Parasocial Relationships Will Change Retail Forever

Welcome to Future Commerce Rewind, our summer series where we compare today's news against episodes from the archives. Today, we revisit our historic 300th episode from 2023, where we explored the future of commerce shopping experiences through parasocial relationships. We also cover how the chat interface, a UI prediction we made just a year ago, is influencing commerce today. Listen now!

Key takeaways:

• [00:02:07] Phillip: "In London, print reading is still a cultural staple and independent eyeglass retailers are thriving. It's a fascinating blend of old-world charm and modern retail innovation."
• [00:05:19] Phillip: "Imagine shopping with JFK Jr. as your style advisor – that's the future we're heading towards with parasocial relationships and AI."
• [00:24:51] Brian: "Livestream shopping in the West is a tough sell because our attention spans can't handle the mundane. But if you can make it entertaining, you've got a shot."
• [00:47:04] Phillip: "We're on the cusp of a new shopping experience where your favorite celebrity or even a virtual influencer can guide your purchases, creating a deeper, ongoing relationship."
• London maintains a strong print culture while simultaneously seeing a boom in independent eyeglass retailers, highlighting a unique intersection of old and new retail practices.
• AI-powered interactions with celebrity personas, like JFK Jr., are emerging as a new trend in shopping, blending entertainment with personalized recommendations.
• AI and parasocial relationships are creating more personalized shopping experiences, fostering deeper consumer connections with brands and influencers.

• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
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• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

We’re back exploring the intersection of technology, payments, and consumer behavior with guests Michaela Weber from BigCommerce and Sanjeev Gill from Stripe Live from VISIONS Summit: NYC. The conversation covers how modern ecommerce platforms and payment solutions are transforming the retail landscape. Join us to discuss the shift from traditional retail hours to 24/7 online shopping, the importance of seamless checkout experiences, and the role of personalization in driving consumer engagement. Listen now!

Key takeaways:

• [03:26] Mikaela Weber: "Shopping is everywhere. Shopping is 24/7."
• [07:10] Michaela Weber: "There's a monoculture in the sense that if we are from similar demographic groups, we probably see similar pushed ads."
• Consumers now shop anytime, anywhere, increasing the pressure on brands to be present across multiple channels.
• While algorithms create personalized experiences, there is still a collective aspect driven by shared demographics and interests.
• Technologies like AB testing in checkout experiences enable brands to optimize payment methods and enhance the user experience.

• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

These show notes were written at a time before LLMs were available to the public, if that's any indication of

In this episode from 2017, we covered:

• Lord and Taylor started selling on walmart.com with their own special homepage.
• Also, remember how Walmart acquired Bonobos and Modcloth? The world has changed, people.

• Walmart's upmarket aspirations clashed with the working-class market. Perhaps this is still true?
• Brian's unfailing optimism about the future of technology and the working class, with technology enabling efficiency and providing better products and better services.
• Robby Berman posits that AI will serve and make life better for humans, but only the top 1% of humans.
• A Princeton study on bias in bots explores how AI has the problematic ability to target people for committing potential crimes based off the bias and prejudice of the bot creators.

• Chris Gardner from Forrester predicts that automation will eliminate 9% of jobs in 2018.
• "These jobs are not low-end jobs, they're white-collar jobs being replaced."
• Brian is again optimistic: a whole new host of jobs will be created for creating and servicing AI.
• Reuters reported that a son used data to recreate his dad as a chatbot.

In this episode, we explore the dynamic interplay between traditional and new media with insights from retail analyst Heetha Herzog and culture writer Kate Lindsay live from VISIONS Summit: NYC. Moderated by Phillip, this conversation covers how media consumption shapes our reality, the influence of monocultural events, and the generational shifts in media platforms. We examine the evolving roles of traditional and new media, the impact of AI on marketing, and the rising significance of authenticity and community in consumer behavior. Listen now!

