The Jason & Scot Show - E-Commerce And Retail News

Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Publicis & Scot Wingo, Channel Advisor
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The Jason & Scot Show - E-Commerce And Retail News

Join hosts Jason “Retailgeek” Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor, as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

  1. MAY 6

    EP325 - Amazon Q1 2025 results and AI Commerce

    Amazon Q1 2025 results and AI Commerce Happy Starwars Day! In this episode we do a deep dive into Amazon Q1 2025 results. Amazon had an overall strong quarter with record profits from their retail business unit. Amazon GMV grew 7.9% in Q1 2025 vs the same quarter in 2024, three times as fast as the retail industy as a whole. We also cover the latest AI commerce news, including ChatGPT product titles, OpenAI partnership with Shopify, PerplexityPro, and much more. Subscribe to Scot's new substack and podcast, all about Agentic Commerce, called Retailgentic.ai in conjuction with his new startup ReFiBuy.ai. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 325 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Sunday, May 4th, 2025. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of ReFiBuy.AI and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

    1h 1m

  2. FEB 12

    EP324 - Amazon Q4 Earnings

    EP324 - Amazon Q4 Earnings  In this episode we do a deep dive into Amazon Q4 and Full Year 2024 results. Amazon had an overall strong quarter with record profits from their retail business unit. Amazon GMV grew 11% in 2024 vs. 2023, almost three times as fast as the retail industyr as a whole. Amazon's North American GMV also nearly matched Walmart's in 2024 (Walmart reports it's Q4 results next week). We also cover the impacts and implicates of the de minimus ban in the US (which was lifted after only 4 days). We wrap up by comparing Amazon's 2024 growth to the rest of the retail industry. Amazon, Walmart, Costco, Temu, Shien, and Tik Tok Shops representing 62% of all retail growth in 2024 (this is a revision from the 70% estimate we shared in the podcast). Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 324 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, February 10th, 2025. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason [0:23]Welcome to the Jason and Scott Show. This is episode 324 being recorded on Monday, February 10th. I'm your host, Jason Retail Geek Goldberg, and as usual, I'm here with your co-host, Scott Wingo. Scot [0:36]Hey, Jason, and welcome back, Jason and Scott Show listeners. Jason, how was your Super Bowl? Jason [0:43]My Los Angeles Chargers did not do well in the Super Bowl this year. Or my adopted Detroit Lions. Scot [0:50]Well, as a chief digital payment retail advertising officer for a big ad firm, I'm sure you were there for the ads. What any ads catch your attention? Jason [1:02]Were there ads in the Super Bowl? Scot [1:04]Yeah. Yeah. It's supposedly one of the more expensive places to buy an ad. Jason [1:08]Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is kind of hackneyed, but it's near $8 million for each 30 second spot now. And what people miss is that most of these ads cost more than twice that. That both the production of the ad is quite expensive. And then there's now this whole, it used to be that you just surprised everyone by running an ad. And what everyone has learned is you get a lot more mileage by hyping the bejesus out of your ad for weeks before the Super Bowl. And so now the Super Bowl is like step four in a 10-step process and it's all super expensive. So the money is higher than ever. I would not say it was a standout year for e-commerce. Like the last two years, like two years ago, we had this surprise new, not only Super Bowl advertiser, but surprise new retailer in Timu. Jason [2:02]And, you know, then last year they were surprised in that they bought so many ads. So that was remarkable. Over the years, we've had some really interesting Amazon ads. And then occasionally we have some weird venture funded, like digitally native direct to consumer companies try to make a splash in the Super Bowl. So I'm not sure I would characterize anything that this year as super standing out from an e-commerce standpoint. Instacart was like the most significant new e-commerce player to do a Super Bowl ad. I thought they did a good ad that was well received with the famous brands. And then, you know, there's some weird stuff. Most of these ads are just to increase brand awareness. And in fact, the way they measure them is things like unaided brand recall, which are, these are metrics that I personally hate. But one of the ads for Fetch, which is arguably an e-commerce company, it's a, you know what Fetch is, Scott? It's a, it's like a purchase affinity program. Jason [3:08]So... Brands buy promotions. They're from Fetch. Customers subscribe to Fetch, and when they take advantage of the discount on General Mills goods, they earn Fetch points, which they can then redeem for prizes. So it's, it's a multi-brand customer affinity, digital native customer affinity program. And they did an ad in the last two minutes of the Superbowl that was essentially open our app right now. And in the next five minutes, we're giving 120 people, $10,000. Scot [3:44]Well, and so