing things better, faster cheaper, maintaining sustainability. H
The big rub there is its expensive
- when margins start to erode, order volumes are down. What sustainability features can we cut to save some money?
Its a constant fight to manage this and maintain sustainability
I love the diversity of the challenges on this channel
If you could make one bold change in your supply chain, what woful that be? Other than no styrofoam coolers, let’s start with you.
Standsars in rating hte conditions of resell. Consumers can adopt if its open box or never used returns. It just as good as new. And just industry wide, category wide.
Hnext guy: um, technology and tech integration, oto college data nad present it in a way for better understanding and triangulation of information.
What keeps me up is human rights due diligence, and supply chains overseas
These audits don’t catch anything
It could help college data in teh ways with the assurance that everyone really wants
- idk what is he taiking about?
The next lady wants curb-side recyclable packaging. The first thing we can do to make sure you’re just reducing excess packing and capture more air than you need. A ny sorta extra packaging.
For him, how do you take some of these returns back? Quality… this is a big problem, right? Our billion dollar industries with a 2-5% return rate. It is substantial on an economic standpoint.
The re-commerce side is an afterthought.
So how do you keep the customer in mind
Perishables, the hot thing used to be to regionalize. Make a hug. I used to work for imperfect produce, became imperfect foods. While it was compelling, teh biggest defect in a cold chain, especially frozen is the middle and final mile of your fulfillment center.
I’d blow up the regional hub and spoke model, and love to have micro… where ei can deliver you a frozen box within 24 hours, packed.
Small partial carriers in the USA continue to erode your service. Partial carriers in Q4 are going to be a disaster in OTD, bank on that
So focus on leveraging quality partnerships around 3K and have a proprietary delivery system attached to microepsties and control it from front to back, that would be my ultimate dream.
Sustainability goals… how is it that you advocate for these and these kinds of settings. How do you handle these conversations internally and the independence you have on these suppliers.
-I’m wondering how they can feed everyone and even have peopel here for free!! See - prices are crazy, sometimes thing are free, sometimes not. They musthave a good business model. I’m getting distracted but thinking about how not many people are here, so many are browsing, and then I was given a free ticket. So,
The last guy who jsut spoke I totally missed.
Now, the drive for sustainable compliance is held by the customers. It may suprirse you that Walmart has interested in these things. They drank the collate hard and thats why I have job. The regenerative team. They want to leverage what they’re doing and teach the suppliers to comply. Often a differentiation between CSR, retailers, and procurement ppl.
The NGO can continue to add more and more and more, but if they’re not talking to procurement people…
He said he’s trying to influence the NGO community. You need procurement peopel there.
You can add all these things
Part of way I do what I do… we have these definitions we want for sustainability here in Seattle. It’s not the same in Indonesia or vietnam. Those communities battle just as much s Seattle matters
Idk what is he talking about. Whats his job? Sustainability for this company. Hm. It’s just kinda random and I notice we always help the furthest away people as much as our local. So he’s just thinking global.
Okay - she said she wants to protect product that was made to go on a shelf. Espeicalyl liquids have solutions. There may be upfront costs to do a total redesign. How about the liquid tide detergent that they were able to get into a paper box. ITs insane. We dotn’ need to go to that level, but maybe… what percentage of your business is eccommerce versus on teh shelf. Can you create packaging that can fly through the warehouse, maybe not even need the warehouse.
Almost the containerization of (idk)
- When you think of all the efficiency that doesn’t need extra (idk) bagging, bubble racing, neatly stacked fnd forklift. Easy to stack is easiest to pick
They can pick it up, or hte robots can. The global guy nods his head
This is an extra project we gotta do and it’s expensive.
One of fate things I”ve realized mostly thinking about e-commerce in general… when you talk about sustainability, there’s a nice ring to it. There’s a slogan line companies portray and have. But when you go and talk the same contract with your suppliers, it’s a different story.
-The suppliers care more about cost - especially the past 5 years, more than sustainability. So how do you communicate hte same message around sustainability - but more from a cost perspective.
-One thing we do, when you think of the price.. there are a lot of things baked into it.
Oh - this talk now is introducing the speakers for the rest of hte day! Hahahah thats so funny. Its smart!!! Right?
This is super clever for everyone. It lets you talk a bit on stage, everyone gets to know you? (but oh wait. no its not)
-The customers want a deeper connection to their food, tehy care about where it comes from, how it was raised. Really want grass-fed over corn, things like that. That translates to our packaging being a marketing expense. More than a supply cost. We’ve convinced ourselves that if we used styrofoam, our customers would fire us. It’s a good place to be… we used a green sytrofoam that is compostable. You spray it with a hose and it descrinigratsse.
There is a video from our founder that he eats it. To prove to customers where that lies.
I’m not sure abou thtat one…. make me think of how they said human hair is in most of the USA’s bread.
Customers don’t recycle cause it’s hard, or they dont’ know what to do - so there’s a lot of packing out there that might ne recyclable, but customers don’t know that. They don’t’ market around it. They dont know what to do with it.
9/10 it ends up in the garbage anyway.
I wanna ask them if they know what percent of recycling gets shipped overseas.
Flavoring packing and allowing customers to eat it sis novel. He laughs and evetony looks a bit awkward on stage and they move on.
