Ecommerce Trends That Are Shaping The Future – Phillip Jackson (Future Commerce)

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About this episode:

In this episode, we talk to Phillip Jackson, a prolific publisher and co-founder of Future Commerce.

Phillip is well-know for his hair, but we were more interested in what’s underneath. He brings a unique perspective to the convergence of traditional retail and ecommerce and how this evolution will continue to shape the rest of the world around us.

We also talk about changes in consumer psychology and behaviors, and how savvy ecommerce leaders can use those as early indicators of challenges and opportunities on the horizon.

So, if you’re looking for something a little bit more cerebral and far-reaching than our usual conversations, but still packed with a lot of actionable takeaways, then this is the perfect episode for you.

Listen, and you’ll learn about:

1. The convergence of brick & mortar retail and ecommerce
2. The characteristics and mindset that make for resilient retail businesses
3. How new technology and changing consumer behaviors will impact your business
4. The importance of establishing and strengthening a customer-centric culture
5. Emerging trends that will change the way ecommerce businesses operate

Want to be a guest on our show? Have feedback or ideas for how we can improve? Send your thoughts over to podcast@thegood.com. We’ll be keeping an eye on that inbox. 🙂

The Ecommerce Insights Show is brought to you by The Good, a Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) consultancy specializing in helping ecommerce businesses accelerate their growth through better research, testing, and design. Learn more about our team, our work, and our services at www.thegood.com.

Episode transcript:

[00:00:52]Hey everyone. Welcome back to the show, I’m James Sowers. I’m your host and I’m joined today by Phillip Jackson. Phillip, thanks so much for taking time out of your day to join us here. And we’re going to talk about retail. We’re going to talk about e-commerce. We’re going to talk about the current situation and some stuff that we see on the horizon.

[00:01:05] So I’m really excited to talk about big picture trends with you. Maybe to kick things off, let’s hear kind of the elevator pitch of who you are and what you do, and maybe a project that’s got you excited right now.  

[00:01:14] Phillip Jackson: [00:01:14] Yeah sure. And thanks for having me, Phillip Jackson, I’m the chief commerce officer at something digital and the co-founder of a retail media research startup called future commerce.

[00:01:24] I’m a musician I’m known for my hair. I’ve got my hand in like 30 things. But that that’s like very modern, right James, like people aren’t defined by one thing anymore, but I do have. You know, one thing that sort of spans across everything was like passion for retail and a passion for commerce, because I have a thesis like commerce connects all people, even in primitive societies like commerce, the exchange of goods and services is the thing that we need in order to survive.

[00:01:50] It’s the thing that connects us. And so if that’s the case, I think it could be a powerful agent for world change. And I’m doing that in a few different fronts. Awesome. 

[00:01:58] James Sowers: [00:01:58] Yeah, a bit of a Renaissance man. And like I said, I don’t think you’re alone in that regard, especially now that we’re cooped up in our homes.

[00:02:04] We’re starting to explore more of our interests and hobbies with a little bit of extra time that we have. So yeah, no fault on you for having your hand in a few different pies. I like your point about. Commerce is the great connector. Basically. We’ve had it since the Dawn of time, as long as there’ve been people, if they’d been swapping things back and forth.

[00:02:19] And, you know, that reminds me of a quote. I saw recently from Webb Smith at 2:00 PM. And I’ve mentioned this on my interview with Chris and love France, but basically he took the quote from the movie, the social network, and he said, ditch, e-commerce just drop the E say commerce. That sounds cleaner. 

[00:02:32] And I think there’s some validity to that, right? Like the, the lines are getting blurry. Especially with everything going on between brick and mortar, retail and online shopping. And I just think that like, we do need to start just considering commerce at large as the way that people interact with one another in a commercial sense.

[00:02:48] And so like, I’m interested to hear your thoughts on that because our listenership is primarily e-commerce and DTC and some digitally native brands, but I think that might have to change and it goes both directions, right? Like you have digitally native brands going to brick and mortar and doing pop-up shops and retail footprints and stuff like that.

[00:03:04] And then you have the other direction too, where it’s like people who are traditionally brick and mortar, retail are going online because they have no other choice. They’ve lost their foot traffic, at least for the time being. So what are your thoughts on like that kind of blending, I guess, would be a good term to describe it?

[00:03:16] Yeah, 

[00:03:16] Phillip Jackson: [00:03:16] let’s tackle. So you kind of unpack a few things here. So a good portion of what we’ll talk about. I go into a much deeper detail on future commerce than I have to do the, I have to do the pitch. I’m sorry, but future commerce.fm is where we unpack a lot of this sort of in long form.

[00:03:30] We, we write essays, we publish research reports. There’s a new one right now. I feel like we’re in the era of DIY. If you want to read more about that, that it’s called the new DIY, but to unpack what you said, James, like one of our prevailing thoughts that we’ve been coming back to over and over for most of 2020 is this idea of a digital veneer is on top of everything that we do.

[00:03:54] In life now, the way that we connect socially, the way that we exchange goods and services, whether that’s in real life or it’s in the metaverse, whether it takes place online or offline, we interact in a digital capacity with everything . I don’t know if you’ve ever listened to 99% invisible, but design is all around us.

[00:04:12] Digital design powers, everything that we do and. Everything from your connected home to the content that you consume, everything is powered by algorithms these days. And so when I think about this idea of physical bleeding into digital, or this convergence of direct to consumer brands who are trying to be more like brick and mortar and legacy retailers or prestige brands that are trying to be more like direct to consumer brands, they’re all converging on one thing, which is into a connected world and the desire of the consumer to have.

[00:04:42] More availability and to have the ability to engage in commerce, wherever they are, in whatever context they happened to be in, actually wrote a piece about this. I think sums it up quite nicely. Have you ever seen the movie freaky Friday, James? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we keep Friday body swap movies, by the way are a thing there’s like 65 movies.

[00:05:02] That deal with  the concept of body swapping. And I wrote this piece back in, I believe may or June for future commerce. That was entitled freaky Friday. But if you haven’t seen the movie or one of the five versions of the movie, it’s the idea. The conceit is that a mom and daughter  sort of magically body swap and then they sort of have to live their lives.

[00:05:22] Out while pretending to be the other, but also trying to undo the situation that they found themselves in. I feel like we in March, body swapped digital commerce and physical commerce in March  the quarantines pushed a lot of people in an accelerated fashion to online out of the abundance of caution and safety or because of the era of coronavirus.