the. Jason [3:46]The, yeah, you had to watch to the bitter end and the game was no longer interesting at that point. But the interesting thing about that is that this is one of a handful of attempts over the years to do real activation in a Super Bowl ad versus just generate awareness. So I don't think anyone thought it was super well done or super effective, but I admire the effort to try to make some of these ads work harder. Like you'll remember past years, there were interesting, like there was a one year where the ad was just a QR code that stood on the screen for 30 seconds. Scot [4:23]Yeah. Yeah. And bounced around. It did the bouncy thing. Jason [4:25]Yeah. To make it harder to scan, which is, yeah. Scot [4:31]Cool. I liked the Instacart. That one kind of caught my attention. Jason [4:35]Yeah, I was just sad that there was no Timu jingle to get earwormed into my head this year. Scot [4:42]Yeah, I was confused by the water bottle thing. I had never seen that. Jason [4:46]Yeah, that got kind of panned. That didn't get circle or whatever it's called. Yeah. Scot [4:53]Yeah. Jason [4:54]Yeah. So it didn't get great reviews as an ad, but it was super confusing. People didn't understand what they were even trying to do. Scot [5:00]Yeah, I thought it was like a delivery network. And then I was thinking, oh, we'll have to mention this. And I was like, wait a minute. They're only delivering water bottles. I must have misunderstood the whole thing. Jason [5:08]Yeah. It's a filtering, it's a filtering water bottle. Scot [5:11]Yeah. I guess I didn't understand why they were distributing a hundred. Jason [5:14]I guess they gave away like a million starter kit sample packs, but it was not clear to anyone watching the ad that that's what they were talking about or doing. They, they tried to get too much in a short ad, but I think the, the plot in theory was that the the celebrity who's the the guy from mean girls and or pitch perfect yeah um that he who apparently is a real life fan of the product and got this contract as a result of his like, social shares about the product that he inadvertently ordered a huge surplus of the of these these products and then had to give them all away. Scot [5:54]Well we'll have to have you do a live stream next year to explain the commercials to me. Jason [5:58]Yeah i think we should get someone that understands. Scot [6:05]I got none of that whatever you guys got so. Jason [6:07]Yeah yeah that's just all the water cooler conversation i get in my company today the coolest ad in our world i should have said is starbucks that did not advertise at the super bowl but they've created a new holiday which is called i think I think it's called like super Monday and so it's, everybody's like tired and low energy on the Monday after the super bowl. So Starbucks gave all, all rewards members a free coffee today. Scot [6:40]Yeah, that was smart. Jason [6:41]Yeah. Scot [6:42]The, it doesn't work for the kind of drinks we have though sadly. Jason [6:45]Not trying to use a little. Basic brewed iced coffee does count. So I didn't, I didn't go, but I could have gotten a nice coffee. Scot [6:52]Yeah. Okay. I liked, I thought it was interesting that the Dunk Kings were, or Dunkin' Donuts was basically making fun of Starbucks. They were kind of dissing them. Jason [7:03]Yeah. Yeah. I didn't like that at all. No. And that was kind of a sequel, right? Like that was a sequel from last year's ad. Although I think Matt Damon got bumped for Ben Affleck's brother. So that, I will say the, the. The david beckham ad was pretty cute. Scot [7:20]Yeah that was funny yeah. Jason [7:21]The other david yeah. Scot [7:23]And he kicked the ball. Jason [7:25]Yeah oh it's the thing i do yeah and so this is for people that didn't watch matt damon portrayed david beckham's long lost brother that his parents never told him he had and, and the other david grew up in america versus david beckham growing up in in england obviously But at the end of the ad, David Beckham explains that he's a pretty famous soccer player. And Matt Damon goes, you mean like Matt Damon famous? And David Beckham goes, more like Ben Affleck famous. And Matt Damon goes, oh, that's too bad. Scot [8:00]Ouch. Jason [8:01]Yeah. Scot [8:03]Cool. Well, today we are going to talk about Amazon's fourth quarter. So the, before we go into there, the setup was you, did the Department of Commerce ever come out with their data for, for the holiday or we're still waiting on it? Jason [8:21]No, they did. The December data is out. And so it ended up being a good holiday. November sales were really soft by historical standards, but then December sales were really strong. The partly, I think that's partly because the, October. Literally, the holiday season started in October this year. For the first time ever, they really got consumers to buy more stuff in October. And so then there was kind of a lull in November and sales picked back up in December. Also, just weird vagarities of the calendar. Cyber Monday was in December this year, which it's normally in November. So that had some impact. But cumulatively, between November and December, sales were up 4% year over year, which NRF had forecasted that they would be up two and a half to three and a half percent. So being up four percent is pretty solid. Scot [9:13]Yeah. Good. Cool. So then c