It’s interesting to think about how things decompose from an environmental impact. Where have you reduced packaging nad waste but it dint get sacrificed in the customer experience. Do you have some stories around successful reimagine of packing?
On the resell, e-commerce side, there isn’t a need to have fancy packaging. Just working with customers, like her, just make it as small las possible. But it still arrives undamaged. But, definitely have that focus to mitigate costs, waste, and materials.
The next guy: no examples, when I started I said all these things matter, and I didnt even mention packaging. iTs not that we’re not donogit, its just about whats risen to the top of the list. Walmart has you kneeing to report on all packing, we ‘ve been setting goals. Now these extended producer responsibility programs
Those are going to move the needle. In a year I’ll have an example but not today
Just look at some products and think if it can ship in its own packagae.
-SO many people around me aren’t paying attention. But acutalyl a decent amount are. IT’s like 55/45 I’d say. 55% listening.
-Stand on a chair and hold the product up ion its packaging about 6 feet. If it can survive all 6 sides of the product, theoretically it can get banned around in teh back of the semi and it shoudl be fine.
We went through and asked if we can test it and see if it can survive on its own packaging, info, what can we do
survive. eeks. just makes me thinking of shipping live animals and stuff and how proably a lot of stuff breaks. it sone thing when its broken stuff - but the word “survive here” makes you think of live animals. and its like omg sad! right? how you can order bees (randomly i was learning about like making your own honey from home and you. canhave bees even in the city, but oyu need liek 25 feet without other houses around or something. So then you need t. legit own a penthouse or sometihng. But my studnet was telling me that peopel aroudn him have their own beehives at their houses and even one pfo them GAVE HIM HONEY. so sweet - lterally haha.. so he has a jar of honey from their roof… so yeah i was wodnering if i co. ld do the same. since all the bees have left my apartment after i was gone for too long one weekend and wasn’t able to water stuff - and then they all stopped being able to use my balcony for themselves anymore.
Next guy talks One - from
We ship big, bulky furniture, we need to make sure it has no damages. As effective as styprofam is effective, how do you reduce all the consumption non styrofoam there.
Can’t except the coffee table to be shipped with styrofoam. But there are certain places you could push for opportuntiy to do packaging. Without sacrificing the customer experience. We’ve moved away from this for certain classes where we think
… distracted. How do you train this _ omg wait - I’m realizing it’s 12:00 now. I intentionally didn’t get a hold of this schedule - buttttt… I bet lunch is soon :) - oh wait, no I can see the schedule at the top of their PPT and its says this talk is 30 minutes more. Hahah omg. It’s just a bit of a dull talk. Just so much talk about plastic, etc.
The largest item in their box is dry ice, unfortunately. In a perfect world he’d just send it with no drip ice in a box, perfectly frozen.
Reduce transit times.
3 years ago, they were shipping to Arizona from Portland. 25-35 pounds of dry ice for a 3 day transit. But now from California shipping into LA in 6 Horus. Then from LA hot shot into Phoenix. One day transit.
Dry ice went from 20-30 to 10.
As we continue to evolve, speed to customers is what matters to us
Then the small martial carriers, within 30 minutes that truck is in a dock, things are getting broken apart and into sources
When our internal ones, we skip UPS.
California is a 2 days transit to NM. I put them on the final mix truck, its one day transit.. From LA to NM. The first day of transit was in a -10 frozen trailer. Dry ice will still stumble me in -10 in a box… those things are compelling to us. Speed to customer matters to us. When we stat matching out oiur fulfillment footprint, the middle mile costs being debates as well as … idk… help fund additional footprints in teh micropriocess
Okay now they’re going to talk about carbon returns
Can I just say some of these questions are so dull and like - idk is the theme of this year “climate”? Or are they just on this topic? Oh yeah thats the topic: sustainable supply chain.
Well, it feels like 1 hour of the same things. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s just like waht are you guys talking about - this obvious stuff. It just seems tehy’re talking about nothing sorta. Liek its liek the same things over and over and who does this even apply to. It’s just like a therapy session where they talk about wanting less plastic.
HAHHA and ir Elize every time this one guy speaks I zone put cause now this next guy talks- if we stat a 50k foot level, it starts with reeducating the consumer. A lot ofpepoel think fresh is better than frozen. Especialyl sustainability and another perspective. There has been too much conversation bout food models. If you container ship from Vietnam from Seattle, that’s ike driving it from Seattle to Portland. Why that matters is because it’s about enabling, um, the econoinies in teh communities around the world. We can’t focus here nd think that’s the carbon solution. IT’s about fixing hte problem among the supply chain. The cost we have to figure it out, but… waht I think is really interesetein in 20 years, waht started as an environmental conversation, thats the least important. If you don’t include it - carbon is going to be something that most governments are going to try and manage appropriately. The cost will have to balance itself out one way or anoyhtniger.
Human rights due diligence matters more than mangrove forests. People matter more.
What??? I mean yes but what or idk what’s he talking about?
It’s obvious from the brand perspective.
Return logistics are tough…
Consider your entire lifecycle of that product. The products you’re packgin. Is it returnable, can I reuse the pacagkign if its apparel
- so true!! Cute and smart
- can they creuse it to do the return. If not, or they have to toss it, we give you a new one - it’s unfortunate. But then what can they do with that package.
MOST IMPORTNAT THING WE CAN BE TECAHING KIDS TOO< hahah I can ask that. Like think creatively.
