Commerce Corner Cyber Week Edition

Welcome, everyone back to Commerce Corner. We got a very special episode. Episode three. We're going and getting ready to go into the holidays. Amanda, I've got my kind of flannel red going, so I feel like I'm representing us today, just getting into the holiday spirit and mood. Even though it's Southern California and it's bright and sunny out right now, you know, I'm already getting, getting the flannel on and such. But we have such an amazing, amazing guest for us today, Ima Calvo, who leads our commerce team on the mid market and in the US Ema, thank you so much for joining us today.

I'm delighted to be here. Thank you for having me.

Well, Ema, you have been, you know, such an internal champion for this initiative and this amazing, you know, area that Amanda and I have been leaning into. You know, we're talking a lot of things today, a lot of fun subjects. I think really we're going to lean into holiday, you know, and cyber week and so on. Um, you know, we're getting. We're running towards it right now, I feel like. And so our first question, too, is just like, what's one thing that you're really excited about kind of buying this, this Cyber 5, Cyber 12 weekend?

Um, well, first of all, I feel I'm a little bit off brand, like, compared to you, Michael. Like, you're wearing your, like, holiday gear already. Like, it feels like we need a Hallmark. A Hallmark movie right behind you. Right. I am wearing my sweat because I hit a workout this morning. And in true holiday fashion, for those of us that work in retail, I have not had a chance to have a shower yet. So that's where I'm at. And it's all about priorities. Right? Like, where do you fit your workout in? And then, yeah, the shower will have to happen later. But what I'm most excited is just the adrenaline rush that comes with climbing C5 or C12 now. Right. Like the. Every single day, understanding the consumer behavior, understanding the buyer behavior, understanding how. How our consumers are responding to the products in the market, in which way they're engaging brands. I think every year is. Is different. We've got a lot of predictability in terms of the historical data that we have, but every year teaches something different about. Something different about the consumer expectations. And that is certainly something I'm looking forward to.

Absolutely. I think. Me too, Ema. I'm also over here in black, Michael, so we really need to get on. Get on your holiday spirit page. But I'm so similar. I mean, there's definitely been days where we don't have that time for the shower after the workout, especially around Cyber5. But on that note, like, I'm probably most excited to look at Fitness brands the Cyber 5. I mean, it's really not too early to get started on those New Year's resolutions. So it sounds like we're in a similar boat there for sure.

Fitness brands, clean beauty as well. Amanda, you and I have been talking quite a bit about, I've been sharing with the team openly. I had an allergic reaction to some hair dye a couple of weeks ago that was pretty dramatic. And I just think it just sent me in a research path on like, what can I do in terms of using products that have no harsh chemicals on them. And I've done that for a while on the makeup and some of the beauty routines, but I hadn't done that on hair. And I think there's definitely a lot of innovation with a lot of new brands and I'm looking forward to learning more. Absolutely.

So, so much innovation from that side. And Ema, you touched on something too that really jumped out to Amanda and I. You know, we learn something new every year kind of this holiday season. I know all three of us have. Sometimes we feel like we're Google lifers. We've been here a long time and we've seen multiple holiday seasons. Like, are there any specific trends too that stick out to you that are maybe different this year as opposed to last year? You know, we just called out a few verticals. But anything else too around like purchasing behavior or any other things that are, you know, climbing kind of to the surface from your world?

I think the most obvious one is this balance between the discounting strategy and the protectiveness of the brand. Right. I think last year it was a very heavily discounted holiday and we saw that continuing over every single micro seasonality we've experienced in retail throughout the year.

Right.