[00:05:42] And I feel like that physical and digital body swap actually revealed something that no one had really realized before, which is this idea that. The physical world is actually getting harder and harder, and the experiences are getting more and more complicated for you to have a good in-person retail interaction.

[00:06:00] If I go to the grocery store , I have a mask on cashier has a mask on that. We have a sheet of plexiglass between us. Nobody wants to touch each other. It’s like. I’m not allowed to getting a basket requires, you know, a bunch of safety gear and, you know, wiping things down. Whereas the digital interactions only getting better as a physical retail interactions were getting worse.

[00:06:18] Digital is getting better and those two have began to blend into each other. So I think that there’s this convergence happening on a bunch of levels. And I think, yeah, you can drop the E and just call it commerce, but there really is still a fundamental difference between what online commerce and offline commerce looks like though.

[00:06:35] The two are converging on each other. And that’s some high-minded stuff, but I think that it’s worth noting that there there’s a digital veneer on everything like from tap payments and contactless payments to last mile shipping Instacart or whatever delivery app you use. Like there’s a digital consideration piece to every physical purchase you make today.

[00:06:54] Full stop. 

[00:06:55] James Sowers: [00:06:55] Yeah. Even outside of the purchases you’re making, I mean, your resume has effectively been replaced by your LinkedIn profile, or it can be in some instances and you know, other areas where it’s like you used to go to the library and get a physical book, and now that’s either on a Kindle or an iPad, or it’s an audio book or it’s a podcast series or something, right.

[00:07:12] These things are taking different formats. And if you still love the smell of that traditional book and you want to keep it on your shelf, like I have a few behind me, you can still do that. But I think maybe the point that I’m hearing from you is like, The best approach in the modern age is to meet the customer where they want to be met.

[00:07:26] Right? Like if they want to have a physical footprint, they want to touch the product. They want an associate to walk them through. Then that’s what the brick and mortar retail stores for. If they want to kind of be self guided and they want to explore, and they’re not really sure what they want yet. They just want to see some beautiful pictures and some contextual representation of the product and maybe the website’s the best place to start for them.

[00:07:44] And the point is, if you want to be super successful, you kind of check both boxes, right? 

[00:07:49] Phillip Jackson: [00:07:49] Yeah, I think that the clear winners will be the ones that sort of sent the opportunity well ahead of the customer expectation. And so a good example of that would be those who invested in the early days of buy online pickup in store.

[00:08:06] If you would asked me two years ago, I might’ve told you that that was technology for technology’s sake. Just get out of the car and go pick up stuff in the store. But now this idea of buy online pickup in store or shopping ahead. Is itself has proven out to be not only customer expectation, but customers are actually leading retailers into further evolution of that.

[00:08:25] It’s no longer buy online pickup in store. BOPUS it’s what we call both dicks or like the ax is the placeholder for pickup anywhere it’s being delivered to your car or curbside or in a locker or contactless delivery at your home, it could be. I mean, even from a fast food restaurant perspective, you know, app enabled commerce order ahead delivered to your car is an expectation now.

[00:08:47] And those expectations aren’t coming because the customer is so innovative and creative it’s coming because the early movers have created that expectation. And they’ve leveled that against your brand. It’s the prime effective. Customers over 10 years have come to assume that all brands should be capable of delivering two day free shipping and free returns.

[00:09:09] And that’s not an expectation you set with the customer. It’s an expectation, Amazon set with the customer and to have Amazon level experiences, you need to have Amazon level cash flow. Right. And so I think that  one risk coming out of this period in time. Is that. The successful brands continually, we have this bifurcation of the experience where successful companies will continue to be successful because they’re able to invest.

[00:09:33] And the others will have to rely on platforms that are technology assisted to allow them to make up the difference. And I think that’s where a lot of question marks as to how the world will actually ship itself up. It’s like Canada direct to consumer brand really compete. Or at the end of the day, do they just become, are they repurposing venture capital limited partners, funds as R and D for Unilever Proctor and gamble, target and Walmart.

[00:09:57] And I think that’s the thing that remains to be seen, although  I am pro direct to consumer. I am pro founder. I’m like I’m pro all of those things. I just it’s uncertain how it will all shape out. There’s definitely 

[00:10:08] James Sowers: [00:10:08] a lot of uncertainty out there, not just in that tiny little niche, but yeah, 

[00:10:11] Phillip Jackson: [00:10:11] elsewhere.

[00:10:12] And there’s a lot to unpack and could be talked about here. And certainly there’s been some criticism in the space as to whether or not you’re actually allowed to weigh in on this conversation. And, you know, having never founded a brand yourself, I think that that’s sort of an ignorant point of view. I do think that criticizing founders without knowing what the founder plate is, it’s probably not as smart or wise position to take, but I will say that we all engage in commerce.

[00:10:36] So we’re all consumers and we all have a point of view on the consumer experience from the point of view of us trying to, how can we all shape that future in the business that we’re in? Well, yeah, that would be like saying the Shopify people. I’m the old guy. I used to develop e-commerce platforms from scratch.

[00:10:54] I would build a team. We would hire engineers. We would build the platform. We’d start over with, you know, whatever the technology platform was at the time. We’d build that from scratch. We’d architect it from ground zero. We’d write all the integrations to use ups, USP, S DHL, FedEx, ourselves. We would get the developer documentation for integrating to authorize.net and we’d get the SDKs in, but that’s not how things are done anymore.

[00:11:17] And for me to criticize. Yeah. The efficiency of say the Shopify platform, which has democratized e-commerce for a new generation, for me to say that you’re not allowed to weigh into the deficiencies of the Shopify platform because you didn’t go through the challenging time that I did when it was harder to build.

[00:11:34] Is a fallacy, it’s a fallacy. And that’s the thing that I think we’re going to have to figure out as commerce moves more online and more customers depend on it. We’re going to need more people in this space who can innovate in the modern context and not necessarily on the context that we had lived through 10 years ago, because the world is fundamentally different.

[00:11:53] Now, even from a year ago, the world is different. The way that we engage in commerce is different. Curious what 

[00:11:59] James Sowers: [00:11:59] has changed in the last say six months that. It might be sticky afterwards, like who knows how far we have to fast forward into the future to, to find some kind of post COVID world. Right? So let’s just jump whatever that time period is like, what are some of the elements of the consumer behavior or the customer experience that you think are sticky?