How do I produce some of these returns na products that were imperfect and not going into landfills. How do we reduce the carbon footprint. Touching on the force lying around not being things to landfills, there are a variety of of things that companies can do.
OH but I told know actually they’re the speakers cause a lady sitting next to me gives off vibes like she’s speakeing later. IDK
This venue is so terribl for stuff like this btw. The sound is so bad and the vibe is so weird. IDK what would be good at this space. Butits jsut not been good every time I came here. Maybe only two times but the last time I came here it was not great and yeah…I just think it’s infomrmatl. It’d be EPIC for improv!!! Hahah it’d be EPIC for improv.
How do I optimize our supply chain?
Are there any changes I can do? Is there more consolidation for these products?
We’re perishable, we don’t have a return program. It’s a horrifying place to be. Farming is hard, for a farmer to raise a cow, in its life… we take the cow, we process the cow, process it into CPG, pick package, ship it, and then it delivers and then our customer throws it in the garbage.
That’s the most horrifying from our human behavior and how we operate as far as it comes to sustainability
“thats the most horrifying from our human behavior as far as sustaianbiltiy?” Are you guys horrifying other ways? with your cows?? just felt like a strong word and then specific ending…
Let’s eliminate the defects in our carriers. How do we transport? Our gap is the middle mile, these trucke aren’t always full. How do we find partners going from Washington to Seattle. We started doing 3PL for other companies. We have 3 other companies under our name, and what that does is increase our volumon the trucks in the middle mile. The wost thing we can do is ship trucks around teh country half full. It just dones’twork.
-It’s very easy around trucking and transporation. I t’s hard to get hte best prices.
- W’ere partnership-oriented when we choose our carriers.
-Do tehy have electric trucks. The companies we utilize, is it in line with what we’re trying to caccomplish. Sometimes you need to work with asset based carriers. A brokerage will put it on some truck, so we workreally diligently to be hyper focused on teh carriers we choose and et them for hte core things that matter to us. The big gap is the middle mile. These opportunities we get better quarter after quarter but have a lot of work to do.
-We have a lot of diversity of products n this room. What’s an action businesses can take to make their businesses more sustainable?
-Star workign on your resell wear.
-I’d say hire a sustainability person if you ‘haven’t already. You need somebody who can just dedicate themselves to this. Um, and I woudl say be careful of assusmptions you make. For example one of the questions is why Ishoudl I be buying seafood from Vietnam or a place like that. We can have sustainable global supply chains. There are intersting stories how the sustainability dynamics can be worked out.
-Sustainabilt is a journey and it’s a long one. Nd its rewarding to go down that journey, there are marketable aspects of it
Audit the project. We see the product and packaging doesn’t get attention until finale is involved.
SO TRUEEEE FOLLOW THE MONEY
It starts with commitment and lack of sacrifice first and forth most. You have to commit and can’t sacrifice. You Las have to have somebody that is championing your core tenets. You’ll always have the CFO align about sustainable costs, and in my business, operators go with the trade and true and what they’re used to. Tehy’re never going to go out and seek sustainable packagininitatives unless oomeone makes them do it.
-Otherwise, you’re eventually just going to have a commitment to sustainability, but as you erode you’r phoning it in.
One sustainably myth you’d like to address
Ecommerce a long time, fist experience undersatindgn it all, refurbishment
I thought it meant you rebut things athat are like jumnk with one new part - but 90% its just an open box. Sent back.
All my kids presents for christmas were all refurbhished.
We live int eh land of wild seafood. Farm seafood isn’t autofmiacally bad. Lots of beuaitufl farms. Everything vain be produced really well, really portly. It’s a big myth to assume anything farmed is bad, anything plowed is good. Not true.
-A lot of big retailers don’t care about efficient or sustainable packaging. But they do.
-Tehy see the operational value less waste. Lean methodology. Coninunous efficiency. SUstainaiblt does hand in hand. When you can reuse and reduce things.
-I love how you said to audit, follow numbers -
You think the more packaging = more protection, the better? But um… not actually true. It’s almost..t hinkof packaging liek law of diminishing returns. A lot of it an help prevent -b ut then it quickly drops off after that point. Adding more things doesn’t necessarily help.
You gotta fix most of the time? The products being bad. The packaging can not be a coverup for the product.
If you r product is garbage there is only so much you can do about it.
He says, yes - farm raised is not all bad. Heck out the magic valley, tehy’re a trout farm. Read up on them and then that will validate exactly waht he said. Farm raised is not bad.
Second, pasture raised chicken. Just because a chicken has access to a sputter doesn’t mean it’s pasture raised. There are very few pasture raised and check out Paul’s operation - pastor bird. hE has some of the largest autonomous vehicle. Chicken houses on wheels. That move it 24 hours footprint on the pasteure. Holsds 20,000 per ship. They’re in a pasture their entire life. Versus those in a barn with pasture access and don’t leave.
Everyone laughs. Thank you. No follow ups.
QUESTIONS: FIRST GUY - thank you… so, as well all know the supply chain starts from a producer then through a cusiness, then ends with a customer. Mabe we talk about sustainability, could we talk about the importance of the customer being aware of the info about the sustainability… just like farm raised? Or the producer part of hte supply chain
If you’re Starbucks and order lots of beans from teh country… if you order a scale big enough to get any producer to implement your conditions on what is sustainable.