    52 min

  3. JAN 27

    EP323 - 2025 Predictions and NRF Big Show 2025 Recap

    The expended edition of this podcast is 80 minutes long. We're sorry, if we had more time, we'd make a shorter podcast. 0:00 - 27:30 NRF Big Show Recap 27:30 - 59:00 Recap of 2024 Predictions 59:00 - 80:00 2025 Predictions Watch a complete recap of NRF Big Show 2025 here 2024 Predictions Recap Jason: Retail Media Networks go In-store. At least 1 top 20 retailer launches a digital in-store ad network YES AI is even hotter at end of 2024 than now. Most text boxes in E-Com are GenAI powered. A least one retailer has an AI based auto-replenishment solution with significant adoption. YES Bifurcation drives at least two more retail bankruptcies, including 1 national specialty retailer, and one general merchandise/dept store. (two top 50 retailers) YES China companies focus more on West and get more traction. Shein successful IPO. Temu US gets to at least 75% of target US E-Com. No Grocery E-Commerce goes from $95B to $125B in 2024 (after being down in 2023 per Bricks meets clicks). No Jason Score: 3.0 Scot: Amazon relaunches Alexa on a native LLM No Temu falters as people realize it’s wish 2.0 No RMN is currently $52b, growing 20% y/y, accelerates in 24 to 30% and $67b (coresight has the 52 datapoint) No Instacart who’s stock IPO’d at $33 and now is $23, solves ads and pops to 40 YES While everyone thinks Shein/Temu takes share from Amazon, they end up hurting Nordstrom, Macys and Target instead - materially (10%+) focus on apparel, maybe take target out? Yes Scot Score: 2.0 In a rare upset victory, Jason takes the 2024 predictions crown! But can he keep it? 2025 Predictions Jason: Shein & Temu are NOT impacted by changes to De Minimus (which either don’t happen or are ineffective). They ay be impacted by Tik Top Shops and/or Trade War tarrifs but not by changes to De Minimus. Tik Tok is not permanently banned in US (prediction made before scheduled ban was to take place). Tik Tok Shops is fastest growing $1B+ retailer in 2025. A major auto manufacturer launches a DTC offering in the US in 2025 (other than Tesla). Retail Media Networks undergo consolidation in 2025 as smaller retailers realize they can't go it alone. Live-streaming/VR/Voice Commerce are all materially insignificant in 2025. No financial evidence that consumers care about green or purpose driven brand with their wallets. Bonus: - AI Agents hottest trend in commerce (but I don’t know how to measure it) Scot: Facebook acquires eBay puts them out of their misery finally Temu loses its newness/out of the honeymoon period and people realize it’s a gimmick - down 20% in 25 vs. 24, even more with tariffs AI agents become a double edge sword for retailers (headless/composable) vs. no ux, I predict 10 large retailers block them, but the rest embrace Marketplaces have a new leg of expansion into a variety of places even an LLM - let’s call it 5 new larger retailers Personalization is out, memory is in, but still silo’d -  Bonus: AI automates and optimizes the supply chain in ways we humans can’t, or at least analyzes the data in such a way -OR could be quantum computing. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 323 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Thursday, January 23rd, 2025. Transcropt Jason: [0:23] Welcome to the Json and Scott show this is episode 323 being recorded on Thursday January 23rd that's a lot of 2 threes I'm your host Jason retail gee Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scot Wingo. Scot: [0:37] Hey Jason and welcome back Jason Scott show listeners for episode 323 being recorded on 123, Jason you are in the post honeymoon phase of the NRF Big Show 1 of my and I'll have to be honest with listeners kind of not favorite shows because it's in New York during January and I'm allergic to cold weather and I always have a hard time getting there and out because of the snow and then also it's a show that's over weekend so it kind of crushes the whole work life balance thing so hope you had a fun 1 I was not I did not attend this year. Jason: [1:14] Very often it's over a holiday weekend it's like. Scot: [1:17] And yeah so in the holiday weekend as well for for fun yeah. Jason: [1:20] Yeah yeah I think for as long as I can remember we've been going to that show and complaining about it and the the the usual answer is of course due to its 114 year old show we're not changing it because you're whining um, which fair enough, I will point out good news for you Scott global warming it doesn't snow in New York anymore so it hasn't it was cold but like there there used to be an annual blizzard and they literally haven't had any snow in like the last 3 years which is a little spooky, um and I have great news for you if if you thought it was a lot to go to 1 in RF a year guess what we get this year. Scot: [1:57] 2 nrf's. Jason: [1:58] 3 NRF or depending on how you count 4 NS. Scot: [2:02] Whoa are they going to call them Big Show small show Medium show. Jason: [2:05] No so for a while they've had so they have a few other shows so they have the NRF Big Show which is what we're talking about in in New York in January 114 years old 40,000 people at 10 mostly Brazilians, they've had what I'll call the small show which is technically now called NRF Nexus it's had some other names in the past that's in Southern California in the summer and I really like that show I'll be I'll be at that show, I'll I'll be doing a number of gigs there and I encourage people to go there because it's a way better boondoggle we all hang out and eat good food on the beach and, in his way less stressful than than in our Big Show. Scot: [2:41] I can sign up for that yeah that's uh no blizzards sign me up. Jason: [2:45] Trono in Rancho Palo Verdes it's a good it's a good spot it's where Rico started. Scot: [2:48] Oohnice. Jason: [2:50] Um they have like a loss prevention show which is probably not relevant to mow most of our listeners but the big news is they are the Big Show has gone International so last year they had Big Show Asia for the first time in Singapore I was not there but it was by all accounts a big success and so, this year we'll have year 2 of Big Show Singapore, and then they're now expanding to Europe so this September will have NRF Big Show Paris. So Scott if you want to go well you know my my corporate headquarters is there my boss is there so we'll we'll host everyone in his office on the shampoo Jose. Scot: [3:29] I would love that I have a lot to chat with your boss about I feel that you're being shorted on your title and it's been too long we need to expand your title so that's going to be my number 1 you know point on the agenda. Jason: [3:41] Yes it is high on my list to get you in front of our tours to renegotiate my package. Scot: [3:47] Yeah I'm there I will I will Ari Gold this thing and we will get. Jason: [3:50] Yeah I know he our tour listens to every episode so be ready our tour he's coming Scott's coming for you. Scot: [3:55] Yep I got your I got your number first of all I'm going to loosen him up with some wine and cheese French people like that right and some croissants boom. Jason: [4:03] Yeah but I kind of don't think you can loosen a French person up with 1. Scot: [4:07] True it may be a bad strategy. Jason: [4:09] Yeahfun strategy but it just may not work out the way you hope. Scot: [4:14] Well how is the show I saw that you were you know doing some really good instagramable pictures out in front of some signs and looking spelt and you had your cool eyewear rocking did you how did how are all the balls and Galas and the and you did a bunch of content give us a give us a rundown what we're give us the behind the scenes. Jason: [4:35] Well so the number 1 takeaway from internet Big Show is that retail geek is Overexposed so I apparently they couldn't get any good speakers this year because you haven't been going so I was on stage 4 times which is more Jason than anyone should want. Scot: [4:51] There can be an honorary Kardashian if you keep that. Jason: [4:54] Yeah yeah I I'm not sure that's that'll be 1 more item off my bucket list honorary Kardashianthe, so I mean the show went well it continues to grow it felt super vibrantit was very it was cold but clear. Jason: [5:13] The the kind you know you and I have been to so many of these shows that I feel like, somewhat predictable at this point for those that haven't been a big show it's a heavy networking show there's a lot of private events that maybe aren't even published and are invite only and, it's 1 of the the the few, events where I get all those invites so you're right like you know I I went to a lot of dinners and a lot of Galas and saw a lot of, mutual friends that are of course ask about you and are bitter that I'm there and you're not um but it's a lot of fun to catch up with people and certainly you know I got to a chance to talk Shop with a lot of people which is 1 of the big benefits to me, you know there are some interesting on-stage content I'm not going to do a super deep recap on the podcast because, in in NF Big Show recap would be an hour and the good news is I recorded an hour webinar yesterday so in the show notes I'll put that on and if you want if you want an hour of a big show recap, you you can get it there but like at a super high level kind of 3 3 big takeaways that that we highlighted in the recap from Big Show the, continuing to be 1 of the big topics that all these retail shows that they're all heavily leaning into I have some controversial mixed feelings about our. Jason: [6:32] Exuberant over retail media Networks, so every every retail on the planet is launching 1 every V you know there's a thousand vendors that somehow ra