[00:12:18] Maybe curbside pickup is one of those things. Like maybe people love the convenience so much where they can just drive by the home Depot and pick up the. The tools that they need on the way to pick up their kids from daycare. And they don’t have to like physically go into the store. It’s just sitting on the curb for them.

[00:12:31] Maybe that becomes a behavior change over the longterm. After this all kind of leaves us. Let me go back to whatever this next normal situation is. Is there anything else that stands out to you as something that might be like a fundamental change in the way that we buy and sell things? 

[00:12:43] Phillip Jackson: [00:12:43] Well, let me answer that with more of a, an esoteric sort of environmental.

[00:12:49] Landscape point of view, if you will, like let’s think about the things that have been recurrent themes over the last six months, remote work, right. And this idea that place isn’t as important as it used to be. Restaurants is a good example of this in-home delivery of prepared food and also grocery delivery.

[00:13:09] Millennials have learned two things during the last year they’ve learned for galaxy for the first time, right. And millennials have also acquired life skills that they’ve never had before. Like preparing your own food at home, the experience economy. Now I think really it comes back to more tactile, like engagement and doing things in your home for yourself.

[00:13:28] This is the DIY era that I talked about earlier and, and the new DIY report. We talk about this idea of. It’s not just about the efficiency of having the experience of eating the great meal and having someone else prepare it for you and the environment in which you eat it. That’s been replaced with understanding why the meal tastes so good or how it gets prepared.

[00:13:48] And the experience has translated from  the fine dining and then sort of the formal dining experience and the James Beard award into how can I become the person who can win the James Beard award? How can I recreate that experience at home? And people are finding joy in that. And I actually, I believe the anticipation of creating something that takes a long time and a lot of investment.

[00:14:11] You enjoy it more because it’s the fruit of your labor and you’ve acquired a skill in the moment. So remote work is a skill that people are acquiring. Restaurants, you know, sort of being decentralized, the idea of ghost kitchens. These are all things that I think have removed the importance of place. And so if you think about a concept again, I said, it’s esoteric, but the concept of place is diminishing.

[00:14:35] Commerce can happen wherever you happen to be a restaurant can be wherever you happen to be grocery stores can be wherever you happen to be. And so I think if you sort of extrapolate that out place becomes a lot less important. And I think that. Okay. If retail can be anywhere, then that doesn’t need to be at the mall is place important for retail to exist?

[00:14:56] Probably, I mean, it’s a diminishing of importance as time wears on. So are malls going to have to reinvent themselves to be more than just retail? A hundred percent. So I wouldn’t just say that the outcome of COVID and the things that stick are tactical execution, like BOPUS. I would say that the, the things that stick are the psychology around the way that we place importance on things like place.

[00:15:21] And so it’s, again, it’s a broader topic. If it takes 30 days, James, to develop a new habit, what does it say about people who have been stuck at home for six months? I think the importance of place and the diminishing importance of. Place and space in the world becomes a much more important topic for us all to consider.

[00:15:38] And I mean, I could riff on that for an hour, but just to be brief, I think that the idea of ownership was already something in question, especially around the millennial culture and sort of fractional ownership. I think experience was the thing we talked about. Experience economy was something that people talked about, experience isn’t going away and fractional ownership.

[00:15:57] Isn’t going away the way they’re expressed and their relation to places in the world is changing on a fundamental level. 

[00:16:02] James Sowers: [00:16:02] Yeah, I think you’re seeing that in other areas too. I mean, even before all of this happened, I think the film industry was probably struggling with some of this, like going to a movie theater was something that I wasn’t hearing as much about it.

[00:16:13] Yeah. Like I don’t go to the theater. Why would I go there? Pay for overpriced candy and soda. When I can curl up on my couch with a blanket, my dog, my wife, or whatever, and watch a movie at home. Probably for less money. Right. And so I think you’re seeing that in some other areas too. And I’m wondering if that’s going to happen with gyms now, people are realizing because they’ve been forced to that.

[00:16:30] If they’re gonna work out, they’re gonna have to find a way to do it at home, on their exercise, bike, with their adjustable dumbbells, just going out for a run, whatever. And they’re gonna realize like, Hey, maybe I don’t need all that fancy equipment. Maybe I don’t need that physical footprint. Maybe I don’t need that personal trainer.

[00:16:42] Right. And like, not to diminish that industry because people that are in there. The last thing I want is for you to lose your job, to lose business, but, and you can go farther faster with the help of a specialist, right. And the right equipment. But they’re saying like, I don’t need it. It’s not the requirement.

[00:16:55] The requirement is much lower. It’s just a space and maybe something to provide resistance, a band or a weight, or even just enough distance to go for a run. I think that maybe that’s what you’re touching on there is like, I don’t have to go to place to get results. I can do it wherever I’m at. And if I want more results, better results, then maybe I should go see that specialist.

[00:17:14] Maybe I should go to that dedicated space to get that done. Cause I don’t know that that’s going to change unless you’re willing to bump your budget up and build a fantastic home gym or something like that. That’s what I 

[00:17:22] Phillip Jackson: [00:17:22] think is actually the thing that we’ll see there out, which is that, you know, what you still need a place for is a place to live.

[00:17:30] Right or a place to engage in work. And in both of those factors, that place actually becomes the home. And so I think that the experience economy isn’t going away, it’s just relocating to be back into the place where you spend most of your time. And I think that is in your local environment, in a world that is travel restricted or social networks will collapse into only those people that are most.

[00:17:54] Closest to us, there’s been a con concept that everybody’s sort of talked about was like the disease bubble. It’s like, who do you trust enough to allow in your German bubble? And if that’s something that’s happening and I believe that it is then how do we remake the world around us to be a place that we like to be.

[00:18:12] And so that started in. 2020 as, okay, well, we’re tapping home equity for renovation. We’re buying furniture. We’re creating, you know, home offices, we’re educating our children at school. So all of those things were sort of the short term or the near term needs we’re meeting near to near term needs. I think the long-term effects are, it has an impact on culture in general.

[00:18:33] Like. The way that we look at architecture and design and the way that we design homes will be much more appropriate for having people over for dinner and creating a place to entertain and creating an environment in which you can entertain a small group of people like the return to the formal living room and the formal dining room and having people back into your home, because where else are you going to go experience the world?

[00:18:57] So. I think they have these like tremendous impacts that something from a conceptual perspective, it’s something I call the new formal and this idea of the return to the formal living room and dining room and how I think that that’s a, it’s a fundamental shift away from the experience economy being outside of the home and back into the home.