Do any of you have any situation of holding the producer or raw material service accountable to sustainability
He said thats why he spends his days doing - working directly with producers and processors. That’s what we do. The point we’y=ou’re raising is really important. I hinted at it earlier. We can put all these requirements as customers and consumers. There is a lot of investment on this side, not enough on the producers themselves. A very quick examples. The farm shrimp sector… 80% are small scale, 20% are btesaching hte markets. Barriers… fi you’ve ever seen coffee bags with faces of farmers, you could do that with shrimp. You need to find ways to reach the regular stores int he market.
So what? Put pictures of people/shrimp farmers on your bags? or the places?
W’ere different than CPT meat … we control a lot of our processes. We process full end. That dies into the admission of our consumers connected with small independent farms.
We vet the core tenants of those farms to make sure they check all the boxes awe are seeing. Both on the process on teh coasts.
But ding the pandemic, we started buying products that - theyneeded products to sell, like many people in our industry, we had a lot of demand to deliver to our door. We lost our story and then crawled back out of that hole.
We control the processing, visit hte farms, we know them. And make sure that they’re checking all the boxes in the ways that are important to us.
-As a lot of peopel know, 80% of textiles end up in landfills. Because of that some companies are trying to help. Some work with retailers and brands to recycle. The customer acne return the apparel to the brand or they can return what they didnt buy… so the customer get inventiveised to do this, not just cause its right but they get credit in loyalty, etc. Then tehy can spend $10 at hte reatailer… could you see am model like this to help incentives these hbehiavrs in education for cosuemrsre in other categories.
= He says - this happened at another campy he worked for in the startup and they had a downcycle facility. He had a good contact there. I woudl love to see something surrounding packing like we’re all talking about. If we can’t use styrofoam, there are companies that multiply and melt it into blocks and make inter round molding. But it’s expensive.
Lots of people workeignon this - big corporations are … idk - okay its almost lunch time
I think I may ask about educating the youth, job training - what is one thing you’d tell them? Or how do you see a lack of incoming workforce in your field? If you ahaven’t talked to a youth in a while like this, waht you dlyou tell your younger self.
Now they guys says - I’m sure its a mixture, bu what do you see as the most effective way sustainabilty is achieved between consumer led, brand led, or compliance led. What do you all see as the biggest pressure that moves the needle.
One guy says - brand led. Compliance can help but it can change. I think we’ve seen this recently. Things we thought was coming, changed and doesn’t come. It makes you weary of investment. BUtits never really been consumer driven in seafood. Many reasons forhtat. But it is brand lead.
Not consumer led in seafood? Hm. Right? Doesn’t the consumer pick waht to eat? Or no… the pi. k off of brand. I mean, I guess so? even if the seafood is bad? Idk - his is a crazy question once you start thinking it out ahaha. It’s like philsophy 101.
Peopel want it, its desirable , when you go into amazon, peopel have hte opportuntiy to click frustration free packing. They do. And ts a badge f honor to have that on there. I agree - but then it points back to the brand. S are you picking this signal up? Are you hearing them.
Maybe hate’s erupting up with the fact
- I like this girlsthoguth process
What are your misconceptions around teh cost
If you’re doing a good job of messaging that this is reusable. TO quickly touch not eh apparel. Quality of metals tends to get reused. Call things out.
This can be altered, The bottle can be reused. Start picking up on some of that and jsust relay back waht they want to hear.
Okay another round of applause for htem and now I bet it’s lunch. What a talk!!
No - hahah now it sa 15 minute speech. Then a 15 minute lunch break.
Now the peopel who just spoke shake hands and say they appreciate each other.
I’m totally not in the mood to hear this hahahaha.
- BuT THIS COMPANY WORKS WITH COMPANIES I LIKE!!! SO let’s hear from them. They got me. Hahahah I saw their partners and I think I like them. Some companies I have been keeping a close eye on! Hopefully can pich WtV to in the future.
These two girls are speaking and want to walk through how a customer increased their revenue in a month - but the girl being interviewed looks SO angry hahaha.
Okay - but now the brands they list Arne’ some of the ones that I was happy about. They’re all random.
All of these brands range from 9-399% in ROI.
We achieve results by inentifying their anonymous shoppers. To capture the marketing for shoppers already on your site.
Fashion boot brand you may have heard to. W’ere at asame price point, but fashion forward. Lean a little less into the traditional western space. So they have anew launch with a designer, a popcountry singer. They have different posters that wear their boots and rep their brands. Lol! Such a funny sell. But true!! Right you need too ind celebs to wear your shoes
Only 3% of your website visitors convert. And that’s trtjic… honestly - lol this girl is funny. One of them. Theater is super grumpy. I’ll be honest.
THat’s incredible and frustraitngonly 3% convert. Even less actually convert. So, waht can we do? How do we get more from what you’re already spending? T hat’s essentially where it comes in.
SO, with any generic ESP, you’re relying on their tracking mechonizs. . they rely on cookies for example.
Jane lands on the website, doesn’t purchase immediately.
She’s anonymous or idnetifitied. But you can only dietnifysomeoen for 24 hour if from safari or 7 days if from chrome.
You can look at what they’re doing - you a’c trigger flows because the tracking mechanism has been erased
Tehy apply in-house built tech to see who visits outside of the cookie expiring. We don’t use cookies, but we cover anything after the fact - to remarket your customers.
this is so niche i’m like what are you guys talking abou thahaha.