Key takeaways:

• [03:03] Kate Lindsay: "The barometer for when something has hit monoculture is when Twitter is just unusable if it's something you don't want to talk about."
• [05:00] Heetha Herzog: "There's a whole part of the population that still watches nightly news. They might be older, but they still consume that and watch it."
• [11:08] Phillip: "You also don't need someone's permission to post a TikTok, but there's still some prestige around the permission-gate kept media."
• [19:55] Kate Lindsay: "With tools like TikTok and Substack and Twitter, where you're seeing everyone talking at once, trends are really more what these gatekeepers pick up on and decide to elevate."
• Events like the Trump trial and Taylor Swift's album release dominate media, creating unavoidable online conversations.
• Younger generations gravitate towards platforms like TikTok, while older generations remain loyal to traditional media, indicating a shift in how content is consumed and trusted.
• The desire for luxury items and the rise of "dupe culture" reflect deeper psychological needs for identity and community, influencing consumer behavior.
• The prestige of traditional media is challenged by the authenticity of new media influencers, reshaping how trust is built and maintained in the digital age.

Links & Resources:

• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Live from the Retail Innovation Conference and Expo, feat. Dan Murphy, SVP of Marketing at Liquid Death

In this episode, Phillip has a conversation with Dan Murphy, SVP of Marketing at Liquid Death, at the Retail Innovation Conference and Expo back in June about how the Liquid Death team does more with less by infusing comedy and incredible creative and employing nontraditional marketers and nontraditional marketing techniques to get earned media in their business. Dan shares how this allows them to have massive impact with very little spend. He says any brand can do this. Listen now and let us know if you think he’s right…

Key takeaways:

• {00:04:46} - “if you're idling. You're inefficient. You're in the red line, you're burning the engine up, but actually that proper torque curve is somewhere a lot closer to red line than you think. And I think most organizations are kind of chugging along close to idle. So there's a bit of the, dare I say, chaos or intensity is probably the better word, that really helps us. It helps us go that extra 10% from the 90% idea to the thing that, like, "Oh, yeah. They're going to write about this.’" - Dan Murphy
• {00:13:16} - “Our litmus test for it to go out, again, our lane is comedy, did it make us laugh? If it makes us laugh, if it holds true to our brand values, our weird comedy, SNL world, we push it out…” - Dan Murphy
• {00:19:46} - “I've had a marketing career with a lot of major brands, and it's, "We'll just hire so and so celebrity," who is probably super saturated that does 100 deals. Pay a ton of money, expensive director, do all this stuff, it goes out, and the reality is it probably didn't move the needle with those millions of dollars. Meanwhile, 30 grand divided by a million equals a lot of different small bets.” - Dan Murphy
• {00:30:00} - “We view the people that are part of this brand and their time as precious. We don't waste it for a minute. Every email we send should be funny, laugh-out-loud funny. - Dan Murphy

• Learn more about Dan Murphy and Liquid Death
• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Recorded live at VISIONS Summit: NYC 2024, join Alicia Esposito for her sitdown with Seb Reetz, Bloomreach’s Solutions Consulting Lead of the Americas. They dive into the fascinating intersection of AI and art, exploring how AI is transforming both the creation and consumption of art discussing the ethical considerations, creative opportunities, and practical applications of AI in the artistic process. Seb shares insights from his current projects, including a thought-provoking video game that leverages AI for ideation and voice generation.

Key takeaways:

• AI tools aid in ideation and proof of concept, helping artists and writers like Seb generate and refine ideas.
• AI has the potential to revolutionize customer experience through personalized, cross-channel interactions.
• [00:30] Seb: "I sell AI on a day-to-day basis. I also am a writer for video games. So I definitely think about AI and the sort of ethics around it."
• [10:00] Seb: "AI is a really powerful tool to help with that. So again, I go back to the you're the air traffic controller as the marketer."

• Bloomreach
• 11 Labs
• Prague Arts Festival
• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Recorded live at VISIONS Summit: NYC 2024, join Paul Canetti as he sits down with Reggie James and Ruby Thelot. We explore the concept of being "too online" and whether the dichotomy between digital and physical worlds is still relevant. Ruby and Reggie share their thoughts on the cultural shifts driven by our online presence, the importance of physical spaces, and the impact of digital status-seeking on our everyday lives. Listen now!

