What Makes Stores Worth Visiting?

[00:00:05] Phillip: Alright. Brian, I'm cooked as the kids would say. This is the time of year we...

[00:02:03] Brian: Are you cooking or are you cooked?

[00:02:05] Phillip: I'm thoroughly cooked. It's like a 107 real feel is... Whatever the real feel is. I don't know how they calculate that.

[00:02:11] Brian: Not as the kids would say. You're just literally cooking.

[00:02:15] Phillip: I'm literally cooking. It's the time of year in Florida where we have, like, afternoon thunderstorms, and it's 98 degrees, 97 degrees every day and 100% humidity. We try to stay cool.

[00:02:30] Brian: It's kind of the opposite over here right now. It's smoke season now because the wildfires are out and about.

[00:02:38] Phillip: It's smoke season for you because on all of our all hands meetings, you're out with a pipe. Mister... You're like Ernest Hemingway.

[00:02:46] Brian: Ugh. I was not inspired by Ernest Hemingway to smoke my pipe, although maybe inadvertently. I mean, I guess all modern smoking is inspired by Ernest Hemingway?

[00:02:59] Phillip: You called it. By the way, this is interesting. We we saw this that the rise of smoking is is everywhere now. Smoking is cool again. I don't know if that's a good thing. That's probably a bad thing.

[00:03:10] Brian: No. It's a good thing. I think.

[00:03:15] Phillip: Yeah? Mister Counterculture.

[00:03:17] Brian: I mean, here's the problem. Vaping was out of control, and vaping is nasty, man. It's gross. People do it in inappropriate places, and they just...

[00:03:30] Phillip: That's true.

[00:03:31] Brian: It's just even if you were allowed to vape indoors, which people do, they try to sneak it in. They're like, "Oh, it's just vapor." It's just so gross. I would rather be in a smoke filled room than a vapor filled room.

[00:03:47] Phillip: I'd rather be in neither of those rooms. I think it's kind of a dirtbag thing, but I love it for... I love it for you. I love it for a certain... It's sort of a nostalgic thing.

[00:03:58] Brian: None of the above. It's not aesthetic nor nostalgic nor dirtbag. It is something that people have done for... {laughter}

[00:04:07] Phillip: Millennia.

[00:04:09] Brian: It's really enjoyable.

[00:04:11] Phillip: It's come back.

[00:04:12] Brian: It's back, baby. We called it two years ago.

[00:04:15] Phillip: We called it two or three years ago.

[00:04:17] Brian: Two/three years ago. Yeah.

[00:04:18] Phillip: If only people would listen to us, they would have been ahead of the trend, and we're consistently ahead by a few years.

[00:04:23] Brian: Cigarette summer. Huh.

[00:04:25] Phillip: Yeah.

[00:04:25] Brian: This has been coming on for a couple years.

[00:04:27] Phillip: The song of the summer is the cigarette. You heard it here first. This is gonna be a wild one here today because we get to talk a little bit about the return on experience. We get to go back a little bit of nostalgia to the beginning of the year when we had a conversation with one of our favorite people. So without any further ado, we're going to let her in on this conversation. She is Kate Fannin and the consummate consumer channel agnostic retail realist for over two decades. She's been working in marketing, retail and IT, including fifteen years in luxury fashion and beauty, and has held leadership roles at Estée Lauder Companies, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Gap Inc, and most recently has worked with us here at Future Commerce as an analyst in the field to develop the voice behind Field Notes, which is our new premium offering that measures in store return on experience available exclusively to members of Future Commerce Plus. Welcome to the show, Kate Fannin.

[00:05:18] Kate: Hey, it's great to be back. I'm super excited. Anytime I can talk about shopping, I'm pleased.

[00:05:24] Brian: Oh, yeah.

[00:05:25] Phillip: And joining us also Alicia Esposito, who heads up all of our content strategy here at Future Commerce. Welcome back to the show.

[00:05:32] Alicia: Hey, good to see you guys. Hi.

[00:05:35] Phillip: Today, we're going to dive into a lot of stuff. I know we're going talk a little bit about Field Notes, which we launched this year at VISIONS. And we've all become good friends, fast friends here. I know we were sort of at the pre show, we were talking a little bit when we opened about Brian's penchant for, you know, a little bit of vices. Do we have vices? I have vices. I had a carrot cake every day when I was in London. So some of my vices have come back a little bit. I was very good for most of the year. But did the vices come back to you guys? Kate, anything?

[00:06:07] Kate: Mine is not seasonal. I would just tell you, I'm a pen freak.

[00:06:11] Phillip: Oh, that's a good one.

[00:06:13] Alicia: Pen pals, literally. I love it.

[00:06:15] Phillip: Alright, we're gonna have to do it too. So if you're on the YouTube, you can see it here. Have a whole... Now mine is in like a little pen case, but I have a pen zipper pen thing. So I carry it around as well. Vices, I think Kate, one of yours is shopping. I think you... If that's even a vice, it isn't around here, I don't think.