    1h 17m

  4. JAN 11

    EP322 - 2024 Holiday Recap

    EP322 - 2024 Holiday Recap   Episode Summary: In today’s episode of the Jason & Scot Show, Jason and Scot recap the 2024 holiday season, and give a preview of the upcoming NRF Big Show. The week of January 20th, we'll be publishing our annual predictions show. If you enjoyed the episode, help us reach more listeners by leaving a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for tuning in! Episode 322 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday, January 8th, 2025. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason   [0:23]Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this is episode number 322. Being recorded on Wednesday January 8th I'm your host Jason retail geek Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scott Wingo. Scot   [0:38]Hey Jason and welcome back Json is Scott showed listeners happy New Year Jason. Jason   [0:45]A happy New Year and happy holidays Scott it's it's been a while it's been it's fun to catch up. Scot   [0:50]Yeah you're kind of crummy when do you start giving people a hard time for saying Happy New Year I I was kind of a little worried because I was thinking I bet Jason draws the line at third or fourth of January and here we are on the 8th so I feel like. Jason   [1:05]I accept all all well wishes I'm totally merry Christmas happy holidays as long as you want any of those variations are totally acceptable despite the fact that I'm nominally Jewish. And I'm New Year's at least through January my lights are still up out front. Scot   [1:21]Okay good I'll I'll try to for the Valentine's show I'll make sure I don't say it that though I'll stop from there forward. Jason   [1:29]If it helps people not judge me I think my Amazon smart plug is broken so I think the holiday lights might not be on. But they're still out there it's too cold to go out and get them is the problem. Scot   [1:41]Yeah yeah you and I both went warm places for the holidays so that was good because I think we're both facing a cold spell here and I think actually here in North Carolina we may get snow whereas in Chicago you're not going to isn't that weird. Jason   [1:56]That that is super weird even if we're both getting snow I'd be a lot more worried for you than me because I feel like we're we're a lot more used to it but yeah it's even weirder that like it's not not snowing here and you guys are going to get get dumped on. Scot   [2:11]Yeah yeah we're just going to shut down and hopefully we don't lose power, the so it's been a while since we laid down a pod there's a lot we could talk about any any trip reports you you've been super busy you've done some vacationing but you grocery shopped before the break and then we definitely want to talk a little bit about holiday to kind of go through some of the tea leaves that are starting to come out on how things happened let's start let's start with a trip report anything interesting there. Jason   [2:38]Yeah so at least anyone worry I have been traveling a lot I just got a note from my my favorite vendor United that they've invited me to their secret. Highest status program for for another year and this year I'm going to cross 2 million miles with United so um. Yeah I feel like that I had mixed feelings about that like it's a a cool accomplishment slash it kind of signifies that I have a sad life. Scot   [3:05]And it's like congratulations all you do is fly would you like to fly some more. Jason   [3:10]Yes and the general answer is no um so I did do a lot of traveling last year there were a bunch of trips running right up to holiday but, but a lot of them were sort of Private Client gigs more so than, industry events and I've been on 2 weeks of vacation so I frankly can't remember where I was right before those but the Big Show of course that I don't think we talked a lot about was was grocery shop which, isn't you know focused on the food restaurant and grocery industry in October in Las Vegas and that show continues to get. Bigger and better longtime listeners of the show will know kind of I talk a lot about how. Every industry is getting wildly disrupted by digital just not all at the same pace so some of the you know first categories to get disrupted. Digital where things like like Borders bookstore and Blockbuster video and then Circuit City and Toys R Us and the gap. Jason   [4:08]And that at the moment it's the Auto industry in the grocery industry that are getting most disrupted by digital so I feel like grocery shops are particularly interesting show because, in many ways that's where all the, the rapid Evolution and action is in the in the digital space so it was a a good vibrant show and. 1 of the things I'll I'll give props to the show organizers for is you know they always get good Keynotes they always get big names on stage but they share more so than many years in the past I felt like. A lot of the Keynotes had like actual interesting. Information and insights in them it was less like sort of CEOs giving the the prepared PR. Can speech and more talking candidly about what was working and what wasn't working and and you know what the priorities were going to be and what was being deemphasized in the future so I I would just say overall again it was back in October and we're in January now so. Don't press me for for a ton of specifics but I walked away. Feeling like there are a lot of useful takeaways and of course like all the all the networking and hallway conversations were were super helpful as well. Scot   [5:21]Cool were you leader of any sessions. Jason   [5:25]I was as per all of these events I'm I'm wildly Overexposed and so I I both presented a session I also moderated panel. The like I probably can't even remember exactly who was on my panel so. Scot   [5:45]It's been a long time you've got you've got vacation fog we'll give you a. Jason   [5:47]I do I do I'm gonna call it vacation fog and hope it's not dementia but yeah. Scot   [5:53]Yeah and then on the holiday recap we kind of have to wait that first week of February last I looked is when Amazon's going to announce and then right after that I think you got some Walmart and some of the other folks Target and whatnot kind of put out their data so we won't really know what happened until we get some of that but several of the folks that do pontificate have some data out did you see any data that was interesting that you want to run through I I I saw some of the Adobe stuff I was going to just run through. Jason   [6:21]Yeah well so maybe I'll just wait the groundwork a little bit like so again there's. In general we see 2 kinds of data like there's people that talk about what happened in retail which is all all of retail so it's brick and mortar mixed with eCommerce and then there's people that just talk about digital so I know you're going to jump into the Adobe 1 which is, exclusively talking about e-commerce, but of course a long time listeners of the show would know you know the history of the last 10 years is that retail tends to grow about 3 to 4% a year, and e-commerce has grown about 10 to 15% a year for each of the last years so 2024 is an interesting year we you know it's still a week or 2 before we have the final data for the the whole year, but with 11 months of data. Retailers slowed down a little bit like it's growing closer to 3% than 3 to 4% and e-commerce has slowed down it's grown about 7% this year versus the typical 10 to 15% and. Jason   [7:22]You know it could be that this is a down year it also could be the law of large numbers as e-commerce is getting you know to be a bigger and bigger part it's hard to grow as fast so it's e-commerce is still growing at more than twice the speed of retail. But that's that's a smaller Delta. Then it has historically been so that's kind of the the backdrop coming into this holiday and then this is 1 of the weirdest holiday seasons of my career. So traditionally what we always talk about is. There's an arms race to start holiday earlier that like you know retailers used to open up their stores on. Black Friday the day after Thanksgiving and they were creeping earlier in the earlier in the morning on Friday originally when I started my career they opened at 10:00 the normal opening time and then they're like wait I'm going to open at 9:00 and get people to get in the line of my store before your store and then I'm going to open at 8, and then retire starts saying hey we're actually going to open Thursday night after dinner and then oh we're going to be open all day Thursday, and fast forward 30 years hey we're going to run our big Prime day sale in the middle of October right and so, every year we talk about how holiday starts earlier and earlier and these sales start her early and earlier but here's the Dirty Little Secret. Jason   [8:39]The retailers may offer deals earlier and earlier but consumers have never spent earlier. So if we look at October sales growth it's the same every October for the last 30 years so I get it has it it's not like October has become more important over time as these sales have gotten early and earlier and so when. Amazon announced a huge sale in October and Walmart and Target quickly followed suit I actually. Kind of thought it was a nothing burger like I I didn't expect it to have a big impact and. I was wrong so October is actually been 1 of the most robust months of growth we had this whole year like it was a big spike much bigger than we had any other month. And I thought oh man that's interesting

