Shoptalk held its first ever Fall conference in Chicago this past week and our very own Justin Racine, Principal of Unified Commerce, was present to take it all in. This year’s theme was 007, so Justin was on a reconnaissance mission to gain as much information on retail and commerce trends as possible. Here’s a debrief on his sources and the intel he was able to gather from them during his time at the show.
Infiltrate the Indie Brand Mindset
Before the explosion of social media, consumers gained knowledge of new brands by window shopping and traditional ads, but the reach only went so far. With the prevalence of social media, retail products that are niche and unique now have access to the whole world with platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Rent the Runway is a clothing rental brand that’s currently reveling in the fact that indie brands are controlling the fashion space. Jennifer Hyman, the Founder and CEO of Rent the Runway, claimed that today a brand can skyrocket in value just by a teenager talking about its products on TikTok. Social media has been changing the way consumers shop, and brands need to be able to keep up and provide new and fresh ways to connect and interact. Rent the Runway did that by providing fashion clothing for rent, rather than purchase, thus allowing for an ever-changing wardrobe with plenty of variety. Retail – just like fashion – should take greater risks and be bolder.
Capture Customers with Community and Connection
Glossier CEO, Kyle Leahy, provided a thoughtful look at three C’s that should be focused on to provoke thoughtful, engaging, and relatable conversations between brands and their consumers. Community, connection, and customers are the three C’s in question here. Glossier prides itself on being a community-based brand, focusing on how their products make people feel. On stage, Kyle spoke about how their consumers come to them because of the community they’ve created, and by actively listening to their consumers.
However, it’s one thing just to listen – it’s another thing entirely to respond. Kyle stated that Glossier responds to every single comment or post on their socials. That’s how they’re building a strong community, like by like, comment by comment. Glossier doesn’t stop there; they continually strive for personalized customer experience. Their storefronts are full of local apparel and products, and a new fragrance they’ve recently launched is an aggressively impressive campaign.
It’s called Glossier You, and the bottle is specifically designed to be activated by using the consumer’s thumb. In this way, it gives the feeling of the product being “encoded” to their thumbprint, giving them a personalized experience. To go one step further, they claim the smell is a little different on each person. With this product, they’ve built a conversation piece for their consumers around how it’s unique to them allowing connection across users for comparison, thus creating a shared experience and further solidifying their community.
Hacking Data to Delight Customers
Surprise and delight! That’s the name of the game when it comes to creating buzz with consumers. Many companies feel like they have a finger on the pulse, but according to the Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester, Brendan Witcher, that’s not the case. He challenged attendees’ perspectives saying that many customers don’t feel that companies are delighting or surprising them. These brands are operating off opinions rather than data, and these companies should gather real, credible data if they want to get to the heart of their consumers emotional responses.
Creative decisions should be based on true data and gained by letting the customer express themselves through their behaviors, actions, and even more importantly, their inactions. A great example of inactivity is those would be consumers who are visiting your site but not purchasing. Their lack of purchase, or inaction, is a clear look into a way to create growth simply by focusing on making those conversions. These customers are there, now all that’s needed is a push in the right direction. Doubling up from Glossier’s 3C’s, Brendan revealed that there are 6 elements of customer data to focus on: characteristics, considerations, curiosities, conditions, context, and conceptions.
Closing the Dossier on Shoptalk Fall
For it being their first Shoptalk Fall, the show undoubtedly inspired and renewed the energy and enthusiasm of those in attendance. Individuals present expressed an urge to build deeper connections with their customers through a wide variety of strategies. The speakers encouraged the audience to listen to their customers, stay true to relevant retail trends, and dive deep into the data to curate connections and build communities. Now is the time to be unconventional, unique, and exciting.
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Read Justin’s full article on CMSWire.