Try to up that 3% instead of sinking more money. If it feel like the only solution.
Now people right behind me, talking to the seafood guy who just spoke. It’s so distracting from this panel!
They’re just using more of whats already there. And so, I’ll pas it over to Chelsey. What your epxreince has been witnessing instant.
They are so loud. These seafood guys. So distravting from this second speech nowwww.
She joined in October and wanted to make sure they were optimized. They wanted to make sure their post purchase was triggering correctly, optimized to best ability.
We saw whenever we spend more… between 150-200k in paid ad spends, but it started to (idk what she said)
They stated to look around for different avenues to make their site convert better, before… idk?
It’s abouthte tech stack and building on the tech stack.
One girl jsut arrived so late and she is so fashionable hahahah. I’m like -g irl! You look great. Turns out she’s a professional influencer! And was going to the same event as me later.
One thing monitoring whenever launching a platform like this is spam and bounce rates. We did not see any real high snpam or bounce rates opt out. Click rats were higher.
The reason why you saw and were shcocked by this. We’r etriggering your existing shoppers, begin to reach other to them. They’re there browsing and you’re basically ignoringthm, it’s unfortunate, right?
LOL I like her presentatoin style (and told her this later). Il ike how she talks like you’re a friend.
Everyhting is in house. We never licensed a list. List buying isn’t a method in this. There a huge margin of error.
You can expect 20-30% incorrect data. But our profiles show GENUINE traffic and high thresholds of intent.
WOW They have a competition for $500 but you have to go meet and greet each company! I’ll do it.
They have ads on every platform. You never know where they’re going to be or come from. Making sure they’re able to talk to hem. Emial is our largest Chanel. It shoudl represent your business. If you can keep fedding that funnel, you’ll keep driving results.
These guys are still back there talking about seafood. Lol - you know the joke abouthow you can see your food and then you show your chewed up food with your mouth. Now it’s liek we can HEAR your TALK. SeA FOOD HEAR TALK. Okay? Go talk osmehwer else you rude people. Lol. But now they’re changing contact info - so let’s see.
They’re asking which is the best number to contact, doesn’t matter.
Luckily finally they’re done align they were loud hahaha. Distracting.
Make that logic smarter when you look at new customers versus pas customers, waht they’re purchasing and what browsers they’re coming back rom.
DUDE THEY ARE GOING LATE WITH THEIR SPEECH.
The ROI is quite substantion
Wow. They’re doing well. ROI is up to 37% for her. It’s a no brainer.
If you’re like, yes, we’re spending too much on ads - trying to up the ante just to get that 3% we’d love to chat further. We have a booth downstairs as soona s you enter. W’er eon your left. Come by and we can chat. Hopefully your brand can see. I WANT TO WIN THIS $500 GIFT CARD HAHAH I’ll try.
lunch was good and I talked to the first speakre.
the one who i asked to go back so i could take a picture. we had lunch together and talked about how he’s always traveling aroudn the world pithcing his company!
he was nice.
This is one of the best omens wear brands
They want to - idk what they do. Women’s outfits.
The main lady who was supposed to be here didn’t show up but made a video message to introuce this girl. Smart
97% of visitors end up captured. Even a tiny increase in late capture can dive meaningful results for the bottom line. People struggled to find the right items not he website. The purchase doesn’t always end on the website. YOu’re needed to nurture the customers till they come back
Now I realize I forgot to get all the stamps for my $500 attempt.
i may leave this speech early? or idk. now i’m like - omg. hahah i wanna. goget all these stamps before 3pm
(BUT GUES WHAT - THEY ENDED UP EXTENDING THE RULES TO GO TO 5PM…)
How do you improve the funnel?
Let me go to my existing vendors nad see if they can help me. It’s an davatnage for the emitting van.. idk waht she’s saying — her accent is super hard.
And her PPT is just like so many cartoons but it’s not really ufcte or pretty - seems immature. it’s so uninteresting to me/this audience, i’d guess?
What are you really trying to do? What is your goal? How can we help you? Then she comes more optimist- oaky I really dont know what she’s talking about . It’s an all in one marketing platform.
You dont need five tools
- you can have product, email, sms - you can reward loyal customers, better discounts. Analytics are better.
Everyone is speaking about data today. If you want to study customers, data is the customer data platform as teh cunner. You can collect the data on your customers and the system learns more as it comes back to you. Then it creates a virtual cycle. Peter emails, insight, and so on.
Now she plays the video of apples iphone annoucnement presentation and it’s super loud.
iPhone became a game changer for her. DO you remember rcaarrrin gate big phone and music player, separate player, GPS - all that you could fit in here. Backpack. Bigger. That’s more convenient. But everything on your phone like this, in real time? You are pmore productive. Similar with tools
Omg she holds up her phone ands has the most amazing glittery phone case hahah. I love it and now I want her phone case on my phone too!! Hahah - okay
- she said they help you understand your customer better and personalize. Thats the foundation for this.
Maestra for marketing is iPhone for your personal life.
This lady ’s speech is super hard to keep attention on. She wants to share some ideas (and i’m distracted by wanting to get more stamps)
97% of visitors (idk) hahah omg she’s hard to keep up with.
Right when someone visited the page, it has
idk - right? Idk - omg this is crazy.