    46 min

  5. 11/05/2024

    EP321 - Amazon Q3 2024 Earnings Recap

    EP321 - Amazon Q3 2024 Earnings Recap In today’s episode of the Jason & Scot Show, Jason and Scot dive into the latest developments shaping retail, tech, and consumer trends heading into the 2024 holiday season. Here’s a breakdown of the topics covered in this jam-packed discussion: Amazon Q3 2024 Earnings Release Amazon Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript 🎉 Holiday Season Sentiment & Retailer Anxiety • With the holiday season shorter than usual due to a late Thanksgiving, retailers face the challenge of fewer shopping days. Consumer behavior trends indicate a shift toward essential purchases over non-essentials, creating mixed expectations for holiday spending. • The impact of the election is expected to influence consumer sentiment, media spending, and holiday promotions, with Amazon and Walmart predicted to perform above market averages. 📈 Amazon Q3 Earnings Highlights • Retail & GMV: Amazon’s retail revenue surged by 7.2%, with U.S. gross merchandise volume (GMV) rising 9.9%—nearly three times the industry average. • Efficiency Improvements: Amazon’s focus on fulfillment efficiency under CEO Andy Jassy is paying off. The company’s same-day delivery options and regionalized inventory system have led to a 25% improvement in fulfillment cost efficiency. • Growth in Essentials: With increased demand for everyday essentials, Amazon is capturing market share from traditional pharmacies, offering same-day delivery for prescriptions in select cities. 🏢 Amazon’s New Store Concepts • Whole Foods & Amazon Grocery: A new Amazon grocery concept opened in Chicago, catering to convenience items like packaged snacks and sugary drinks, which contrasts with Whole Foods’ health-conscious inventory. 💸 Amazon’s Profit Engines: AWS & Advertising • AWS: With a 19% increase in AWS revenue, Amazon is now operating at a 38% margin. Demand for AI-powered compute continues to push AWS growth, even as it faces GPU supply constraints. • Advertising: Amazon’s advertising revenue reached $14.3 billion, growing 19% year-over-year. With a nearly 70% estimated gross margin, advertising may soon outpace AWS in profitability. 🛒 Rise of AI-Powered Search & Perplexity’s Native Checkout • Perplexity’s Surge: Scot shares his switch from Google to Perplexity as his primary search engine, noting the emerging competition from OpenAI’s ChatGPT search. Perplexity now includes shopping links, allowing users to check out directly through Amazon, hinting at a new era of AI-driven shopping. • Impact on Retailers: Retailers need to rethink SEO strategies as search shifts toward AI-powered “answer engines” that may fundamentally change how products are discovered and purchased online. 📡 What’s Next for Alexa? • Amazon’s next-gen Alexa, powered by large language models (LLMs), faces delays into 2025. Scalability and usability challenges highlight Amazon’s shifting internal dynamics and potential headcount reductions in its Alexa division. 🔍 Is Google Search Under Threat? • Perplexity’s and OpenAI’s expansion into search could spell trouble for Google. With monetization still in the early stages for these answer engines, the retail industry is watching closely to see how they’ll shape online shopping behavior. ⭐️ Tune In, Subscribe, and Leave a Review! If you enjoyed the episode, help us reach more listeners by leaving a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for tuning in! Episode 321 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Monday, November 4th, 2024.  http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:23] Welcome to the Jason and Scott Show. This is episode 321 being recorded on Monday, November 4th, 2024. I'm your host, Jason Retail Geek Goldberg. And as usual, I'm here with your co-host, Scott Wingo. Scot: [0:38] Hey, Jason, and welcome back, Jason and Scott Show listeners. Well, Jason, you've been out there traveling more than I have. What are retailers saying about the holiday? Are they lots of excitement? Are they more worried about the election and they'll worry about the holiday? what's going on out in the retail end. Jason: [0:54] Yeah i feel like the the like webster word of the year is going to be anxiety obviously we're a day before election day and everybody's anxious half the country is going to be depressed no matter what happens there but i feel like retailers are also anxious about holiday it's a weird thing we won't we don't have to get into the whole thing but it's the shortest holiday season we get uh thanksgiving super late so it's five days shorter than last year. So there's fewer days to spend on stuff. Consumers have been spending slowly, trading down the lower priced goods, buying more everyday essentials and foregoing non-essential purchases for a while. And then the election is a major distraction. It also is really hard to buy media and break through all the noise. You live in a swing state. So I assume you haven't been able to turn on a tv or look at your phone for several days um yeah. Scot: [1:54] Wall-to-wall and three inches of mail every day it's crazy. Jason: [1:56] Yeah yeah and so like like even if you're not someone that's super focused on the election like it just like the black friday ads just don't break through all that noise and it's more expensive to put that by the media for those ads and all of those things so you know there's some there's some historical precedent in previous elections that you tend to get a little bounce in spending after the election, but no election's been this polarized before. So I'm less confident that history tells us exactly what's going to happen here. And then there's this huge vibe session thing still going on where, you know, people are generally pessimistic and anxious about the economy and, you know, laser focused on the price of goods and spending less, even though honestly, like most of the macroeconomics are actually like pretty solid. Like there's a lot of economic good news that you would ordinarily expect to translate to consumer confidence and more spending. Now there was a slight uptick in consumer confidence for the first time in a while this month. So there's plenty of tea leaves, however you want to interpret them, but there there's very little certainty. My I look at all this and I say, on average. Jason: [3:15] The biggest retailers that are, you know, best at really being highly efficient and low cost. So the Amazons and Walmarts of the world are going to do reasonably well. They'll outperform the market. They'll have lower margins and a bunch of specialty retailers and big box retailers and people that aren't quite as efficient are going to have a really hard time. But, you know, I hope I'm wrong. Scot: [3:39] Yeah. Wow. Lots of wasn't there. So we got through the the longshoreman thing. Right. And then isn't there a big budget thing where the government could shut down or are we is that been kicked into. Jason: [3:53] It's kicked till post-election. It may still be in, there may be another budget thing in December. But again, like, depending on what changes in the House and Senate, like, that could be like a trivial additional continuing resolution or, you know, someone could go nuclear and try to shut down the government. So I think it is a risk. Scot: [4:17] Yeah. Okay. I don't know. We'll see. So lots of mixed messages out there for retailers to try to parse there. Jason: [4:25] Yeah, exactly. But we at least know what happened to Amazon in Q3. Scot: [4:36] Amazon News. Your margin is their opportunity. Yeah, yeah. So on the eve of Halloween, Amazon announced their results. And coming into that report, Microsoft had reported kind of slowish cloud growth. Turns out they're having a hard time getting enough GPUs and they're really having to stretch to handle all their customers' needs, which you would think would be positive. But Wall Street is kind of because they also see this whole mixed signal thing. All they care about right now is short term signals. So they were kind of down on Microsoft. And then everyone and then Meta also reported and they had a great quarter, but then they said they're going to really ramp their spending on GPUs going into next year. So there's this really big kind of wall of worry around all this money on these GPUs, which are for AP. Scot: [5:28] Artificial intelligence or ai and they're mostly nvidia chips so nvidia is off cycle so that i think they report in the 20s like right before thanksgiving so i'm going to be watching that one carefully so you know amazon is largely driven these days by aws so that was kind of feeding into that there's a lot of concern that amazon was either going to miss for a similar kind of thing like microsoft or they were going to announce they're just going to like buy an ungodly number of GPUs. So there was a lot of, I believe the stocks sold off going into the report, which was interesting. Usually Amazon kind of lifts a bit the day of the report. So those ended up being unfounded. They achieved an 11% overall revenue growth and operating income hit 17.4 billion and beat forecast by 18%. And that was the seventh consecutive quarter of operating income above guidance, which is good. So Jassy kind of like reset it low enough and has gotten better now that he's CEO of kind of managing expectations is kind of how I read that. And then the looking forward guidance was very well received. So looking at Q4, they kind of gave a band of seven to 11% growth. When you have 11% and you're going i