[00:19:15] James Sowers: [00:19:15] Yeah, maybe it’s more about intentional space, right? Functional space. This room is specifically designed to be a home office. Like it has a structure like built in shelves or something like that that lends it to serve that function versus just, here’s an open floor plan that you can range in any way that you want.

[00:19:30] At least that’s what I’m hearing from you. So I’m curious, we’ll call this a prediction if you will. And so like we’re straddling this unique period where it’s like, okay, we had the initial impact of COVID.

[00:19:40] Everything was crazy. Brick and mortar was shuttering e-commerce has taken off. We’re kind of in this like messy middle where we’re still trying to figure things out. And so maybe we’ll straddle both sides of that.

[00:19:48] Let’s start with like the folks who came out of that initial, like bombshell being dropped on them with. Coronavirus and everything shutting down, the ones that survive, like what are some of the common traits that you’ve seen in those organizations that maybe are shared and lent them to be more likely to sustain themselves through that rough period then businesses that either really slowed down and are struggling or businesses that had to shut their doors entirely.

[00:20:11] Phillip Jackson: [00:20:11] I’ll answer that question in a little bit of a different way. I would say the most important skill that we have in a modern economy as like a worker. Is the skill to acquire new skills. The average person holds three distinct careers in their lifetime. And let’s say that that’s true on the face of it. I think the average brand has the same challenge to be relevant to generations as they change.

[00:20:36] So the more sort of. Say generic way to answer that is to say, you constantly have to acquire new skills as a retailer. You have to constantly acquire new channels to operate in as the world changes around you and you have to constantly operate. So like the thing that they all have in common, the ones that will be resilient, the ones that will see the other side of an economic change or an economic shift or a new generation that comes.

[00:21:01] Tabasco is the brand’s ability to reinvent itself either technologically or reinvent itself to adapt to new customer expectations or societal norms. Let’s use Victoria secret. As an example, Victoria secret has been diminishing as a valuable brand for the better part of a decade first coming under criticism for it sort of lack of an real environmental commitment or a real commitment to having a cause that’s bigger than just.

[00:21:29] The idea of whatever a standard of beauty was at one point in time and to now where there are brands that their whole mission is to be the anti Victoria secret. And how do you compete in a world where your vision of what beauty is, is fundamentally misaligned with the culture’s understanding of what beauty is.

[00:21:49] So to survive. It’s not just about having technology or having storefronts or having e-commerce or having the ability to deliver last mile. It actually has cultural relevance becomes the thing that is most important. So the ability to reinvent yourself over time, I think is fundamental to being resilient, but.

[00:22:08] It’s not just retail brands, not just consumer brands that are subject to this. Facebook is an amazing case study. The fact that Facebook was created 20 years ago, where the world was very different. They have survived at least. Four fundamental shifts in the way that we engage as a society with technology and the way that we engage with each other through digital communities.

[00:22:33] And so the original idea of Facebook and the evolutions of Facebook made it through the MySpace era and the extreme customization and like brutalism of. Having digital gardens, where you have a wall where you like curate things that people come to visit and see that doesn’t exist anymore, that paradigm doesn’t exist anymore.

[00:22:51] And then the, the leap to mobile and sort of the agglomeration of all of the things around Instagram and the. Influencer economy and Facebook has survived four areas. The reason Facebook still continues to be pivotal in the world and culture is because of its ability to reinvent itself and sense when the culture is changing.

[00:23:11] And since when technology needs to adapt. And remember what technology does James. Technology allows a brand, whatever that brand is, could be a technology company. It could be consumer brand technology enables a brand to deliver its promise. At scale. Technology is not the thing that makes or breaks.

[00:23:31] Technology allows you to fulfill your promise at scale. And so. What’s the thing that is common amongst all brands that will be successful. It’s their ability to pivot. Like it’s their ability to sense changes and to adapt to the times.

[00:23:45] James Sowers: [00:23:45] I think it’s one of those things that’s hard to make tangible, right? Because you can say in a, in a simplistic way, like. Any creature that exists today is an example of that same trait of adaptability, right? Like if they did not adapt over time, they would not exist. And you could say the same of businesses, businesses that are here today and here a hundred years from now are all going to share this common trait of like they adapted to the changes in their environment.

[00:24:04] So like, if we were going to make this something prescriptive, something that I was thinking about. Is it basically, it’s two elements. There’s there’s awareness, right. And curiosity around not just your personal situation, but things that are tangential to you, things that are adjacent to you, right? Like I’m sure that Mark Zuckerberg, isn’t just reading about social media all day.

[00:24:20] He’s reading about all these other industries. Right. And they have an unprecedented level of access to data. So that’s probably a bad example, but the point is like, if you’re in. Apparel, like don’t just study the apparel industry, study economic impact of manufacturing or the environmental impact of manufacturing or any other adjacent business and figure out like, what kind of variables, what kind of shocks might be coming.

[00:24:41] Right. So that’s one part is this awareness, this intellectual curiosity about the world around you, not just your tiny little niche within, and then there’s this other. Element. That’s like, I’m not an expert on stoicism, but I know there’s a practice in there around like, kind of thinking through the worst case scenario regularly, right?

[00:24:56] Like projecting yourself into a situation where you’re experiencing something devastating, a death in the family or something like that. And working through that mentally and emotionally. So that if that ever happens, you feel like you’ve already lived it, right? Like you already know your reaction. You already know how you’re going to handle that.

[00:25:10] Or at least you have some expectations around like how you might handle that. And when you actually get into the thick of things, maybe that’s a little bit different, but I think this practice, there’s probably a specific term for it. Again, I don’t know. But if you think about your business and I wouldn’t be surprised if this is something that the Zuckerbergs of the world do, or the Jeff Bezos or whatever, they’re sitting here and they’re saying, okay, what if I lose my largest referral partner tomorrow?

[00:25:29] What would I do? Right. Like this is a hypothetical. Exercise that you can run through regularly and nobody would have expected coronavirus to come in and just wipe out brick and mortar retail, and enforce everything online suddenly. But like maybe somebody did, maybe somebody didn’t think of a virus specifically, but they said there is something that could force me to close my store for a long time.

[00:25:47] How would I react to that? And the people who run themselves through that kind of war game, that kind of role playing scenario in advance might not have all the answers. They might not have all the resources, but at least they’ve got some kind of foundational level of like, Okay, where would I even start?

[00:26:00] Right. Because then you’re not blindsided by this. You have a little bit of thought and intention around what you might do. 