[00:06:34] Brian: You can get addicted to it.

[00:06:36] Phillip: Yeah. Catch us up on what you've been working on since we talked last, Kate.

[00:06:40] Kate: Oh my gosh. So, yes, shopping is a vice, but it's also, I consider it my job.

[00:06:46] Phillip: Yeah.

[00:06:46] Kate: And always have since the age of 16 and going to the mall, getting your ears pierced in the mall back in the day. So lately I've just been observing as far as the analog. I'm an analog advocate. So shopping in physical stores and how they have changed and done this sort of roller coaster of "we need super cool tech and we need all these video" coming back to "not really, we just need a shopping place." And I know this was in a recent article that y'all posted about some of it's getting a little too stark. It's getting boring. So they've gone again roller coastering from lights and cameras and all this in your face. And now it's just sort of four walls. And so I'm super excited when it's really exciting again. You remember the days of Esprit and Benetton, colors everywhere. So I want that back and it's coming back but not as fast as I'd like.

[00:07:50] Brian: What was the tweet I saw recently? It was like, "Why is it that luxury looks the same as an insane asylum," or like a hospital? {laughter}.

[00:08:02] Kate: It's true.

[00:08:03] Alicia: It's very medical.

[00:08:04] Brian: Yeah. So medical. Luxury is so medical right now. {laughter}

[00:08:08] Kate: Yeah. Yep. Except if you go to the Gucci store in Soho, it's amazing and it has been for many years. I mean, it's the way that they have it merchandised, and they have some cool factors and furniture and it's, you are immersed in that experience for sure. But you're right, I was not immersed in SKIMS, I'll tell you that. It was pretty stark. Yep, could have been a GAP in the 80s.

[00:08:33] Phillip: Yeah. And SKIMS is one of those brands that we launched with over on Field Notes. One of the things that we'll be making available here to listeners of this podcast. So if you are listening to this and you want to check out the Field Notes product, we will be making that available to everybody, specifically the SKIMS deep dive. So we will get into that here in just a little bit. You have a philosophy on this investment that, you know, brands have been making on, crossing the digital divide from URL to IRL and making a return on experience. It is not just a philosophy, but it has like a real tie back to business impact. Tell us a little bit about ROE, return on experience.

[00:09:13] Kate: So if you think about marketing and its trajectory, it used to be very one way. Let's push a bunch of stuff at you and let's push a lot of ads and TV and billboards. But now that it's becoming two way or three way and we're listening, you have to listen. If you're not listening to your customer, you're going to be sunk. So this whole listening and the social piece of it and telling friends about it, It's not old school marketing anymore. It's really about engagement. And I wish marketing would change their name to engagement because that's really what companies and brands and stores should be focused on. What will it take to get you to touch and feel and talk to the people in our store? So that's all part of the experience which means you don't have to spend that day. And I think that's a different KPI than we're used to which is, "Okay, what's the return? So they went in, did they buy? Did they convert? Oh, they didn't, we're doing something wrong." Not true. Not true at all. They went in, they came out. They went in again, they came out. They might have told two friends, they took them back. So it's a whole experiential piece that they might spend after the fourth visit, after the tenth visit, especially if it's an investment or luxury, they need to experience it before they can convert. So that's really key to, "Hang on. They don't have to buy that day." That's my thought.

[00:10:52] Brian: That's great. I love that. It's not about, like, straight line conversion.

[00:10:57] Kate: No.

[00:10:57] Brian: It's about giving people an experience that they enjoy and wanna return to. I like that. Phillip, you had...

[00:11:03] Phillip: Kind of anathema to the current era. {laughter} Buy now. Buy as quickly as possible. Let us attribute everything.

[00:11:10] Brian: Yeah. We need to be able to draw it back from... Actually, the one of the biggest reasons why people want or businesses want people to buy immediately is so that they can draw a straight line attribution. It's actually all about the data more than anything else.

[00:11:26] Phillip: Yeah.

[00:11:26] Brian: And, also, it is tough to see people walk away from things and not purchase them, just trusting that you've built something good enough that they're gonna come back even if they didn't buy right there. And that's a big word in in all of this is trust. I think building experiences that people can rely on and trust. Although, Phillip, I think you had maybe a little bit of a Freudian slip there for a second. You said return on experiment. And I think that maybe there's connection between experimentation and experience. Kate, what do you think about that?

[00:12:02] Phillip: Well, now we can't edit out my slip. We were gonna edit it. Now I have to leave it in. Thanks.

[00:12:08] Brian: Yep.