    47 min

  6. 09/17/2024

    EP320 - News, First Half Recap, Early Holiday Preview

    EP320 - News, First Half Recap, Early Holiday Preview http://jasonandscot.com 0:23 Welcome Back After Hiatus 2:51 Upcoming Events in Retail 7:28 GroceryShop 16:02 Retail Growth Trends 21:28 Concerns for Holiday 2024 30:27 The De Minimis Provision 40:27 TikTok's Impact on E-commerce In this episode of The Jason and Scot Show, we discuss the current state of retail and e-commerce. We analyze macroeconomic factors impacting the retail landscape, noting a 3.4% growth in core retail and a maturation of e-commerce, dominated by giants like Amazon and Walmart. We address consumer sentiment heading into the holiday season and the potential influences of the upcoming election and interest rate changes. The episode also covers the role of AI in enhancing personalization experiences, challenges faced by dollar stores, and supply chain issues. We conclude with insights into Amazon’s recent earnings and their strategies to engage younger consumers through TikTok Shops. Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Download the complete 54 page deck of all my insights from the US Dept of Commerce Retail Data for the first half of 2024 here https://rgeek.co/retail2024 Transcript [0:23] Welcome Back After Hiatus Jason   [0:23]Welcome to the Json and Scott show this is episode 320 being recorded on Monday september 16th 2024 I'm your host Jason retail gee Goldberg and as usual I'm here with your co-host Scott Wingo. Scot   [0:38]Hey Jason and welcome back after a very long time, Jason and Scott show listeners Jason our last show was an early May so it's been about a little over a 4-month hiatus and when people ask me I always blame you do you blame me. Jason   [0:57]I do blame you and I'm bitter because in my mind. Nobody's really complaining to you but like I I've gone called out on stage by like I've I've been heckled by people that are like what are you going to do a new show. Scot   [1:15]It's part of our it's it's a Nintendo like strategy where you you dribble you know if you could really constrain Supply scarcity that drives demand so yeah. Jason   [1:25]Yeah it it we are we are playing 3 dimensional chess in a world of checkered players. Scot   [1:31]Exactly the the real reason is as Chief digital Innovation retail and payments and grocery officer your title's gotten bigger and your your more famous your allies on a plane I can never record because I'm like how about now he's like Paris how about now Australia how about now India so you've been flying all over the world. Jason   [1:52]I sadly I have been it does feel like travel is back there there have been more International trips this year than any year before coid so I I can I can only partially deny that accusation. Scot   [2:08]Cool well we're glad that we have you here for for an hour give us an update what are you any uh show you know what's going on out in the world of retail as you've been expanding the globe for the Json and Scott show. Jason   [2:20]Yeah it's been another Super interesting year for retail we'll we'll certainly get into some of what we think are the key topics that have been planned out this year but I have attended a bunch of events I I can't even remember which ones where since this this last show visited a bunch of customers out in the field which is always great learning new things from them [2:51] Upcoming Events in Retail Jason   [2:40]but the upcoming show is in early October is grocery shopping in Las Vegas so I'll be moderating a panel on. AI enabling Next Generation personalization, at at that show which I always look forward to to grocery shop and then a week later they're they're shop talk is moving their show their other stuff to Chicago so they're going to have their first, fall shop talk that will be in my backyard in Chicago so I'll be curious to see how if the world wants another another iteration of shop talk every year. Scot   [3:18]Yeah give us the behind-the-scenes did you like throw down the gauntlet and said shop talk must move to Chicago or I'm not going to attend or and run all the speaking stuff. Jason   [3:28]I basically did that with everything I told every client that they had come to Chicago I told shop talk and I told you you had to come here to record the podcast and yeah you'll note we haven't had a lot of podcasts and you know I still have the same 3 customers here I've always had. Scot   [3:44]But you got to show them to me for at least that's a 1 w. Jason   [3:46]I did but they really just added a show they're just looking for more Revenue so like it seems like it's probably not. Not just me but I feel like your LinkedIn feed has been more active than me and mostly with accolades for for the the fund that you helped kick off. Scot   [4:05]Yeah yeah so the just to update everybody I'm in a post spiffy world so started spiffy in 2014 and then, you know decided to to we got to kind of north of a 60-ish million run rate which is plenty big lots of employees lots of things going on and I had started this little side hustle well first of all I started this thing for our little local ecosystem here called the tweener list in 2015 which was just a little passion project and then started a little fund around that called the tweener fund which invests in early stage startups so I've I've really enjoyed that and decided to, move on from spiffy and make this my full-time gig so have been really enjoying doing that and actually have. I'm sure you do this where you have a list of things you're kind of like want to learn about and you can hardly ever get to it and I've been doing a lot of that the last 4 weeks and 1 of the big 1 is AI I've been going really deep on AI and it's been been a lot of fun to play around with all the cool new stuff going on there and I got a couple interesting ideas I'm not going to reveal anything but there's some interesting if you think from a AI native remember how we used to talk about mobile native well now thinking AI native I think there's some interesting things that could happen in the world of e-commerce so I'm going to I may go back to thinking more about e-commerce so we'll see. Jason   [5:23]Come on back though we're we're waiting for you the water is fine man they're they're for your point there's a lot of super interesting stuff the grocery shop will be fun a a show after that that I'm looking forward to is NRF because you know they have this Innovation Pavilion and they've kind of upped the the, rigger around recruiting exhibitors at The Innovation Pavilion this year and I think it's going to it's a big year for Innovation so, probably be a cool time for all of us to meet in the New York in January with global warming it's not even cold anymore. Scot   [5:58]Not been there not too long ago and it's still pretty darn cold for this North Carolina. Jason   [6:04]Oh okay fair enough fair enough I'm just last year was the first time it snowed in like 2 years in New York at at in her uh and then. Scot   [6:10]Okay yeah yeah last time I remember trudging through like 6 inches to get to your hotel which was painfully far away. Jason   [6:17]I mean that's yeah that's been my normal life so it's been weird that you haven't had to take the heavy coat to New York so although I wouldn't recommend that if you go to New York in January I'd bring that vote uh. And, I feel like in addition to everything else I know we're going to jump into the retail but all the Apple software updates dropped today so cool new icons and emojis and and delayed chats so I can have, like Emoji based chats hit Scott Wingo at every hour of the day now it's amazing. Scot   [6:48]Nice I look forward to that at 4:00 a.m. I'll have my do not disturb on to counteract your your attack. Jason   [6:53]Yeah although I may need you talk about new things you want to learn 1 of the things I want to learn is how to make Do Not Disturb work right in the the modern app like the system because I feel like all the focus modes have made it complicated. Scot   [7:05]Yeah I have to have you know that that kind of funny YouTube where the dad puts on 6 seat belts that's me putting on do not disturb I have to do the physical thing check the moon do my watch hit D and D in a profile and then that's that that combination of things I don't know which of them does it but that seems to stop everything. [7:28] AI in Grocery Shopping Jason   [7:23]Yes I feel like I'm in a similar boat but it would be interesting to figure out how to do it for as intended. Scot   [7:29]Yeah or just we know it works so just keep doing it do so just give us a preview of grocery shop can AI do better recommendations than kind of the old school way we used to do it. Jason   [7:42]So 1 would hope certainly it can do it at greater scale than we used to do it there's some anecdotal evidence that it's. Better it you know part of it I'm I'm curious to talk to some of these folks So So Meta will be on my panel. They they have a strong POV you know what's going on in the digital ad space right now is all the the ad platforms are trying to talk you into going hands off the wheel and turning over. The bidding to their AI engines and I would say at the moment it's an uneven playing field there like if I if I talk to my. Performance media folks they'll tell you that the the AI robots from some of the platforms are very effective and tend to outperform a manual bidding and on other platforms tha