[00:26:07] Phillip Jackson: [00:26:07] I think that’s, that’s an astute way of framing it up. I tend to believe that we’re right. I’d love to hear someone tell me I’m wrong because I think that there is a lack of critical thought in this space, in that there is like the visceral reaction, at least in the Twitter sphere of you are wrong and I’m right.

[00:26:26] And the reason that I’m right is because I have a street credit you do not. And I think part of us creating a healthy community and conversation is. Our ability to be able to welcome people into a community, regardless of them earning a place into the community, like healthy communities allow all to participate regardless of tenure.

[00:26:47] So by the way to say that I am right, is to say that there’s only really one outlook or outcome in the world. I think that we are better as a community together. I think community are the things that sustain us and in reality, There’s probably some element of truth to something I’m saying, but the way it will happen or the way it plays out doesn’t mean that I am right.

[00:27:08] It means that maybe we together can chart a path to some sort of resiliency or some sort of success. So we need that. Like we need challenge and we need critical thought, but we need it to not be of the gatekeeping variety that says you’re not allowed to participate in this conversation, which is the thing that I see play out right now, at least on Twitter, healthy communities don’t behave that way.

[00:27:28] And we’re going to need way more community members. If the world continues to shift over to e-commerce, there aren’t enough people that know how to do these types of jobs. There aren’t enough information workers. There aren’t enough developers or programmers. There aren’t enough strategists. There just aren’t enough marketers, even there’s, we’re constrained for resource and we’re in a boom time.

[00:27:49] So, and I think that that creates other pressures, but we probably don’t have time to get into it. Well, you know, 

[00:27:54] James Sowers: [00:27:54] for the folks who get a little bit reactionary and say, I think that maybe we’re judging them and saying, you should’ve thought about this. Like, I don’t think that’s the message here. That’s not what I’m trying to say.

[00:28:01] And I would assume that’s not what you’re trying to say. It’s easy to understand why an e-commerce founder especially would not have this on their mind. I mean, you’ve got logistics, you’ve got marketing, you’ve got finance, you’ve got product development, you’ve got customer support, you’ve got a hundred things that you’re doing.

[00:28:14] And somewhere in there, you want to try to have a family or friends or some kind of social circle and some health and whatever else you want to do. And so it’s easy to understand why somebody might not think about this, I guess the learning point here, or at least like, what we’re trying to say is maybe carve out time for it, like going forward and make it a regular practice.

[00:28:29] Right. Have some quiet time where you can sit down and think strategically about your business and just make that part of your regular operating cadence. And you know, you and I were talking in kind of the icebreaker session before this, about running and how. You know, if you go on a nice, long run, a lot of people find that to be therapeutic because it’s quiet, you’re away from everybody else.

[00:28:45] And you’re alone with your thoughts. And like, maybe for some folks, that’s the time. Maybe that’s all it takes, right? Like go on a 30, 45 minute run if that’s your thing. And just think about projecting and think about some of these scenarios that might play out. It’s like a game of chess, right? And maybe that’s all it takes to get to kind of check the box on this.

[00:28:59] We’re kind of removed from the original. I said, we’re going to straddle the coronavirus impact. And now we’re going to look forward to Q4. So if we get into prediction mode now, as we sit here Black Friday, cyber Monday is right around the corner of the holiday gift-giving season is right around the corner.

[00:29:11] What kind of ways are you seeing people prepare for that? Because this is another period of volatility, right? We look around the world, we’ve got coronavirus numbers, kind of spiking in a lot of places, but then we also have this variability in terms of like, How are fulfillment partners even going to be able to ship and get things to the residences by Christmas or something like that?

[00:29:28] Where’s my product. Is it stuck overseas trying to get across to me so I can even fulfill these orders. Like there’s a bunch of stuff that could go wrong. There’s a bunch of stuff that could really go, right. We’re going to have a lot of extra attention, a lot of extra volume, a lot of consumer interest.

[00:29:40] So like, Nobody knows how this is going to shake out and everybody’s throwing darts at the wall, but like, what are you seeing in your experience in terms of, you know, what we might be able to expect and also how e-commerce leaders are planning and strategizing for this time of year? 

[00:29:53] Phillip Jackson: [00:29:53] Ooh, well, I mean, it really varies.

[00:29:56] It’s a lot to unpack. I would say that in general, I don’t know how much, like. Strategic insight you can take at this point to do something notable or worthwhile in Q4. If you didn’t begin that process in Q2 and a lot, weren’t doing that process in Q2 because most people were, it was sink or swim in Q2.

[00:30:14] So when you’re thinking about Q4, I wrote a piece for retail touchpoints in June, which basically said if you’re going to have holiday. You need to execute it in Q3. And that means that the year of 2020 is effectively, you know, is nine months of promotion. At some point we have to kind of revert back to the, the not fire sale version of us, trying to.

[00:30:37] Engage a customer. And then I think it just comes back down to fundamentals. It’s having a good product and an experience that people want to interact with for you too. That makes the difference. You can try to stoke the fire all day long with tips and tricks, but I think bags of tricks are kind of empty because tactics change over time.

[00:30:56] They follow fads. Right. You just look around, everyone is on the SMS hype train right now. Right. And is SMS a credible and emerging channel? Absolutely. A hundred percent, but it’s kind of a magic trick right now. It’s, everybody’s wowed by the magic trick right now. And it’s sort of a bit of a land grab in that the early movers experienced some success there.

[00:31:19] And as marketers fled to the channel, I think we’ll see diminishing success and returns over time. The ones that we’ll be successful in SMS are the ones who treat it completely differently. That it’s not a promotional channel. I think that’s the way to sort of like. Kill a channel is to make it yet another channel for it, by which you try to elicit someone to interact with a sale.

[00:31:38] So I think in Q4, the brands that will stand out are the ones who are coming back to the original idea of building a long-term relationship with the customer, having a long form conversation with the customer. That’s a hard thing to do when you also have like goals to meet in mouths to feed. I used to work for a company that produced vitamins and supplements.

[00:32:00] And we were doing like all the stuff that everybody does. Tactically in e-commerce today, we were doing in 2008, in 2009, we were incredibly lifetime value centric. We were constantly engaging in multi-variate testing and AB testing. We were cutting edge. We had to sell vitamins. Right. Like at the end of the day, if people weren’t buying vitamins and supplements, then we weren’t doing our jobs.