[00:12:08] Kate: Well, it could also be return on engagement, And I've made that mistake before. So they're not really a mistake, it's ROE, it can be a few different things. And you just mentioned Brian about data. So they might capture my data and I still didn't convert. So that will start that chain of communication, especially online, is, "Oh, give us your data and then we'll send you your answer to your quiz." Okay, so you engage me, that might be a... That's an experiment potentially. That's an experience. But I think the other piece is popups. And I know that we were going to get into that a little bit later. But pop ups to me are really the epitome of an experience because a lot of times you don't spend. You're not buying anything. You just want to experience the brand. There was the recent one with Road in LA. It went gangbusters. And I think they might have sold but they may not have. It might have just been experience our brand. Certainly do social, get involved with, I'm sure there was a step and repeat. But experience it and then you wanna, you're hungry for it. I wanna go buy it. And it's not like there's 27 products, it's a handful. So I think that's a great way to experience a brand. You don't need to launch or to promote a 100 different things. That's overwhelming.

[00:13:42] Phillip: Coming back to Brian, just to, you know, if we're gonna go backwards and what is investment return on experiment, return on experience. Right? All these various definitions. In fairness, in at least ecommerce, there are attribution windows. So in paid media, seven day click is a very, I would say, a very standard setting. So we are looking for, like, a seven day attribution window. In the pop up world, I'm not sure how long of an attribution window or how wide of an attribution window we're talking about. It's a good question to see brand, the halo of brand, and the investment of brand and how much of a halo that has of an impact. For instance, Kate, I'm not sure if you have a thought on this, but a lot of justification for the build out of physical brick and mortar retail was in the DTC era, especially Casper mattress and Purple and some of those at the time was that it had a tremendous uplift in ecommerce sales in regions at the time. I don't know if that's been walked back now in the modern era. But I have to believe that a lot of this is just getting out into these communities that otherwise wouldn't be physical hands on experience with brand. That does have this new now physical association which otherwise has a must lead to a concrete impact, must lead to attribution. You may just not be able to measure it. Yeah.

[00:15:34] Kate: Yeah. That's true. And I think about telling people the word-of-mouth index and would I go back? That's what I also, that's one of my key measurements is will I go back to this experience? Whether it's a store, whether it's a pop up, what am I going to tell people? Is it a big deal? And I kind of liken the pop up aspect of retail to food trucks. They're very different in their perspective because some don't even have a restaurant. They only have a food truck. In fact, most that's what it is. But they still go to different environments. Is it a brewery I'm gonna hang out my food truck and I keep going back just like a retail pop up. Do I need to move it around? Probably, especially if I'm sort of investigating different markets and geographies and types of retail environments. But I like that they're both sort of a temporary way to consume. It's just, it's a fun way to think about it.

[00:16:38] Phillip: We've had a good deal of experience at Future Commerce on some of those sides, and I feel for anybody who is on a pop up team. It feels like the amount of work that goes into launching a pop up and the amount of work that goes into launching a store is about 99% the amount of same work. In many cases, you wind up pulling permits, doing fire inspections, training teams. It's a bunch of the same work that it would take to just launch something at a full scale and keep it permanent. And I don't think that a lot of folks, especially customers understand what goes into something that's temporary versus something that's permanent. And a lot of that investment sometimes from a brand perspective that goes into testing that strategy, the learnings from it could have been spent maybe as a more permanent outfit. You spend a tremendous amount of money for what otherwise is...

[00:18:44] Kate: Temporary.

[00:18:45] Phillip: Yeah. It's research.

[00:18:46] Brian: It's tough because it's also something that if you're experimenting, you know that you're gonna be removing it at some point. So then do you actually put the full investment behind it that you would have if it was permanent? And so that seems like it could be a very vicious cycle to try things. But, of course, it seems like probably a better option to do that than to have a store that you put in that's physical, that's there forever. It would be really weird to close a concept versus shut down a pop up. And so from a perception perspective, it's kind of necessary. It's a necessary expense. And that must be challenging for a lot of retailers to want to experiment with physical and instead just maybe look around them and copy what other people have done that have been a little bit more boundary pushing. And so you see a lot more incremental change in the physical space. And that's sort of what the article that we recently posted was about.

[00:19:59] Alicia: Well, what I find interesting about pop ups too, depending on the organization, and Kate, you may have a perspective on this, I've found that sometimes pop up initiatives are largely led by marketing. They'll bring design in to support and help with the more tactical components. But when it comes to strategy, direction, in some cases, even how they're going to measure success, it is largely a marketing play. I believe that was Anthropologie that said that. And granted, that's a pretty large organization, but there was a clear distinction of like, "Oh no, this is an initiative that is solely for marketing, marketing related goals" versus, "Oh, we want to test this concept." And granted, I think pop ups can be used for both of those things, but I think that could be where things start to branch off a little bit.