It’s really a difficult prestnatoin to keep up with.
The reason it came to the website in teh first place. Some are repurchases that go into the pool in this place.
Content creator that enjoy the beach and sun. The marketing strategy is very different int he reason and the (idk)
Other things capture leads… smarter lead capture lead to 21% - 26% inceraes in submission rate
Omg submission rate!! Hahah waht af funny term. Geese. You submit. True
But they don’t give away discounts when they don’t have to.
Had a lot of amazing talks with all the companies. Now there is a panel
Now this group is talking about the power off authenticity and community in ecommerce marketing.
So there is a woman taking about how she loves used clothes and never would have admitted to it many years ago -
Hahah she sounds like my family!! Hahah for real
Truly being authentic can help you stretch your product offering in a unique way. Take a company that was making bear proof coolers and now you walk into their store an they’ve got dry bags, coffee mugs, that sense of being built for the wild. It allows flexibility to grow and scale beyond coolers
Content marketing, site optimization. They work lean and have a lot of people working on teams simultaneously. And she said it’s good for the book community.
She’s in many bookclubs, and loves to read - and realized that working for a book company, teh community of listeners is so pattionate. They use a lot of the topics and conversations that their listeners request
-smart
The return of hte real book has come back.
It has become a place for people to be passionate and learn about hte industry and what is coming.
This host, I enjoyed talking to him earlier - didnt even realize he’d be a host. He was funny.
When we talk about authenticity and community, if you remember the 1980’s there was an urban socialologist… we have a need as people to get together around shared ideas, finding new books, falling in love with used clothing.
loud
This work that we spend the majority of our time at home, at work - and then we need third places. Commuinties with shard passions and ideas. They foster their own third places as well.
I’ve seen magnificent things happen. These are destinations, not gas stations. I took a first date to a Bucky’s grand opening but it did not go well. You used to reroute your roadtrips to hit as many gas stations as you could. Tehy knew this, doubled down, and continues to invest.
2006 it was 200M, but now it’s ballooned to 2.3 B… its cause they keep opening up third places. Anytime I drive through Wisconsin. The company says the next one is 500 miles away. It’s bigger than a marketing campaign, marketing tactic. Business structure, broader business resilience that can be built out of it.
-Everyone represents their brands nad authentically talks about htecommutniy they’re a part of and building with in their companies.
We’ll open it up to anyone who wants to share. How does building authentic community influence your actual business model?
Invest Inyo your consumers, inn our case - runners. We have hte run site lab. To really understand running behaviors, why they run, where they shop - the personas and more
Today iw as taligjn about how running is escapism
Understand running trends, what’s hot, whats not. Activate among them. IT works with product development to get their run research team with product development.
The runner is int eh middle of all we do, all the departments surround him. Marketing he’s in the center. All the paid social, paid search, event marketing, retail marketing… all of that always surrounds the runner. Runner is first at brooks. It gourds us, if anyone has a debate - we always think on whats the right thing to improve the runner’s experience… to run further, run faster, socialize, or destress. At the end of the day, we have a great outcome.
+1 to all of that, says hte next lady. They sell a lot of skews. When I came to the brand 2 years ago, the company had been flattened, chapter 11 closed 100 stores. So how can you compete with these other companies? These things you sell are in all of the places. It is similar… thinking of understanding the core essence of the brand - it’s somebody who loves to cook. Values the kitchen more than any room in the house. Once you understand that, the person, teh commuting you live in… it makes all the other decisions easy.
-We don’t need to chase our competitors.
-These ladies on stage have amazing shoes btw.
-They use the commute andlistned to them. It has been incredibly helpful to reposition the agency, it came out with our first commercial, and speaks with that person. Not someone like William Sonoma.
I’m a huge foodie too, I’m a huge fan of you guys.
How many of you guys have heard of a trope, a romance trope.. we have a n active community is romance and romantasy… so we came up with the trope trove
Slow burn, morally grey, grumpy sunshine
Specific niche book designers in the community, design their trope. Then we did a mini tote and did a surprise launch into individual totes (I really don’t get what she’s talkijng about)
- but they had forbidden romance and it sold out
- dude evertyone is so lonely these days!!!!! ROMANTICALLY FOR SURRE hah
W’eve gotten requests for thriller, sci-fi, it’s been fun to see people respond
This room has horrible audio btw. I dont get this venue hahaha. It must be cheap or something. Cause it’s’ just not a great venue.
-With road community, what are your values? And then how does it all work together.
-We want to build jackets that grandkids fight over.
-If we branch into a marina base later, and expand into the market, we’ll make the product, but 10% thicker than everyone else on teh rat. SO you can tell it has guts to it. That’s what I woudl say. YOuhave to change, so change in a way that has some integrity and awareness for your customer and your community.
-It’s a juggling act this season. It’s our fiftiesh season.
-This event is a little laggy - but great! But they have a $500 giveaway at hte ned of this and I really want to win hahah. I want to win $500 today - that’d be amazing.
-A real world challenge is that any brand or corporation want to continue to grow and expand. That the proactive growth mindset - (this guy keeps rubbing his leg while he talks on stage hahah)”
We’ve decided we want to stay core to who we are, focus on performance run.
We believe there is uge opportuntiy aroudn the performance run
Internatopnially
We have no market share internationally - in china huge growth for this.