[00:32:25] And I think that there’s something to be said about, like there are fads and there’s trends and some of those might play out in this Q4. I think the businesses that will sort of weather into 21 and 2022 and be successful in the long run are the ones who try to decide that like, The near term goal is not as important as the longterm goal.

[00:32:46] They’re all important, but the primary importance is the long form health of your business and not necessarily making short term gains. So relate that back to sort of my own personal journey. It’s a long story, but I’ve lost 154 pounds over the last four years. And I spent 35 years of my life trying to lose weight.

[00:33:04] Right. And I would lose 40 or 50 pounds. And, you know, the fad kind of wears off. And you sort of regress back to the old lifestyle. When I started thinking about things more in terms of like the, the long-term change and the long-term habit and routine. Change and fundamentally shifting who I am as a person, rather than my behaviors, the behaviors fell in line.

[00:33:27] And I think that we would all do well as marketers or those of us who have some leadership in the commerce space is to play the long game. Your goal is to be in business for 30 years. Not for the next quarter. Again, probably not like the satisfying answer that everybody wants to hear about Q4. I think it’s the true answer, which is that your Q4 four years from now hangs on what you do in this Q4 now.

[00:33:52] So might as well start investing for that future. Cause this one I think is less in your control. 

[00:33:57] James Sowers: [00:33:57] Yeah. And I think, you know, sometimes it’s important for people to hear what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. You know, if you want a short term hack, like the best advice I can give you personally is double down on customer service right now for the next cause.

[00:34:08] If things are weird, if shipping times are delayed or extended or whatever, like this is the time to start the relationship off on the right foot with a personal touch, like turn off all your automations, get in there, get in the inbox and actually talk to your customers and say, look, founder here, sorry.

[00:34:23] This package is delayed. It’s out of our hands, I’m going to do everything I can to make this the most seamless experience that I can offer you right now. And that’s going to go a long way for next year and the year after that. And year after that, because they’re going to appreciate and know what you’re struggling with.

[00:34:35] So maybe if you want a short term hack or strategy from this episode, like, I’ll give you that. But I think your advice for playing the long game is extremely valid because the brands that I know that I love the most, I’ve been following those founders and I’ve been following those stories for years.

[00:34:49] Right. And we have this long relationship and when Q4 comes around yeah. It’s like, I’m going to buy from them. It’s just a matter of what offer they going to put in front of me. Right? Like, I’m going to get this as a gift for somebody because I have it for myself and I love it. You just need to tell me the price.

[00:35:02] Right. And, and so it’s on them and I’m going to buy it regardless. That’s the best position to be in as an e-commerce leader or a brand is having customers like that who know they’re going to buy. They’re just waiting to see what you throw out there. And they’re going to take 

[00:35:14] Phillip Jackson: [00:35:14] advantage. I feel like you’re onto something here and it makes me in my role as is sort of like the vision goal strategy guy.

[00:35:22] I want to take this one thing that you said and tell you tactically, in your role, how to reorient it. So you actually said something really, really brilliant there, which is reaching out one-to-one to a customer when things are going wrong. And so in Q4, you gave a tactic, you said in a shipping delay situation, reaching out and saying, Hey, it’s.

[00:35:42] The founder. I just want to let you know, we’re trying to do the best we can. That is an incredible tactic because it builds trust and it builds a relationship. It also admits that, you know, not everything’s perfect all the time and when things aren’t perfect, we’re going to do our best to make it right.

[00:35:56] How do you operationalize? So if you’re an e-commerce director or you’re a marketer at a brand or your own performance marketing, you’re like, what do I take away from that? It’s like guiding the vision or the strategy of the company? Well, let’s think about that. The outcome is you doing one-to-one outreach, but the mentality behind it, like the thing that you’re trying to affect is trust over the long-term and having a relationship.

[00:36:20] And you can’t have a relationship. If you don’t talk to your customers, talking to your customers is core for you to understand everything. And you know, like that can do that. Can feed. Product feedback, category growth and expansion, vertical expansion of the business, and like product differentiation, vertical manner is like, do we have economy products?

[00:36:38] And do we have premium products? Just talking to the customer is, is the strategy talking to a customer directly in every scenario? And in particular scenarios is the tactic the vision here that I think a lot of brands lack is we are a brand who has a long form. Conversation relationship with our customer.

[00:36:58] The vision for the brand should be, we have a relationship and some companies might say, well, we’re we’re customer centric. We’re fanatical about the customer. I think any lengthy relationship or anything linked to human relationship goes through its challenges and has its, you know, sets of ups and downs.

[00:37:15] The things that get you through are the investments you made when you get to those challenges. Like it’s a bank account. You have to make deposits in a bank account before you make debits or else you’re going to bounce checks. And so you have to make a deposit into a relationship with a customer before you go drawing on the account.

[00:37:31] And that’s why, like, we talk a lot about first experiences leading like great first experiences lead to retention and business. I think like that’s a really businessy way of putting it. It’s like, Actually great people experiences lead to longterm relationships. And that’s how I think about it is not necessarily the tactic that we employ to affect the outcome.

[00:37:49] It’s the sense of identity of who you are as a company and the mission that you are trying to get everybody to buy into because then if you have the right personnel who understand the mission, And who are bought into the mission, then the performers it’s marketer says, I know exactly how I can fill the mission in my role.

[00:38:08] Then the e-commerce director says, I know exactly what I can do to affect that mission into my role. It’s less about tactic and this is a job function. It’s more about buying into this is who we are culturally. And I know that that might sound like a bunch of BS and I totally understand the how it could, but I think that that’s, what’s lacking a lot.

[00:38:25] These days is again, that’s investment for the long-term and playing the long game rather than the outcome in the short term. 

[00:38:33] James Sowers: [00:38:33] That’s an distinction though, because I can hear the pushback already. Somebody’s going to say, yeah, I love doing that stuff, but it doesn’t scale. I can’t do that forever. Right. I can’t do that for thousands of customers.

[00:38:42] It’s like, Well, no, maybe you can’t Mr. Or Ms. Founder. Like maybe you can’t jump in there, but you can build a culture around. You have people who understand that. Like I’ve been a member of teams where the founder explicitly said, everybody in this organization wears a CEO hat, or where’s the CEO goggles and you are my eyes.

[00:39:00] You’re my ears. You’re my voice. Like if you hear something that if you were running this company, It feels significant. It’s your job to not just handle that customer interaction, but make sure that that gets to me right through your manager, through your team, lead through whatever channel you need to do, but that has to get to me or to a decision maker that can actually take action on it to the degree that you can empower people and share with them, your philosophy and your mindset around that, and then train them and equip them with the right.