Key takeaways:

• The line between digital and physical worlds is increasingly blurred. While there's a fascination with the physical realm, the digital world offers unparalleled opportunities for status and connection.
• The pursuit of online status can drive people to act differently in the physical world, often using public spaces as stages for digital content creation.
• As technology evolves, so do our cultural norms. The value of images and digital content is changing, prompting a re-evaluation of what we consider real or trustworthy.
• Looking ahead, there's potential for more personalized, artisanal digital experiences. This shift might move us away from mass-produced technology toward bespoke digital solutions.
• The future of software and digital experiences may lie in highly personalized, artisanal creations rather than scaled, mass-market solutions.
• [00:02:30] Reggie James: "We tend to hit these just accelerated, you know, Internet superhighway vibes mentally, and then you step outside and you realize, actually, the pace of this environment is significantly slower."
• [00:03:30] Ruby Thelot: "There is certainly this fascination that we now have for the physical realm. As soon as we're allowed to go online, suddenly we're like, oh, no, wait. It's gotta be analog or it's gotta be we wanna go back to the physical."
• [00:05:30] Reggie James: "Utilizing public space as a playground for digital status creates this weird, just using up of this previously shared social resource."
• [00:09:00] Ruby Thelot: "Once we are able to generate images that have the semblance of reality, the value socially of images erodes. We can think of it even in a judiciary context where we start to question the veracity of the images that are presented."
• [00:27:00] Paul Canetti: "It might be that when it's all said and done, there was this 50-ish year period of humanity where we spent a lot of effort creating these kinds of interfaces and these new ways to accomplish things. And then in the end, we'll come back to something that looks a lot like it did pre-computer.”

Links & Resources:

• Ruby Thelot's new book on design and beauty theory
• Nathan Jurgenson's essay "The IRL Fetish"
• Eugene Wei's insights on online status optimization
• Martin Guerre (movie) featuring Gérard Depardieu
• Maggie Appleton's discussions on home-cooked software
• William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement
• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube‍
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print‍
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!

Welcome to a special episode of Future Commerce, recorded live from the Outdoor Retailer conference held at the beautiful Tracy Aviary. In this episode, Brian sits down with industry leaders to discuss the future of omnichannel retail in the outdoor industry. Discover insights into enhancing the customer journey, reducing checkout friction, and optimizing operations to create seamless, memorable experiences for both B2B and B2C markets.

• [00:02:30] - Elcee Vargas: "The prevailing research right now is that 70% of carts are abandoned, which is an overwhelmingly large number."
• [00:07:00] - Jordan: "We do a ton of A/B testing to create the quickest checkout experience. Taking a 120-second checkout process down to 6 seconds makes a huge difference."
• [00:21:30] - Travis: "With payments being the lifeblood of your company, you can't disrupt the revenue coming in and where it's going."
• [00:36:00] - Ken: "The closer you are to the top of search results, the more opportunities you have to make sales. Shipping plays a huge part in this."
• [00:39:00] - Carl: "Making sure you've got something that feeds these different channels is crucial for scalability and success."
• Maintaining customer relationships during off-seasons helps keep the brand top-of-mind, ensuring readiness to purchase when the season returns.
• Ensuring that your technology stack is cohesive and scalable is essential for seamless operations across B2B and B2C channels.
• Automating processes and having real-time visibility into inventory and sales trends can help manage tax implications and optimize inventory management.
• Continual A/B testing and optimization of the customer experience, especially at checkout, can lead to significant improvements in efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Links & Resources:

• Learn more about Klaviyo, Stripe, Avalara, ShipStation, NetSuite, BigCommerce
• Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
• Check out Future Commerce+ for exclusive content and save on merch and print
• Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
• Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

Have any questions or comments about the show? Let us know on futurecommerce.com, or reach out to us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. We love hearing from our listeners!