[00:20:51] Kate: Yeah, I would agree that marketing is probably driving it because a lot of it's about acquisition. Can we acquire a new customer and awareness? Have they even heard of our brand? But they might walk by and say, what is that? Especially if it's a really cool pop up. And the other piece I think is customer markets, like the consumer segment. So when you go to a store, you have to consciously say, "I am going to walk into that store." Oftentimes I'm a little intimidated. I don't know if I should go into that store, but if I can walk by and maybe touch and feel or not, I'm not committed. It's kind of like sampling in the grocery store where I just don't know if I want to buy this product, but we have little pieces of bacon right there. I'm going to try the piece of bacon. And there were some stores I've been to recently that I really did not feel good walking into the store but there's a whole element of they saw me walk in, they may or may not have greeted me and now I have to leave and I didn't buy anything. Do I have to say, "Thanks?" Do I have to say, "It's been great?" That's always awkward, especially if you did not like the experience.

[00:22:08] Alicia: Back out slowly.

[00:22:10] Phillip: {laughter} "So long suckers."

[00:22:12] Kate: Yeah.

[00:22:14] Brian: I 100% backed out of a store.

[00:22:17] Phillip: Oh, really?

[00:22:18] Brian: Oh, yeah.

[00:22:19] Phillip: Which one?

[00:22:20] Brian: I don't remember.

[00:22:21] Phillip: Fredericks of Hollywood.

[00:22:22] Brian: It was like some shoppy shop type place. You're like walking and you're like, "Oh, wait. This is all fairing stuff?" Back away slowly.

[00:22:30] Phillip: Brian's in there. He's like, "Not enough tinned fish. I am offended."

[00:22:36] Brian: Oh, I only buy tinned fish at one place. {laughter}

[00:22:40] Phillip: Let's switch gears into Field Notes a bit. Alicia, when we first partnered with Kate on this initiative, folks might remember, you know, a few months ago when you first came over to Future Commerce, you have a background in retail journalism. It's something that you've been talking quite a bit about in your professional career. What did you see as an opportunity for us to launch Field Notes as a product for a more professional audience and as a part of our premium offering? And what did this partnership really bring about for us as we started to look at the opportunity?

[00:23:16] Alicia: Yeah. It's a super exciting initiative, and I'm so thankful I got to join the team as we were really starting to ramp it up because in my last few years covering the industry, there has been a lot of discourse around how brands are assessing their current store mix. On the other side of the spectrum, the brands that are entering brick and mortar, what approaches are they taking? So I've covered everything from, I mentioned Anthropologie, Anthropologie's approach to pop ups, where they're popping up, why, how, but also retailers like Foot Locker launching new concepts and what markets are they focusing on? What are the intentions and goals behind them? And for Future Commerce specifically, I thought there was a distinct opportunity for us to cover that wide range of brands that are taking such different approaches to brick and mortar, so we can show to our audience and our community that, you know, we do have perspectives on the evolution that's happening within brick and mortar, but there are clear cultural tie ins to the decisions that brands make. So Kate, I'd love for you to jump in here a little bit too, but for instance, SKIMS, that is a cultural brand. The founder alone, she is tethered to social media. She is the core influencer. She helped drive the start of that era in many ways, but it's also a very significant retail success story. By that, I mean, it's a story of scale. This brand turned into a fixture. Why? How? Can they make it in brick and mortar? What approaches are they taking to do so successfully? And on the other end of the spectrum, there are a few brands that we've, Kate has been incredible analyzing these different store concepts that are smaller, but there are a lot of rich insights and learnings to glean from these brands that are taking a very distinct approach to visual storytelling, merchandising, tech integration. These are learnings that anyone can apply, in my opinion, based on where they are in their brick and mortar strategy, whether they're scaling, like in that stage of like, let's expand out and open new concepts and test and learn. And it can also be applied for the people that are just starting out and are trying to figure out, well, how does my really strong digital brand show up in a physical environment? How do we best engage our current customer base, but also acquire new ones? Like Kate was saying. To that, and Kate, I want to pass it to you because, you you came to the table and had ideas right off the bat as far as like who you wanted to see, why, and the approach for assessing these stores. So why don't you share a little bit about that?

[00:26:17] Kate: Sure, yeah. So much of it is second nature for me when I go in a store. I profile immediately. I can't not even if I'm looking for something. I just look at everything and how I'm engaging with the store, the environment, etcetera. And what's key to me is the story and what story are they trying to tell? Who is their personality? Do they know who they are? That's another piece is sometimes I'm confused and what are they trying to tell me here? What do they stand for? And in the case of SKIMS everything you described is part of the story. However, going into the store itself, do I know that, number one? Do I care? So for instance, the first question I asked a salesperson was, "I don't know a whole lot about this brand except what I have seen. Can you tell me more about it?" Her very first response was, "Well the Kardashians started it." Which I thought, wow, if I was your average customer or I'm, you know, Gen X, do I care? And also is that polarizing?

[00:27:29] Alicia: I was going to say it could be a detractor. Yeah.