[00:39:28] Scripts or at least, you know, perspectives or tone of voice, whatever kind of like documentation and standards you have to have just say, here’s how we operate. And here’s how we think about customer success. And you need to embody these values and then make sure that there’s a two way communication internally.

[00:39:44] That’s going, not just from the top down, but from the front lines all the way up to the senior leaders. That’s the way that you scale it. It scales through people, not through tools or process necessarily. 

[00:39:53] Phillip Jackson: [00:39:53] Right. I would even go back to what I had said earlier, which is when we say two things about this, the first is having led engineering teams.

[00:40:01] I’m used to working with people who try to solve problems that don’t exist yet. And it’s kind of become a meme in engineering culture, which is like there, you’re trying to solve for a problem that doesn’t exist and you create other problems incidentally, along the way. And one of those problems you can create is complexity.

[00:40:17] If you’re going to be successful as a founder or a leader of any kind, you should be willing to take some risks and you should probably never be in a position to say, we’re not going to do something because we don’t know how we’re going to do it in five years. I think that both of those things are sort of like really weak criticisms of, and like more excuses to not do something than they are actually.

[00:40:38] So that’s my 2 cents there. But going back to what I said earlier, technology. Is the thing, like if you look, what is the difference between now and a hundred years ago, technology and advancement of technology and the employment of a specific tool and to put a specific tool in place, and we have more tools than ever to accomplish certain outcomes.

[00:40:59] Technology is the thing that allows you to achieve your brand promise at scale. And so how do you know when to employ technology efficiently or where to focus your efforts and what the outcomes should be with the application of technology? You don’t have to have a human understanding of the problem first and how you solve it as a person first, before you try to either automated away.

[00:41:20] It’s like, I sense again. Just coming back to something I had said earlier, which is a good example of this would be like there’s 3000 live chat solutions in the world. And I think there is a bucket of tricks of, well, we need to have live chat on our site. And I think the doing has replaced the thinking and a lot of organizations it’s like we have live chat, but we haven’t really thought about what a great live chat experience looks like.

[00:41:44] Or we have live chat where we’re employing live chat, but we’re not really sure what a. You know, a live chat from our brand should look or feel or sound like, and try to figure that out before we go charging off into the, to the actual execution of it. So, yeah, I, it says it’s sort of just a visceral reaction to that.

[00:42:01] Cause I think that is the the challenge that we all have 

[00:42:04] James Sowers: [00:42:04] agreed. So your short term tactic invest in customer experience, invest in customer service. For Q4, but also we’re talking about taking the long-term play, build that culture, build that mission. You know, you’re here for decades, not months or weeks or even a couple of years.

[00:42:18] So, so if we, if we pull that thread, if I can keep it for five more minutes, I want to let you nerd out on the future. Right. Cause I know you’re the strategy guy. You’re the vision guy. That’s what you said. So if we focus on this, long-term play, what is something that’s on that kind of midterm to distant horizon?

[00:42:32] Maybe it’s a technology trend. Maybe it’s a behavioral trend, whatever. That you think e-commerce leaders should be thinking about now and keeping an eye on, because it’s coming around the corner. It might not be here next month or next year, but it’s coming around here in the next few years. And the early adopters are the people who are at least aware of it are going to be in a stronger position than those who are kind of missing the Mark.

[00:42:50] Oh, okay. You can only pick one though. We only have 

[00:42:52] Phillip Jackson: [00:42:52] time for one. I know that’s kind of that the difficult thing we’ll have you back now. Thank you so much. It’s been a pleasure. Okay. Where do I think the future is going? Goodness gracious. I don’t even know where to begin. We only live in the now. I keep doing this to you.

[00:43:07] And I’m so sorry, but like we only live in the now, so whenever we are it’s right now, there is really not a future.  And so I think the things that you do right now are the things that impact the future with that in mind.

[00:43:19] I think that. There’s a fractionalization of people’s time right now that we are all competing with like, there’s this the sense of this thing called the attention economy. Everything’s vying for your attention. We all have a finite amount of attention. I know that like multitasking is a thing that we all claim to be able to do.

[00:43:37] In reality, we get really good at sorting and filtering information in a single threaded way. I’m a lot faster. We’re not really quite doing many things at once. I sense that in the future, We are going to look back at this time and we’re going to say that this was the most attention divided, emotionally unhealthy time in modern human history.

[00:44:01] I think that there, the pendulum needs to swing back to more deliberate, more careful consideration, more asynchronous communication, less reacting, because look where it has gotten us. I don’t know that anyone really loves the modern state of being with 15 services that are all vying for your attention at once the unbundling of cable.

[00:44:22] And then the rebundling of it back into there’s 3 billion TV shows. There’s 2000 YouTube videos that are all pinging you on your phone at any time. I think the ability for us to control what comes in and tries to distract us is the thing we all need to be. Indexing for. And so how do you like action against that?

[00:44:39] And when coming back to what I was saying, like the right now, I think we’re going to have as a culture, like a shift to mindfulness, as it pertains to sort of like the mental health aspect and the anxiety inducing aspect of everything vying for your attention all the time. And if that is going to happen, we need to start thinking about how we live in that world right now.

[00:44:58] So. For a brand to exist. I think you should be really questioning as to not just the tactics you employ to get people’s attention and like, cause them to behave a certain way that, you know, that meets your needs as a business, but maybe existentially like why you should even exist in the first place.

[00:45:17] Right. And no one really likes to be mindlessly consumerist. Not only are we attention starved, we’re starved for lack of focus. And our attention is more divided than ever. So our bank accounts, so our relationships, like everything has become extremely fragmented and the way that we’re focusing on things.

[00:45:34] So try to think about what your company. Should look like with regard to employee relations and like the way that you treat your employees and like index toward that because they’re consumers as well, that has far reaching impacts in a world that I think will eventually react to this moment and look disfavorably upon it in the future.

[00:45:54] We’re going to look back and say that that was a dark time for us. And it’s gotten us into a place that nobody truly, really wants to. To be, how do we change that? And I think existentially just kind of asking, should we even exist? And if we should, what is the reason that we should exist as a company and as a business or as a consumer brand that is a healthy conversation for you to be having right now?

[00:46:15] Because I think when customers start asking, if you should exist in the future, you’ll be prepared to have an answer. And that’s like true differentiation. It has nothing to do with whether or not you’re on Shopify and it has everything to do with, should you even exist in the first place and that’s heavy stuff.

