The V Spot Retail and eCommerce Weekly News Friday Week 18

Welcome to the news. It is Retail Week 18. Last week we didn't broadcast because we were on the conference trail in Belfast, Ireland, and it was a bit of a blur, quite literally. The social scene was awesome. We had ourselves a raucous old time. Big news out of Shopify this week when they dropped their earnings report. A lot of write-ups for quite a large write-down. They sold off Deliverit to Flexport for a 13% stake in the company. That's quite a big haircut when you're wearing a backwards hat. The real story, I guess, though, was that 20% of the staff have been laid off in addition to 10% a number of months ago. But in good news, Harley launched a podcast. Last week, E-Newsreader was MC at Ecom Live in Belfast. This is easily our favorite networking event and conference anywhere in Europe for e-commerce and retail. Why is that though? Is it because you can stay in the most bombed hotel in Europe? No, not just that. But the content was amazing. The people that were there were fantastic, easy to talk to, and really accessible because there was a brilliant social scene. You could take a trip to the Game of Thrones set. You You could go to the Titanic Distillery or do a walking tour of the murals of Belfast. It was just jam-packed with great ideas, great conversations, and people really giving their best over the few days of being there. The conference ended on quite a high. Michael Corcoran, head of social for Ryanair, told us why they are the exception and not the rule. There were so many people in the room, there was legroom for nobody. And then finally, when everyone was getting ready to hit the hay, Customer advocate, customer excellence advocate Neil Forrest of Gorgeous Piano played everybody to bed that was staying in the Europa Hotel. He is customer advocacy by name and by nature. Well done, Neil. As promised, every week we find one story of positive news. This week we're going to talk about Secret Sales, and we call them the one to watch in the fashion space. What makes Secret Sale so impressive? They are a flash sale site predominantly for fashion retailers. They have expanded into other categories, but they have a very strong team at the helm. They have Chris Griffin, formerly of Superdry, and Matt Perk, formerly of eBay, and a huge background in the fashion industry. These guys have a proven history in understanding the fashion industry and how to move product, having previously sold their last company, Anna Twain, to Zalando a number of years ago. Why are we excited about this prospect? Well, they currently have about $3 billion in inventory on the site. They have projected a growth rate of 85% this year, and they are beating the pants off discounting. Why do I say that? They are— have explained to us that this is the place that customers are now going for non-full-price fashion. So there you go. If you don't want to get into the discounting cycle this year, go to Secret Sales. Register yourself as a vendor and sell your non-full-price items. It's that simple. Unicorns beware! This week Commerce Tools announced themselves as centaur status. Um, unicorns beware! This week Commerce Tools proudly announced themselves as centaur status. What is Centaur status? Well, it is reserved for that SaaS company who gets over $100 million in annual recurring revenue. That is not nearly as much as both BigCommerce and Shopify, but it's really interesting nonetheless. Why do we say that? We know from history that centaurs kill unicorns. As I said, unicorns beware, there's a new kid in town. And finally, it is Friday, so let the good times roll. We are bringing back the after-work drinks, albeit in a virtual session. Earlier this year, we decided we were bored with the monotony of just talking to people through LinkedIn. So we said we'd introduce some beers to see, does it make any more fun? Turns out it does. Plus you get to know people on a human level and chat about things that are not just work related. So we have our own virtual bar. We will be inviting people along and there'll be a link available. If you want to join us, please do drop me a DM. We are signing off now. We're going to find the fruitiest and fullest beers that we can find. So that we are well primed to lead the session a little later on this evening. It's going to be 9 PM London and Dublin time, 4 PM Eastern time in the US, and I think it's 1 PM on Western or Pacific time. I'm not fully sure of the time zones. I just turn up. That's my job. Signing off for week 18. Dream easy.