    46 min

  7. 05/07/2024

    EP319 - Amazon Q1 2024 Recap

    EP319 - Amazon Q1 2024 Recap http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Episode Summary: In this episode, Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg and Scot Wingo dive deep into Amazon's first quarter results for 2024, analyzing the company's performance in various segments such as retail, offline and online sales, marketplace, AWS, and advertising. They also explore the impact of AI on Amazon's business and provide insights into the company's future guidance for Q2 2024. Amazon Q1 2024 Earnings Release Amazon Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript In our latest episode, Jason and Scott cover a range of topics, starting with their reflections on recent events such as May the 4th and Cinco de Mayo. Jason shares intriguing stories from his extensive travels and interactions with listeners worldwide. Scott delves into the intersection of e-commerce and the auto industry, honing in on Carvana. The duo also delves into the U.S. Department of Commerce retail indicators data, shedding light on trends in retail sales and e-commerce growth. The conversation pivots towards Amazon's recent earnings report, contextualizing it within the realm of AI investments by tech giants like Meta and Alphabet, offering valuable industry insights and analysis. The discussion continues with a focus on Amazon's earnings report, zooming in on concerns around AWS amid heightened competition from Alphabet and Azure. The rising trend of AI investments, particularly in data training applications, is explored, alongside the growing popularity of open source AI models due to cost and privacy considerations. Despite a conservative Q2 guidance, Amazon impresses with robust revenue that surpasses Wall Street expectations, particularly in operating income. The retail segment shows exceptional growth, exceeding operating income estimates for both domestic and international divisions. Notably, Amazon's performance in brick-and-mortar stores, spearheaded by Whole Foods, demonstrates resilience with a 6.3% growth rate. AWS stands out with a 17% growth, dispelling market share concerns and showcasing accelerated revenue growth, illustrating Amazon's continuous growth potential and innovation prowess. Scott delves deeper into Amazon's positive quarterly earnings report, emphasizing the remarkable revenue performance, especially in operating income. Insights are shared on Amazon's successful agnostic approach to LLM models and the potential advancements in generative AI. The conversation shifts towards the burgeoning ads business at Amazon, underlining its profitability and future growth prospects. Scot also outlines Amazon's Q2 guidance and the potential impacts of consumer spending patterns on the retail sector, including concerns about changing consumer behaviors and economic pressures shaping market dynamics. Jason complements the discussion with additional perspectives on consumer behavior and economic influences reshaping the market landscape. Furthermore, we embark on a detailed exploration of supply chain logistics, with a spotlight on Amazon's expansion into third-party logistics services, revolutionizing traditional retail strategies by sharing proprietary capabilities for wider adoption. Insights from Andy Jassy shed light on Amazon's logistics business approach. The conversation expands to include how companies like Spiffy are embracing a similar model of sharing proprietary products to drive innovation and revenue growth, showcasing an evolving landscape of retail innovation. The podcast unpacks the complex world of grocery retail, highlighting Amazon's experimental forays like Just Walk Out technology and the Amazon Dash cart, while examining the challenges in delineating Amazon's grocery sector strategy. A comparison is drawn between Amazon's strategies and those of rivals like Walmart and Target, who are adapting their product offerings to match evolving consumer preferences, offering a comprehensive view of the dynamic retail and supply chain management sphere. Dive into our engaging discussion, explore retail dynamics, and keep a lookout for more insightful content. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 319 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Sunday, May 5th, 2024. Chapters 0:23 The Jason and Scott Show Begins 2:56 World Travel Adventures 5:53 Commerce Tools Elevate Show 6:53 Jason's World Tour Plans 7:22 Where in the World is Retail Geek? 20:43 Amazon's First Quarter Earnings 23:23 Sandbagging Strategy 26:45 Amazon's Dominance in E-commerce 27:44 Online Segment Growth Analysis 28:53 Offline Store Segment Analysis 31:35 Spotlight on AWS Performance 34:32 Data at AWS 42:02 Gen AI Revenue Growth 46:24 Consumer Pressure 49:56 Supply Chain Evolution 53:46 Leveraging Technology 58:08 Disruption in E-commerce 1:01:54 Amazon's Grocery Strategy 1:05:01 Retail Industry News Transcript Jason: [0:23] Welcome to the Jason and Scott Show. This is episode 319 being recorded on Sunday, May 5th, 2024. I'm your host, Jason Retail Guy Goldberg, and as usual, I'm here with your co-host, Scott Wingo. Scot: [0:37] Hey, Jason, and welcome back, Jason and Scott Show listeners. It's been a while, but first, happy Cinco de Mayo, and also a belated May the 4th, Jason. Did you have a good Star Wars day? Jason: [0:49] I did. I did. I feel like Star Wars Day always makes me think of the podcast because I feel like we have spent many of them in my latter life together. Scot: [1:01] Yeah, absolutely. Any exciting new Star Wars experiences or merch? Jason: [1:08] No, I understand you got some vintage merch. merch. Scot: [1:13] It's not, but they, back when I was a kid, you would go and if you went every week to, I think it was Burger King, you would for the, I think it was Empire. I have the Empire right here. So definitely Empire, but you would get a glass. Now it turns out these were full of lead paint, which would kill you, but that was the downside. Jason: [1:32] Not recommended for drinking. Scot: [1:33] You got a very, yes, I never, being a collector, I never drank out of them. So that's good. Jason: [1:37] Saved your life right there. Scot: [1:38] Yes, but I did drink out of the Tweety Bird. So that me, me. I'm sure I got some yellow lead paint from a twitty bird glass. Anyway, so they came out with a Mandalorian kind of homage to those glasses and they were at the Hallmark store of all places, not where I usually hang out, but I got to go to a Hallmark store and the little ladies that worked there were, I wish them all an awesome May the 4th. And they looked at me like I was from another planet and it was hilarious. My wife's like, stop, they don't know what you're doing. Jason: [2:07] Wait, they didn't have a big May 4th section in the Hallmark store? Scot: [2:11] They did. The little ladies didn't know. Jason: [2:13] The overlap of people that still buy Papyrus cards and celebrate May 4th is probably not great. Scot: [2:21] It was very humbling. It was a humble May the 4th, but I got my glasses and I was happy. I'm happy for you. And then tonight we had tacos for dinner, so I'm hitting all the holidays. Jason: [2:30] I feel like we should have tacos for dinner every night, whether it's Cinco de Mayo or not, but I'm i am happy for that. Scot: [2:35] We do have a lot of tacos but this was a special single denial edition. Jason: [2:42] Well, very well done, my friend. Scot: [2:44] Thanks. Well, listeners of the pod have been all over me. They're like, why aren't you recording? And I said, it's not me. It's Jason. It's Jason. Because you have been traveling Scot: [2:55] the earth, spreading retail geek goodness. Tell us, we are way far behind on trip updates and all the different countries. It's like you're playing, do you have like a little travel bingo where you're just like punching, what is it, 93 countries? Jason: [3:09] I do. They call it a passport. Oh, nice. Yes. Scot: [3:13] That, uh, little book that you get to carry. Yeah. Jason: [3:15] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have been on a lot of trips and it sounds like you and I may be telling complimentary lies because I also, I've had an opportunity to meet a lot of listeners in the last, we'll call it seven weeks and which they're always super nice. And it's always super fun to talk to people. And obviously they're, you know, strangers recognize my voice in line at Starbucks at all these e-commerce shows. And then we strike up a conversation. And then the next question is always, where the heck is Scott? Because they're always disappointed to meet me and not you. And now the new thing is, and why aren't you producing more frequent shows? And my answer is always that you're dominating the world at Get Spiffy and that you're too busy. Scot: [4:00] Uh-huh. I see. Okay. Jason: [4:02] Well, we're both very busy. Scot: [4:05] You're traveling more than I am. I'm busy washing cars. Jason: [4:08] Yes. I think both are fairly true, but I did finish a grueling seven-week stint where I got to come home a couple of times on the weekends, but I basically had seven weeks of travel back to back. In my old life, that would not have been that atypical, but post-pandemic, The travel has been a little more moderate. And I have noticed that I have my travel muscles have atrophied and I don't really want to redevelop. Jason: [4:35] So the seven weeks was a lot. Please don't ask me for trip reports for all th