[00:27:32] Kate: Yeah. Maybe it's a turnoff, like, "See ya. I don't support them. I'm out of the store." But then she went and told me more about, it started with foundation type of garments and she was great and she told me the story about it. But you know, I walked around and experienced it and the biggest shock to me was the, wow, they only have about four colors. And I know that aligns with the skin tones, which is awesome, but it's kind of boring. And the whole store was very clinical, like we're saying, white walls. Had they had more color, I would understand that because you want them to pop. And this did a little bit so you could see the skin tones, but it just surprised me that there wasn't more personality to it. It was branded well. The hangers and the salespeople and the signage. So I appreciated that, but I wasn't blown away, I will tell you. I bought a few things, but, yeah, wasn't my favorite experience. I've told people about it, but I have yet to tell a friend, "We gotta go back. Let me take you through." If you like their stuff, go online. That's what I came out with versus... Yeah. It just wasn't very exciting.

[00:28:51] Brian: Wow. That is actually, like, the worst possible thing that someone could say about a store, I think. {laughter} Yeah. "If you like their stuff, go online." I'm gonna use that one. {laughter}

[00:29:08] Phillip: For what it's worth, in the actual rating and the way that Future Commerce's Field Notes product works, there is a sliding scale of commerce and culture because at Future Commerce, we explore the intersection of commerce and culture. And in our minds, we look at things through like a matrix of senses and sensory appeal. And in field notes, we sort of break that down. Right? So, Kate, you're analyzing things through sort of sensory appeal, and we have sort of matrix of sensory appeal. And then we also look at things through the sliding scale of commerce and culture. I think in some cases, like a Whole Foods, which I know that you applied the Field Notes product in in one way to go in and analyze a particular Whole Foods, you know, they're looking to move product. So it's gonna rate very highly on the commerce scale. Right? And it doesn't mean it would inversely impact the cultural appeal, but you're going to move a lot of product through a store like Whole Foods. SKIMS, it looks like in our assessment here, rates very much like a showroom. So it's meant to be probably a lot more like a car dealer. How often do you go to your car dealer? I'm gonna go look at something. I'm gonna check it out once. And then how often do I need to really go back? It's go to experience it. You know? It's spectacle to some degree, probably.

[00:30:39] Kate: Yeah. What's it gonna take to put you in this bra today? Yeah.

[00:30:46] Phillip: {laughter} That's funny. And now, like any good brand, the continued, I'd say line extension and and product innovation, they have this new facelift product. I don't know if you saw it, Kate.

[00:31:07] Kate: {laughter} Yes. I have.

[00:31:08] Phillip: Yeah. The spectacle, I think, continues also in the way that the product innovation continues where this face wrap sort of like face lift, you know, overnight face lift... There's something really interesting about that that might bring you back for an in store demo. But outside of that, I'm not sure how novel the store experience needs to be when you have so many retail partners as well.

[00:31:36] Kate: Right, and for something like that, I would jump online just to check the reviews, who's liking it, is it really working before I would make a trek into certainly into New York City to go into the store because it's a commitment to go to some of these stores, whether there's a commute or there's parking. I mean, I figure all of that into a store visit. It's really part of the experience.

[00:32:02] Alicia: And it's interesting too because it's on Fifth Avenue, right next to Cartier, if I'm remembering correctly.

[00:32:07] Kate: Yeah.

[00:32:08] Alicia: So you would expect or anticipate a level of showmanship drama even.

[00:32:14] Kate: Sure.

[00:32:16] Alicia: That makes it a bit more exciting, but I'm sure they still get their fair share of young shoppers, Gen Z, even Gen Alpha that just wanna go in and take pictures just to say that they've been there, you know, take a picture with the nipple bra, like, whatever they're gonna do. But, like, are they gonna buy things? Maybe. Maybe not. But will they share on social media? Possibly. Likely. So it's like all of these things have to come into play, but we don't want to be all negative. I mean, what store experience did you assess that really wowed you? And what are some of the learnings there? Because I do think despite the negativity and the downsides of SKIMS, there are some really actionable learnings you shared in Field Notes.

[00:32:59] Kate: I was really blown away by Swatch. And I think we've talked about Swatch before and the fact that it is so iconic and it takes us back. But they've done such an amazing job of not just hitting us that wore it forever ago, but bringing in these new target segments, younger people. So this was in Times Square. So you're already boom, you're being blasted with color and video and digital and signs and people and they still stood out. They did an amazing job when, granted they had the screens out front and that helped to tell the story. You know, when you go in, you're kind of blown away at the colors and I was immediately greeted. And then that huge, they have a crank that you stand there and you crank it like they're gears in a watch and it moves up against the wall. So you're already involved. You're already part of the experience. And then you just look around, and their displays are fantastic because they're in these glass cases. You can go right up to them and this is very smart of them. You really can't take anything down. So a lot of the watches are up against the wall, but they're affixed. So you have to engage a human to try it on, which is super smart. Obviously they're in an area too that theft is probably an issue, but you can go and touch and look at them and see them. You can design your own. And they had a kiosk for that. And even though I was sort of confused by it, I'm not sure I played around with it. He came right over. "Let me help you out. Let me show you how you can build your own." The kids sections were amazing. They had coloring pages and pencils, colored pencils for the kiddos to play with while mom was looking around.