The performance run and all the benefits it gives
We can expand to mass appeal - with mass appeal.
You can still stick to performance run, but there is a lot of opportunities where we can start playing with the colors of the footwear, materials of footwear, versatile footwear. It’ll have massive appeal to the audience.
Tehy know brooks has the most comfortable fit there- good for anyone who wants to buy running shoes. 50% of buyers are non-runners.
They want a brand that is real and authentic to their core values. If we advertise as more of a lifetyl and update there colors nad materials, that’s the way to have mass appeal and stay true to who you are.
=Books are a commodity item - you can buy a copy anywhere nd it’s still the catcher in the rye.
-It’s more critical to think about the core audience. W’er growing into the younger audience. The bookish community, but if you have that passion for books. The channel, the voice. Facebook, memes, sentimental, finding those ways to really continue to let your audience know you know their preferred communication style with shared passions or the same thing. It’s so critical because it’s a book - it’s not unique to thrift books. It’s why they would come.
-What happens when stuff goes sideways. Product recalls? Fulfillment issues? Unhappy customers. Did we drop the ball?
-ITS SO HARD TO HEAR THEM haha. There is so much converation going on downstairs.
-Talk about atom you had a crisis and how people responded.
-A woman said, yeah.. had one of those. Not making this up, totally true… DC our distribution center is in Indiana. Our DC got flattened. Our DC supplies everything for online and storage. It flattened it. Roof came down. We have no way to get customers product.. Nothing. The first thing in the crisis conversation… we didnt know when they’re going to
We were digging peopel out of the building
Everyone was fine
No major einuusrt
How much of our product was damaged, trying tog et it back into all of that.
We couldn’t ship a single customer for 35 days. We had 1000-10,000 orders.
How do you keep all these customers? Instantly communicate and tell them what happened.
Gave them the opportunity to cancel, come back…
-Amazing fact.. no ta single person canceled their order - they were transparent. Then we choose to give them updates along the way.
-They also had to have the same problem at hte store level. T hey couldn’t’ fulfill what stores needed- being able to meet customers there, we had to be authentic and transparent. It won us customers.
-When we did come back online — we put a letter from teh CEO back to every customer. Gave them a coupon - but then people didnt want to use it and shopped anyway. The redemption rate was good.
If you treat people like grownups and talk to them authentically about whats going on, they’re going to be humans
- where you get into trouble is when you don’t.
One example, I hate to go back there, during covid. Unprescidented time, the could have been brands out there that woudl have been more conservative in how they interact with consumers. What they did is kinda want to understand how running an activity would increase or tay the same. Filed team. Gurus. Go to different running trails or routes. Parks to observe IRL how running activity was evolving and changing. People were running more, it was inferring. People wanted to get out of their house, release stress in a safe way. People online, what were they listening to, social activity. All wanting to go outside. An activity and sport they could truly just get out from everything going on.
-We… idk he talks so fast. I’m totally bored but I wanna stay incase I win $500 hahah. Then I have another event. Two more events.
-The book industry had a huge industry of people reading. We get out titles from libraries and goodwills, so we turned to our customers in that same honest ways, asking if you had any extra books - we’ll give you a gift card. Not any spcieifications. Bring in your books. That helps dot supplement our supply for hte short term while we figured out how to solve the challenges.
-The community was such a huge part of it. We were able to turn them around cause of hte donations from customers. Fun things to do at home. A unique moment of “help us” and it turned into a stronger relationship
That is so cute
He says he doesnt have tornadoes but one of the more tragic things is that our company went through a ton of tech transitions. We’re great at making clothes, not great at al theater stuff… how to run business, integrate systems… moving to Shopify… about to run an import of all transaction history… but one guy had it all ready to go - it was live.
-As all of these transactions were importaing, shipping notifications from orders years ago - they got ordres from years ago - so, that was a disaster. We caught it. That was good. And where we could have failed was not saying anything about it and sweeping it under the rug. Iinstead - we need to talk to them. We wrote some funny cop’y- we’re great at making clothes, we’re figuring out the rest of this stuff. IT’s okay your order didnt ship - here’s 10% off, go crazy.
-That honesty, we make mistakes - it happens. It’s kinda refreshing and earns you more trust from the customer.
-They ask if the audience has questions. I would -maybe but I kind dont even care about asking a question right now. Maybe I’m getting sleepy.
A question is: what role do influencers play?
We were talign about this, how influencers are important. Internal try to convey to people why influences are important.
Tehy’re the modern day news anchor
It’s how they find the news of whats cool, whats not.
They’re key to telling the story, getting word of mouth marketing out there.
-Make sure there is authenticity with the influencer, just like the community.
-Make sure we’re partnering with this company and can speak and connect with the audiences we already have in what we’re doing.
-There is a big swing with the pengilum… it used to be that big celebrities - whatever the touched, its gold.
-SO for a brand like ours, my inbox was flooded that with people who want to work with us - tell me your heritage story was through hus. It doesn’t matter how good of a cook you are, the community we represent woudl recognize that they weren’t authentic.
SO FREAKING TRUE!! SO SMART
Big brand shoot, co-op dollars.
We had al sit of all the chefs we shoudl work with… find one ..