And I think many retailers are now exploring what is the right balance between a strong discounting strategy that really gets the consumer to experience our brand and particularly our hero products, and protecting the margin erosion that comes from a discounting strategy, but also protecting the long term sustainability of our brand that their strategy. Right. So I think that is something that we've seen very different this year. People brands, particularly apparel brands, experimenting with front loading the season, front loading, those discounts, Black Friday discount guarantees as early as end of October, early November, and then playing with that discount strategy at different times of the season. I think that is one of the most Obvious ones, I think from a Omni perspective is every year we see more and more the lines between wholesale, digital and in store disseminating very, very clearly. And so they're very blurry. The consumer does not differentiate. The consumer expects to engage with brands equally across every channel. And furthermore, they want actually something different in every channel as well. Like they want an additional incent. If I'm going to download the app, I want an incentive to engage with you in the app. If I go in store, I want the same consistency of experience and brand message and the same assortment of product. But I may want something a little bit differentiated just to incentivize me to be in the store and the same in digital. Right. Like the readiness, the availability, the personalized relationship that you get in the assortment that you able to surface in digital. I want that to be special to me, but at the same time consistent with the rest of the brand. So I think that's definitely a trend that continues to evolve every single year. And I think the third one is more around the brand message. If you remember over the times of COVID particularly at the first year of COVID when emotions were running really, really high and people sort of disassociated themselves from brands that. That were off message, that appeared to be opportunistic at a time where the world was struggling, there was a strong privilege for many brands to introduce themselves or reassure themselves as beyond transactional brands, attachment to brand values, to brand messages, to something beyond product assortment that made a difference in the world. And last year we had a bit of that. Still particularly not just aligned to the end of the pandemic, but also very sensitive to the economic reality that many Americans were facing or we thought we're going to be facing. And I think this year the jury's out. I don't know how you guys have experienced it, but it's like you see the very transactional we're ready to shop messaging. And we've seen that on the Walmart app with me and gals, where it was like, we're ready to shop. And it's how high, how hard can you shop, how quickly and how much assortment combined with some of the more traditional sort of. I just saw the John Lewis one just about 2 hours ago right from the UK very much about evolving your traditions and, and evolving with the world. And that I thought was very much, very, very well done, very much on brand and striking a really nice balance between still bringing that brand value to the conversation while at the same time showcasing your product or I think it'll be interesting to see how transactional versus purposeful we go this year. And I'm excited to see that.

I completely agree. I mean, even just as a consumer, not just obviously as a partner to a lot of the brands that we work with. Like, I don't make choices based on who I've bought in the past anymore. And I think brand loyalty has really shifted and it is more about our values. If we are going through a journey of wanting more clean products, we're probably not buying the ones we've been loyal to in the past. And then we do so much research to figure out who can answer our problems and not just want to offer me a discount.

Right.

Like, it's almost not enough to just offer a discount anymore. So I completely agree with that. I think brand brands have also realized that they don't want to rely as much on promos either. So they have to really deliver that brand message and they've. I have seen it. I thought the Mean Girls one was great. That's one of my favorites. But the message itself I totally get. But just as a fan of the movie in the past, I mean, yeah, I'm not shopping the same way for myself as I used to.

It's.

It's going to be more tailored to my needs, values, wants, desires, but also a lot more time researching. And I think that is why we see consumers also shopping earlier and earlier is because they taking the time to, you know, look up that information sooner. Do you guys agree?

Yeah, no, for sure. And Michael, I think it was you that surface that Gen Zers are really into gift cards right now. Right. This seems to be the thing we did not anticipate. And those are, those are definitely very present, very relevant, which is like the gift to myself. Then we're going to see. We've seen the gift to myself or when I didn't get the gift that I wanted, typically the very end of December, early January. But now I think Gen Zers are like, I'm not even waiting. I just want the gift card so I can give myself early. And thank you very much for it. And I love it. I love that empowerment that comes with it. So we're there for it. And joke, since we're having a little bit of fun here as well, is how much can we stretch the Barbie theme? Is it going to go all the way to holiday? I don't know. I felt it died in Halloween. But we will see. There's something certainly Barbie, Barbie themed everything right now. And then I think the Relevance of pop culture is going to be interesting. This holiday to Taylor and Travis is definitely everywhere. How much are brands going to play with it? Whether it's on their official messaging and creative or it's going to be on spin up. Going to be interesting to see for sure.

I totally agree. Michael and I talked actually on a previous episode of some of the trends around Barbie and the ERAS tour and how a lot of apparel and footwear brands were actually creating collections around those initiatives. Right. So it's like shop now for your ERAS tour outfit if you're going. And given that, you know, she just launched her entire international leg, there's so many buyers around the world that are still in market and then anyone here who may have seen the movie, I was one of them. Everyone was dressed up. I was not. But you know, people are still doing that. And then, you know, friendsgiving I think is another area where we're seeing some more Barbie themes. You know, empowerment of friendships. A lot of that is still happening through food, through color schemes. So I completely agree. I think we haven't seen it as much after Halloween, but it's. People are still. It's in the back of their minds. I think brands are still capitalizing on.

It and I think let's not forget we have one more week of holiday this year. Right. So while the message to my advertisers is very much don't close the store after C5 very much, a lot of the purchasing still happens over the course of December. Three out of the five biggest days are in December and it's important to continue to be present and relevant during that month so that there goes the message. But at the same time, pop culture has time to evolve and develop so much over the course of December. So I think brands will have to be not only present and relevant, but reactive to what is happening to make sure that they make their products and brands available to an in team, to whatever is evolving over the course of this effort. So it'll be exciting to see the extended stretch for sure, 100%.