[00:34:50] Phillip: Wow.

[00:34:50] Kate: Yeah, it was really well done. And you could tell that it didn't matter what customer segment or generation. It was part of their history. It was part of their story. They know who they are. There was no question about it. And of course, I bought. I think I bought two before I left because it's also relatively affordable. Some are under $100 So great. Why wouldn't I have a couple? Wear them together. And they told me that. He had one on each wrist. I thought that's so cool. So I was wearing two together, and it's fun. It's just a fun brand.

[00:38:22] Brian: Did you know that there are actually over 3,000 Swatch stores worldwide? It is not surprising to me that they're dialed because they're actually...

[00:38:34] Kate: No pun intended.

[00:38:34] Brian: That was good. Right? Yeah. They're dialed. Because they've actually have so many opportunities to learn in different cultures and different places internationally and so on. And I actually love the nod to the kids because it actually is such an entry level brand that kids, like mine who are into watches are like, "Oh, Swiss watch." It's like the pinnacle of watch. They're already sort of like, they don't know it, but I can actually already see them reaching for a Swatch not too long from now even though they haven't actually said, "Oh, I want a Swatch," to me yet. But I know I can see their path in their watch journeys. It's gonna be a Swatch that's the next grab after their, you know, Casios and Timexes.

[00:39:31] Kate: There's also this movement back to analog. And a lot of people are not wearing a smartwatch anymore. I've never had a smartwatch and I prefer an analog because then you're more in your time. Ha. You're really you're you're invested. And, you know, I just need to know the time. That's really it. So I'm thrilled that there are younger people that, "Yeah, I just want a real watch again." Yeah.

[00:39:59] Brian: I love how Phillip lifted up his arm as you said people are...

[00:40:03] Phillip: I've been sitting like this the whole time, Brian.

[00:40:04] Brian: I watched your arm move up like this.

[00:40:07] Phillip: By the way, I'm wearing the Swatch Omega collab right now.

[00:40:11] Alicia: There you go.

[00:40:12] Phillip: By the way, the Swatch Group is from a business analysis perspective, the way that they have been building, I'd say, like multigenerational affinity on from, I'd say, accessible consumer brands all the way through ultra luxury is kind of an incredible feat. Tissot is having a moment. Longines is having a moment. And both of those are adjacencies to a lot of the Swatch stores. So when you look at the way that they're building retail, it's not just Swatch. You're seeing that it's dad and mom and the kids can all kind of shop in adjacent stores together. And I think that that's kind of a fascinating retail analysis in and of itself too. One of the things that's really impressive too about Field Notes as it stands, Kate, is that you're not just analyzing the store itself, but that we're also looking at what adjacencies exist. Where does it sit in the neighborhood? What are the stores right next to it? And what's located next to it? And as the product is being built out, eventually, we'll be able to sort of plot these against other products in market. In my mind, we're gonna rebuild what l two could have been one day. And that's just, I think L2 was sort of a really impressive product and RIP L2. But what would L2 for the the modern generation be? Now I think ten years post acquisition, I'd love to see what a commerce and culture version of L2 would be. I think this is a really great first step for it. What other brands sort of stood out? Because I know that we have a number of them here that we've gone through, and then we can switch gears to sort of future predictions.