Then we’re not doing the shoot!! But surprisingly they found a chef - Jett TEala, a little bit famous… come to find out he was a chef instructor here, met his wife there, HE FLEW UP ON HIS DIME, WITH HIS WIFE. He’ there, so hyped. He’s doing it all. The influencers are imoporant and a vital part of our business to build that brand and give you the reach. But you need to figure out fi they’re authentic to the brands and have the
-Content creators are so niche nad specific. What’s the extra community feel or discussion they bring to the books and the connection to the brand. The romance tropes, sci fi… micro/niche level.
-He’s like “I’m from Seattle, this is an iconic panel” - he’s liek OMG this is amazing. What would tickle me the most… I have a story for each of you, omg - this audience guy says. He’s so excited.
-He says he works for Seattle based company that have gone international. What advice woudl you give us? What helped you build national? International?
This guy is so funny, he’s talking about all the things he bought from these stores, etc. he’s geeking
What advice woudl you ive
He says he runs a clothing company - but he says you guys are all good at going national.
Its so loud downstairs and all the peopel feel like awkward about it
Advice: thanks for the compliments. Where do we start?
Brooks the philosophy is multiples strategy.
We dont’ care where they buy - our website, amazon, SRA, whatever… we don’t care where - we do care is that hey buy from us. Consistent messaging .
Separates us… we all believe in a multsales channel approach. It reduces any channel confidence. IT increases consistency in teh experience. We believe and appreciate our specially run shops
The shops local to community. Weekly run. Relationships with your pediatrist. The’yre so important. Runners go here cause they truly want not just a sales person, but a buddy to teach them what tehy need to start their first 5k. We have a better relationship with htem. We want them to understand brooks. We have a field team that helps hold Cliniques and ry on shoes. Once you have the relationship with the assiociates, the yrecommend the products to customers. It’s how we really started to expand. IF you’re successful at these SRA retail stores, national chains will follow. Your brand demand will increase to your website. Digital used to be an island - and then it became the peninsula. Now it’s the nations capital. It’s so important for our sales channel. Uilti channel approach.
Helps us gain momentum in the USA.
-Agree with it all, but I’d add that you need to think about your marketing funnel. IF you’re going to go through expansion and be middle or bottom, you’re not going to build customer loyalty. You won’t build brand awareness. That customer won’t be loyal to you - true
-Thats the hurdle in marketing. Suite wants everything trackable. So tehy want to understand you did things and have the effect. Think you’re working to grow what funnel. Then your customer is going to be loyal to you, know what you stand for. That is probably the thing I’d add on ontop of what Brian has said. IT’s contribersal, we’re going to eat our own dog food…. We’re going to do television ads in teh fall.
That was hard to add in.
-Three things come in mind, not al laround community: marketing mix is important. This year specifically we had a change in our paid marketing budget where hte last few years we’ve been devoting 60% of our budget to conversion. Now we flipped that.
-W’er justinvesting more money int he top of hte funnel to begin with . iT simoprtant and a subtle shift you’ll see over time.
-Second for us, Wilson specifically, it has a lot to do with the product offering. You can try to sell lemonade to someone in the Arcti or hot cocholate to someone in Florida.
-Your’e trine to sell warm rugged things, you look at where they are. TEHy don’t always need this crazy thick wooljacket. We started to become more palletable to the entire nation. Not just the microcosm of weather in the northwest.
-The third in communities. We put al to of effort into local retail events. Each store has wax and whiskey. A lot of their stuff gets impregnated with wax, it’s perfect for logging in teh northwest. You can relax it. We have vinyl turning, whiskey, and we’ll teach you how to fix your jacket. THey’ll bring their friends. They may hang out and wax it there to up your jacket.
Its fun to channel customers
It’s fun to host events, you’d be surprised how many new people show upogram is set up by tier. The higher up you o, the more f
-Invest in a strong loyalty program. Who don’t discount. Our loyalty adds to free books or whatever our customers are passionate about. Our peopel thik the more books is better. There is no limit to the amount you can get. Doing reserachon what elements aof a loyalty program they’re looking for hat spat them
-What else? What benefits can customers advocate for you?
-Focus on your consumer. Truly understand them. Spend the time to understand their behavior. Their why, create prersonas of them. Write down their problem.
-Talk to them, listen to them, understand your whales and minnows. But you need to be clear of who you are and what you stand for, then jump off of that.
-Last one- 30 seconds: whats hte one big idea: summarize the conversation, waht woudl it be?
Be authentic - be efficient? Scale? Yes- absolutely, but sometimes you need to do the extra work. If its not autnethic it’ll come through
There’s a lot of power in letting your customers define who you are as a brand. A lot of times you want to think you have this identify put together and you expect customers to respond and adapt. But there is a lot of power in just letting your customers voice - no, I’m a fan because of this reason _____
I think a ducktail to waht I said, is understanding hte power of “no” - and when you say “yes” it’s the right thing. BE true to who you are, what you stand for - and it’ll hel[ you guide all your decisionmaking
Deliver and have feedback to hear how it landed to feed forward
Know your consumer and understnadt then. That will give you the greenlight where to focus.
-It’s every day, build a community, be authentic. Every day you must show up - it’s got to be part of your culture to really show up.
Until next time, I wish you the motivation and success to search for opportunities around your area. Search and explore: Who is out there giving talks? There are new things happening all of the time.
Find relatable or interesting topics you like and check them out! Maybe even something hosted at a cool venue, if there’s no other reason to go. Let’s see what you can learn and discover not too far from home. 😊