I know we're certainly living in this interesting time of just the brand collaborations. Some obvious and not so obvious. You know one thing too, Ema, we talk so much to our partners about, you know, Black Friday and Cyber Monday and those two specific dates. Right. I think putting ourselves in our partners shoes. Right. Do you have any guidance for the brands on those kind of in between days? Right. We spend so much time talking about these two kind of pillars. But how about the in between? Right. Are there any things too that sticks out to you maybe could be from last year learnings or just in general some things to think about of kind of the in between because we have both ends but you know, how do we take advantage of kind of that middle portion too?

Well, first of all, I don't know if we have in between anymore. We're in it and the climb is up from now. So I think that's the first thing. Anything you can do to bring your season forward, that means the next couple of days first so that you are less at the mercy of the competitiveness and the option of C5, I would encourage you to do that. That means you also have to be present in C5 but you have more time to learn. And unfortunately we have so many partners that wait and hold on budgets until C5 and then you don't have enough time to learn about what your consumer wants. You don't have enough time to learn how your media is working and you're simply reacting at the peak of your season. So give yourself some time to learn. Take advantage of softer option to before you pick that I think after it's about that what did we learn at the peak of our season at the heaviest discount that helps us tailor, adjust, react for the rest of the season. And my team and I have a lot of meetings the day after giving Tuesday so that Wednesday with CEOs to talk about what happened over the course of C5. How does that change what we do between now and December 25th? Realistically, if you've got stores and whatever your shipping cut off day happens, right? So I think learnings first of all don't stop close to store right after C5. But then secondly, use those learnings to optimize your strategy because three out of as I said, three out of the five big days happen in December. It's important to be ready to respond to those then. And yes, absolutely, flex, play with the valleys and the peaks just like you would do in every single season. But optimize to what you've learned over the course of season. The answer is to be even more successful. I will also say it's an incredibly competitive market right now. Understand your shipping cutoff dates and how much you can stretch them. If you've got a wholesale strategy, if you've got an Omni strategy, you don't have to close the store as early as other competitors will have to. So really think about when you're aggressively going after the digital consumer and at what point you actually can direct traffic to your stores and not simply have one strategy across all your omnichannel because you've got flexibility to do that.

Absolutely. And like what I think a lot of our partners, to your point sometimes also might miss and should think about this year is it is the peak. Most people have their shopping done but people don't care that it's the peak and they're still not done, I think before the end of the year. And to your point, then the self gifters come out, the New Year's resolutions come out. So I like to always say it's a roller coaster. You know, we peak once, we maybe slow slightly, we peak again, but we don't actually slow for the rest of the year. It just doesn't look exactly like Black Friday. I've definitely forgotten to buy certain things, especially if we were working on Cyber Monday. So not everybody will be done. So that's another message that I would send out to any of our partners out here that do.

And I will also say we're working throughout C5, but we're working throughout C5 for many reasons because we want to be present for our partners, but also because you never know. And if last year taught us anything is that many of our partners had rebudgeted based on unexpected consumer demand. That surprised everybody Thanksgiving Day. So we were all rushing to the race on Thanksgiving Day because we saw this demand coming out of nowhere. And it's because that's the time when the consumers were ready and they were ready to react. And I will say those that had invested and spent the time in building a relationship with those consumers, even if they hadn't quite purchased yet, really saw the benefits over the course of C5 and then the other big learning and Michael, and you know it better than anybody else, is that what we're talking to many of our partners right now is that you, you close the store in Cyber Monday and you left all of this opportunity on the table in December with so many consumers that you porn were just not quite done and they were looking for options and you simply were not there. So plenty of learnings last year.

Well Ema, thank you so much again. And you know as just a reminder for folks, we really brought, we wanted to bring ideas, individuals, thought leaders together on this kind of, on this video and podcast series just to talk about, you know, interesting trends as we approach the retail season. Every year is unique. Every year there's differences. And so just to get your point of view, especially as we're going into to this big, big, you know, the super bowl of the year for us on the retail side. And then to your point, like, let's not forget about December. Right? There's just so much that we we can look forward to then. So thank you so much for coming on. I. I don't want to speak too quickly, but I think this is going to be. I think we, we we raised the bar, Amanda, for our episodes. I don't know how we're going to be able to to match that for for future once as we go into December, but we'll definitely try.

Totally agree.

We'll bring you back Ima too, if you want to come back.

Thank you so much. I really, really enjoyed this. It was like having a conversation with a couple of friends. And I'm gonna go into the shower.

Amazing. Thanks, everyone. Take care.