[00:42:12] Kate: Yeah. Well, I mean, I would say certain sensorial brands really have an opportunity to be great or not great. And the two I visited were both great but very different. So Rituals, which no longer has stores in North America. I visited when I was over in Dublin and what an immersive sensorial experience. Could be to a fault as far as, you know, I was with a guy friend and he said, "I'll be outside," because it's pretty strong, the scent. But this is the place that I think Phillip you've mentioned, you get offered a green tea when you come into the store. That's amazing. Not only is it a great experience, but it'll keep you in the store. So very smart. You're not gonna grab that tea and head out, most people. So you are intended to wander and she stayed with me. It was almost an introduction to all the different sections. It was a lot. It was a lot to take in. And there were several similarities to Aveda in how they had the different Ayurveda and these influences from other cultures. So it certainly was cultural. It was very sensorial. You could try any product and they had a beautiful sink area. Genius. So then I'm really getting into it literally. And they had some great visual statements, almost like a mini pickup truck to have little grab and goes and the men's products. So really well done. It was just you really immersed in it and then I'm always a sucker for the little stuff at the register. I love the kind of point of sale add ons and they had several and it was buy three for this price. And so I left with a lot of products and I was really impressed. It was well done. And then on the other end of that spectrum also a beautiful experience was, I'm gonna mispronounce it, I think it's Aidas and it is in New York City but I think it's Lower West Side. Yeah or Lower East, I can't remember now. But it was in sort of a gritty area on purpose, and they wanted to draw people in because it was a destination and very small store, but you had to ring a doorbell to get in. So they didn't want just the average person sort of wandering in, especially in a grittier area. And so they let me in and we're talking tiny area, but beautifully done. I mean, the merchandising, the dried flowers, the store, the main front window, it was just gorgeous. A little intimidating and he immediately told me, "Consumers stay here in the front and that's mostly our home scents," and there was the main counter desk checkout, I wouldn't even call it that, that would be insulting. And then behind it is the actual personal fragrances. And they analyze with you, that's no, that's too clinical of a word. They experience with you all the different scents after you tell them I like flowers or I like rose, but I don't like citrus. They will bring them over and you'll do a fun experience together. What I did find interesting was I thought, "Oh, they're going to design one for me." That's not the case at all. They have existing fragrances and brands and then they'll bring those over. So that kind of threw me. I thought, oh, because this feels so personal, I thought they were going to customize. But you don't have to make one to make it so personal. It was a highly personal experience, very customized. And the samples I could take with me on these beautiful cards. So it was lovely overall. I do think it was interesting too that he pointed out very quickly, "Our scents are roughly $200 to $250." And I thought, "Why would you point that out right from the start?" That felt a little judgmental versus, "Let's find your scent and go from there," because you don't know, I might pay $500 for a scent. And then when I went online after, there were several that were $100, $125 So that was a bit of a deterrent and a surprise that, you know, why did that have to come up so early? It sort of made me think about it differently. But lovely, beautiful space. That's what stands out to me the most.

[00:47:08] Alicia: Yeah. We do have some incredible imagery in our Field Notes too. So people have a visual reference point as we go through all of the different elements.

[00:47:18] Kate: Yeah.

[00:47:19] Phillip: Kind of incredible to me too, though, because when you put that up against something that's almost mainline or more commercial, like a Penhaligon's in The UK, That is a very commercialized high end fragrance brand that will go for easily $400, $500 for a bottle. You do not get that level of care. It is a high end experience, but you're not gonna get that level of personalized care. It is a beauty counter feeling. Right? Wich is about as, you know, turn and burn as you can get.

[00:48:01] Kate: Clinical.

[00:48:02] Phillip: Yeah. So to me, this feels like accessible luxury to some degree. And I really appreciate that. Of all of the experiences that you have rated so far, this is the one that made me feel like FOMO. I wanted to go myself. I needed to go. I'm gonna go my next trip to New York, I'm gonna go check it out. And I implore everybody to go look at your full review. It's many, many, many slides on the Field Notes product. And we'll link all of this up in the show notes. And we'll actually be, if you're subscribed on the YouTube, we'll be showing some of that also. As we're looking out, Kate, are there things that you think are thinking beyond... We're looking and we're evolving. We're trying to measure the unmeasurable. What are some metrics?

[00:49:04] Brian: She's good at this. Kate's good at this. She's got a history of being good at this.

[00:49:09] Phillip: We're gonna do a little prediction now. You sent something to us that I felt like was unbelievably prescient, timely, because the time that we're in right now, we just happen to be on this tipping point where AI is happening, we actually have looks like self driving is here. We've got, you know, humanoid robots might be happening. That's scary. Drones are here. You sent over to Brian and I a paper from 1993. Looks like it was a college paper that you wrote that was sort of like a glimpse of the future. We'll pull some snippets of this. You have been a futurist for many, many years now. You got a lot of things right here. I might pull up a couple little pieces here. But is thinking about if the future sort of core to your DNA or core to part of the job as part of someone who designs experience?

[00:50:13] Kate: It is somewhat, but I don't like to think around too many corners because we don't know. It's the same with AI. We don't really know. Sure, we know what it's doing now and we can predict somewhat, but let's not go all the way around. Look around one corner because if your experience is great right now, don't mess with it too much. You don't have to throw screens up everywhere. I don't need to capture your name, rank, serial number, social security to get in touch with you.

[00:50:48] Brian: Please, please don't do that. {laughter}

[00:50:53] Kate: No. Have a relationship with that person. I was in Nordstrom recently and he was so great in the shoe department and he said, "If these don't work, here's my information." It was his information, so it was up to me, which I like. I drove the relationship if I wanna contact him instead of, "Let me get all your info Kate and follow-up on everything," and while I do appreciate a follow-up, let me drive the experience. Listening to customers is just so important and we can try to predict, sure, But I like being in it. If they know who they are, I'm so impressed. Okay. So one of my favorite, favorite places, I'm gonna get visual here with you. Okay. Alright.