[00:46:32] James Sowers: [00:46:32] Yeah. Common threads that I’m hearing in there, is like clarity and focus. Right. And I think people are going to be craving this, this clarity, right. You’re talking about all these notifications that are existing everywhere. That’s disorienting.

[00:46:43] That’s, that’s segmented, that’s fragmented. That feels chaotic. Right. But if you have. A clear, specific channel specific message, specific like call to action. Those kinds of things I think are going to start to resonate more. And that goes all the way up to your mission, right? Like a clear mission, like you mentioned, why do you exist in the world?

[00:47:03] Why is this a problem we’re solving? Why do you even manufacture the product you manufacture? Like, why is this your life’s calling? You’ve already answered these questions for yourself, or you wouldn’t be in business, right? Like you, you have to answer those internally before you even file your LLC. And so just kind of like revisit that, make sure that it’s still the same, that it was when you started.

[00:47:22] And if it’s changed, like get it down on paper, kind of make this internal mantra about it. And then once you have that clarity, You need to focus on it going forward. And if you’ve wavered from it in some way, you kind of find a way to get back on course. And then think about how the implications of that for all your marketing messages, your ads, your copy on the website, the emails you send your customer support interactions.

[00:47:42] Like all those things should be oriented around that core focus. And when you communicate with customers at any touch point, Your message should be clear, right? They shouldn’t be disjointed. It should just be a ten second pop-up after they land on the homepage, because they don’t even know you. Right?

[00:47:56] Like they don’t know anything about you. That drives me crazy to see those things. Like, I don’t know, that’s not the right context. So going forward, I think mindfulness, clarity, focus, those things are all going to be core tenants of the most successful brands over the longterm. 

[00:48:08] Phillip Jackson: [00:48:08] And I have to take my own medicine, right?

[00:48:10] Like when I think about, does the world need another podcast? Does the world need another YouTube reaction video? Does the world need another 2000 word essay about, I don’t know, outdoor voices, like hour and for the unaffiliated, it’s a brand. Like I constantly am putting myself through this as to like, what value does anyone gain out of this?

[00:48:31] And sometimes like very selfishly. This value is not necessarily for someone else. It’s for me to try to figure out where I fit into the world. Like I’m a person, right. And I have to figure out where I fit into the world and what value I bring to other people and not waste their time. And so for me to be valuable to other people in the future, like I have to gain skills, right?

[00:48:50] Like I have to learn to be a better writer. I have to learn to be a better communicator and speaker and a better thinker. And people in the future will benefit from that. But I need to start right now because again, I only live right now. And so like, Why does future commerce exist? Well, because our thesis is that since everybody has to engage in commerce and it’s fundamental for human existence on planet earth, then maybe it can be a powerful change agent to shape the world.

[00:49:14] As we know it, I think that if you look at that and what we do through that lens, then I think, yeah. Then if we continue to hold ourselves accountable to that as a mission, as our founding understanding of the power of commerce in the world, Then every little thing we do does have an impact on the future does have an impact on the way that we are engaging in commerce.

[00:49:33] And we can come back and hold ourselves accountable back to it on a daily basis. So like, I have to take my own medicine too. Right. And I’ll just sit here from my ivory tower and tell people the right way to engage in business as if I’m not doing that for myself. Like I’m constantly in existence crisis over it.

[00:49:48] And I think we’re all better because of it. 

[00:49:50] James Sowers: [00:49:50] Right. Well said, yeah. You seem like a very cerebral guy, very considered guy. So the type of guy that I’d sit around the campfire and probably talk about this stuff for five more hours and, and, you know, my wife would be in the, in the cabin rolling her eyes at me.

[00:50:01] She’s like, Oh, James is off on another existential quest again with his buddy, Phillip, which I’d love to do that at some point, but maybe to bring it in for a landing. Let me give you the soapbox for the last, like couple of minutes here. Where can folks go to learn more about you, future commerce, any of the other projects you have going on?

[00:50:15] Where can they go to learn more about Phillip Jackson and get more of these existential thoughts from you? 

[00:50:20] Phillip Jackson: [00:50:20] Yeah, thanks. If you want to learn more. I mean, we put a lot of this out into writing every week at, at future commerce.fm. If you want to work with people who really seriously care about how we’re building these things into experiences that are worthwhile and impactful for consumer brands, then you can check us out@somethingdigital.com.

[00:50:40]We’re, we’re putting a lot of this thought into practice and helping customers like our customers, helping consumer brands, figure out how they do this better in the future and stop reacting and start planning. So those, those are two places and the podcast is also called future commerce. It’s available, wherever podcasts are found.

[00:50:57] And if you want to learn more about me, just follow me on Twitter, you’ll see the never ending stream of consciousness. And you know, some of the, the running and physical pursuits that you can find that there. And it’s a Phil Winkle on Twitter. 

[00:51:08] James Sowers: [00:51:08] Nice. Listen, I can’t give Philip a more of a stronger vote of confidence for me personally.

[00:51:13] So go do all of those things like subscribe, follow check, check, check, bill. Thanks so much for coming on the show today. We’ll have to have you back sometime. I really enjoyed it. Thanks. Great. Thank you so 

[00:51:22] Phillip Jackson: [00:51:22] much, James. 

[00:51:24] James Sowers: [00:51:24] Hey everybody. This is James again. And before you go, I just wanted to invite you to join one of the coolest things I get to work on as director of marketing here at the good.

[00:51:31] It’s called the e-commerce insiders list. And it’s a private version of this podcast feed that gets you access to tons of additional bonus content, like extra interviews, Q and a sessions, website, tear downs, and anything else we can dream up. It doesn’t cost you anything, but your email address. And we promise to always respect your inbox.

[00:51:47] This is just our way of forming strong relationships with our listeners and making sure that we produce content that is actually valuable to you. And to your business. If you’re interested, you can join the rest of the e-commerce insiders by going to the good.com/podcast and dropping your email into the form at the top of the page, we’ll follow up with directions for how to access the private feed and you’ll be off and running.

[00:52:07] Like I said, this is one of my favorite things that I get the opportunity to work on because it lets me interact directly with e-commerce founders and leaders. Just like you. If you’re interested, I’d love to see your name pop up in my notifications. Until then keep an eye out for the next episode of the e-commerce insight show.

[00:52:21] And we’ll talk to you soon.