    1h 8m

  8. 03/15/2024

    EP318 - Temu Deep Dive with Earnest Analytics

    EP318 - Temu Deep Dive with Earnest Analytics  Episode Summary: In this episode, Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg and Scot Wingo dive deep Temu, the online marketplace operated by the Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings, that has become the fastest growing retailer in history. Joining us on the episode is Michael Maloof is the Head of Marketing for Earnest Analytics. Earnest works with world-class data partners to acquires, anonymize, and productize insight about the entire U.S. Economy. They have posted numerous insights about Temu in the US this year: Feb 28: Temu’s 2024 Super Bowl ad blitz failed to accelerate growth March 5: Temu is growing fastest among high income earners March 12: Almost half of Wish, AliExpress customers shop at Temu In this episode we cover who Temu is, how big they have become, who their customers are and what retailers they are likely impacting, their go to market strategy (and especially their marketing spend), the controversy around their use of the Global Postal Treaty, and some of their potential risks. We also explore where they could go next. If you're in the commerce space, you'll want to make sure you are up to speed on Temu. Don't forget to like our facebook page, and if you enjoyed this episode please write us a review on itunes. Episode 318 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday, March 13th, 2024. http://jasonandscot.com Join your hosts Jason "Retailgeek" Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Co-Founder of ChannelAdvisor as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing. Transcript Jason: [0:23] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show. This is episode 318 being recorded on Wednesday, March 13th, 2024. I'm your host, Jason “Retailgeek” Goldberg. And as usual, I'm here with your co-host, Scott Wingo. Scot: [0:39] Hey, Jason, and welcome back, Jason and Scott show listeners. Jason, one of the topics that is coming up a lot this year, we talked a lot at a lot in our recap and our preview is Temu. By many measures, people think they're one of the fastest growing e-commerce companies in history. If you watch the Super Bowl, I think they spent $8 trillion on ads there. So we want to do a deep dive into this and cover a number of topics. We want to talk about a little background around Temu. What's it mean for U.S. retailers? And, you know, it's a Chinese company. Does it even matter? If yes, why? Because Temu isn't public and they are a Chinese company, they don't really disclose any information. So we wanted to bring on a guest that is basically a Temu expert. So we looked around and we found Michael Maloof. He is the head of marketing at Ernest Analytics. Ernest works with world-class data partners to acquire, anonymize, and productize insights about the U.S. economy. They have posted lots of articles. This is how we found Michael. I think you know him as well from the trade show circuit. So he's going to help us do this deep dive into what's going on at Temu. Welcome to the show, Michael. Michael? Michael: [1:59] Yeah, thanks so much for having me on the show. Big fan of your annual predictions and the work you guys do. So I'm head of marketing at Earnest Analytics. We're the leading credit card retail pricing and healthcare claims data provider for investors and retailers. Before Earnest, I was actually a tech and telco analyst over at Goldman. The two credit card data sets we work with now, Orion and Vela, are probably the most pertinent to my conversations about the consumer economy and certainly this conversation today about TMU. They sourced respectively from a large account aggregator, like a budgeting app, and part of a POS system in the US. And Ernest essentially takes these massive and messy data sets, normalizes structures, and then puts them onto our platform so everyone from portfolio managers to marketers can see this third-party data. For example, you'd see market share, competitive benchmarking, customer behavior, revenue predictions, and macro trends for thousands of companies, including TMU. Scot: [3:03] Awesome. Thanks, Michael. And then, so which sector did you cover when you were an analyst at Goldman Sachs? Michael: [3:08] Tech and telco. So anything in the tech space, we had a few marketplaces in there, telecom companies. It's been a while though. Ernest has been my home now for seven years. Scot: [3:20] Okay. Was this in the Anthony Noto era you were there? Michael: [3:23] This was in the vera rossi era she was my my lead where we recovered uh latin american tech and telco. Scot: [3:30] Very cool awesome yeah they did goldman did the channelizer ipo so i get to know the team there pretty well awesome well before we jump into the data which we're excited to kind of hear what you have to share here jason i know this has become a very hot topic in your world you you You spoke on it at NRF. In your day job, you're getting tons of questions about this. I think you're booked out solid with Tmoo briefings. So those people pay big money for it, and our listeners don't pay. Give us the free version of your backgrounder on Tmoo. Jason: [4:05] Yeah, thanks, Scott. And I'm sure we'll spice in some other tidbits as we go, but I'll try to give a concise bullet. it. Temu is a subsidiary of a company that used to be called Pinduoduo in China. It's now called PDD Holdings, which is infinitely easier to spell, by the way. And PDD Holdings is one of the largest e-commerce companies in China. On a market cap basis, they keep flip-flopping with Alibaba. So they're super competitive. They're way north of like $400 billion in GMV in China and had a really interesting trajectory, but a couple of years ago, they launched Tmoo into first UK and then US, now 49 other markets as a new retail concept. And so a couple of things I'd want folks to know before we dive in with Michael, first of all, the name is a loose English acronym for team up price down. So I always pronounce Tmoo as in team. [5:08] There are multiple pronunciations out there, even from Tmoo employees. So I'm not sure there's an official pronunciation. In the United States, they launched in September of 2022. So they're about 18 months old now. And most folks were not familiar with them until, a surprise, three months after launching, they bought a Super Bowl ad. So they became familiar to millions of Americans with the Shop Like a Billionaire ad that ran in the Super Bowl in 2023. And then as Scott alluded to, they bought five ads in the Super Bowl this year. So they haven't disclosed what they paid. A normal 30-second spot in the Super Bowl costs about $7 million. They ran four ads during the Super Bowl and one during the postgame. So estimates are in the kind of $20 to $30 million that they spent just on that ad. There's a bunch of estimates for how big they are in the U.S. I'm eager to hear what Michael thinks, but his old rivals at Morgan Stanley have them at about $16 billion in GMV in the U.S. But more interesting, Morgan Stanley estimates they're going to be $32 billion by 2030. So you think about a retail company that launched in September of 2022, and then in the first year, business sold $16 billion worth of stuff. That's the fastest growing retailer of all times. We do know from other sources that they get more traffic every year than Target. [6:36] They've been the most downloaded shopping apps on the Android and Apple app stores since they were born. So they've kind of owned the top of that list. And a couple other little interesting things. They are a marketplace. They have invented a model they call next generation manufacturing. So they're a marketplace. It's all three-piece sellers that are selling goods on Temu. But unlike traditional Western-based marketplaces, Temu does a lot more of the work, of listing the products and fulfilling the products for the factory. So they may, if you're a factory, they say the only thing you need is a cellular internet connection, and they provide you all the infrastructure to become a successful seller on Temu. There's somewhere between 80 and 100,000 Chinese factories that are currently sellers on the marketplace. And then one big innovation is this week, they're turning on the ability for U.S. Marketplace sellers to sell and fulfill their goods from the U.S. as well. So one interesting question about a marketplace is, are they competing for sellers with Amazon and Walmart? And now they're bringing that fight to American soil. So that, I feel like, is enough to get us started. There's certainly an interesting compan

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About

Join hosts Jason “Retailgeek” Goldberg, Chief Commerce Strategy Officer at Publicis, and Scot Wingo, CEO of GetSpiffy and Founder and Executive Chairman of Channel Advisor, as they discuss the latest news and trends in the world of e-commerce and digital shopper marketing.

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