[00:51:40] Phillip: {laughter}

[00:51:40] Kate: So if know what this logo is, you know. And people have stopped me and said, "Oh my god, I love your hat." So it's Buc-ee's, right? And Buc-ee's is basically a 100, you know, gas pumps, but they're an emporium and everyone knows what it is. And everyone wants to stop by. I've heard people, it's a destination. "Oh, I can't wait to go to the flagship. Did you know they're building one here next?" They'll always talk about it when they know what this is. And that is so important. They know their story. They know their personality. They know their brand. You could get jerky. You could get some beef jerky. You could get some, you know, fresh brisket, but you could also buy some slippers. Sure. You could also buy a hat. You can buy probably a pencil kit. I mean, everything and anything you want, and you're just happy when you're there. You cannot leave that store without buying something. And in fact, I was listening to a podcast recently where he said people were parking at the gas pump and it was okay because there were so many gas pumps. So it's an experience. And I wouldn't make a prediction for them except open more stores in the right market. So I think they're expanding gently, but they're not saying, "Oh, we have to build one near the Grove in LA." Probably not. But in the, you know, Oklahoma area, yeah. So I love a good brand who knows who they are. It's amazing.

[00:53:16] Phillip: Yeah. Oh, I love that as a as sort of a prediction. Looks like you're prognosticator in your own right. I think you can, you know, see a future. And to some degree Buc-ee is the sort of drug like to some people. It's entertainment in retail form. It's basically a giant private label. I love the emporium angle. That's brilliant. If I had to underscore a couple of these pieces here, I love this prediction, by the way, in your 1993 paper about where will we be in twenty seven years, and so you're sort of looking out into twenty seven years into the future, you said drugs will be legalized. Well, you got that one right. You said life expectancy would be increased by approximately five years to 82. I think you're almost dead on on that one. Everything will be voice activated from VCRs to home shopping, dead on on that one. Everything will be recyclable. You're kinda dead on on that one too.

[00:54:30] Brian: Nearly. {laughter}

[00:54:33] Phillip: You said people won't be zooming around in jets and cars. We're driving will still be on the ground, but virtual reality will not be as abundant as we think. And you talk a little bit about how senses are sort of exaggerated and bucketed into one or two senses. I think this is really interesting. And I think you're, you know, I love the pragmatic futurism. So something I feel like you really have a handle on when you point out the year 2020, which I think is sort of the mark here, which I think was a pivotal year for all of us. You say in this paper in 1993, I see our country in the year 2020, although I would like to see more occur, humans are only capable of so much. Some things will take much longer than thirty years to develop. For instance, racial tensions will always exist. And before we know it, everyone will be in some sort of minority. And I think it's just such a kind of a chilling thing to read from the perspective of somebody who was twenty seven years away from that pivotal time. Kate Fannin, no better person to be on Future Commerce than you, who seems to always be ahead of it. Final thoughts besides, you know, go check out Field Notes. Where can we go find you? What can we do to get you involved in other people's return on experience?

[00:55:56] Kate: Sure. katefanninconsulting.com. Very easy. And I'd love to assess your experience. And sure, I can do it multichannel, but send me to your store. And the best part is nobody knows who I am. I am not your executive coming in and you put everything in place and everything's perfect. No, I want to see some messy stuff or nobody cleaned out the fitting room or nobody talked to me in the fitting room. So you know is it tap to pay? Could I figure that out? Are you requiring a tip even though you just handed me a coffee? So things like that. Is your visual really good? Are you saying hi to me? Really simple things, but they're really complex in the scheme of your brand, in the scheme of your story. And don't forget, in fact, I haven't said it enough in this chat. Number one initiative, purpose, objective is your customer. That's it, okay? So I've got to do another visual. All right.

[00:57:06] Phillip: Yes. {laughter}

[00:57:07] Kate: I literally had this made because I had to tell too many people, would you please put your customer hat on? And so I have a customer hat. And I don't wear it in, trust me, I don't need them to know I'm a customer. But everyone should be a customer and executives should be customers. And whether it's a grocery or home improvement, I love my local hardware store, but I love a great big box. I love a Lowe's too because they serve different purposes. So think about that when you want your retail experience to be assessed. What is your return on experience? They all have slightly different objectives. But please, please, please put your customer first. And I promise you, you will have and build a great experience. And I'll reiterate, people buy stuff, they buy things, but they pay for an experience.

[00:58:05] Phillip: Thank you so much. retail realist, Kate Fannin, thank you for coming to Future Commerce, and we always love having you. Go check out Field Notes. You can get it at futurecommerce.com/plus. If you're already a member, it's part of your plus subscription. And thank you for watching Future Commerce. If this conversation sparks something for you, go like and subscribe, follow wherever you get your podcasts, and it helps many people get involved in the conversation. If you want to bring Future Commerce into your world, check out our print shop. You can get that at store.futurecommerce.com where you get things like Lore, this beautiful journal, and many, many more. These things are selling like crazy these days at store.futurecommerce.com where commerce meets culture and beautifully crafted zines, print journals, and collectibles. Remember commerce shapes the future because commerce is culture. We'll see you next time.

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