Reinventing Retail

In this episode we talk with Morin Sarenio of CGTrader, a company of 2-million designers that’s providing retailers with immersive augmented reality that lets customers try products online before they buy them. That means better customer experience, fewer returns, and major savings on reverse logistics. From Christmas trees to fashion to home goods, Sarenio says, "If you’re selling, you need AR.”

We’re joined by Dave Dabbah of Agora.io, an API platform that’s bringing peer-to-peer video to retailers and fashion brands. To date, retailers have been cautious with live product broadcasts, but a wealth of opportunity exists to connect with customers, build their brands, and significantly increase sales with authentic video content. From combining influencers with real life people trying products to gamification and interactive broadcasting, brands should be looking to authentic video content as they move into the future of retail.

Today's customers are bombarded by offers from a wide range of companies that want their business. But when offers are targeted and truly exclusive - delivered with pinpoint accuracy to ideal buyers - they can stand out from competing offers and generate a much greater sense of brand loyalty.  In this episode, we're joined by Sai Koppala and Bill Schneider from SheerID - a marketing solution that helps retailers acquire new customers through gated exclusive offers.

This week on the podcast we chat with Chinedu Eleanya, founder and CEO of Mulberry, a startup that’s transforming the standard warranty industry with plugins and APIs that allow rapid, secure, and real-time solutions for brands to launch, manage, and monetize warranty programs.

In this episode, we’re joined by Udayan Bose from NetElixir, a retail search market firm specializing in getting a deeper understanding of consumer behavior and the paths that retail’s Most Valuable Customers (MVCs) take to purchase—helping retailers engage with them in the right time and place to make the most sales.

In this episode, we catch up with our friends at Bond, a company that specializes in robotic handwritten notes. Hear how they serendipitously stumbled into retail and how their notes are giving brands the power to meet one of the industry’s biggest challenges: providing personalized experiences at scale.

With so much glitter in the retail tech space it’s hard to see where the gold really lies. Infor’s Doug Tiffan and Chris Field, CEO of Fieldworks, a  tech PR, content and digital marketing agency based in the UK, join us to discuss how retailers can avert their eyes from the flashy tech that won’t sustain them, get back to basics, and build for the future by imagining they’re building a retail enterprise from scratch.

In this episode, Josh Calixto and Matt Gunn are joined by Bill Adler, CEO of True Fit®, the retail platform that’s personalizing every touchpoint in the customer journey. Find out how True Fit has taken its initial mission to solve for the perfect garment fit, and taken the data gleaned from that personalization to offer shoppers exactly what they want way upstream of the final sale.

In this episode, Infor Retail SVP and GM Corey Tollefson joins Jenny Reese and Josh Calixto to discuss the rise of universal item catalogs, why “coopetition” between retailers is good for business, and what retail executives should be thinking about right now.

In this episode of the Reinventing Retail podcast, Infor's Matt Simonsen shares his insights from eTail West in Palm Springs, including why he believes retailers should invest in platforms over individual products from multiple vendors. He says retailers should, to quote the great Mark Twain, "put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket."

David Dorf of Infor and Emily Rudin of CrowdTwist join us to discuss why you don’t have to give away margin to encourage customer loyalty. They say brand loyalty is a two-way street, and retailers should reward their most valuable customers with priceless experiences that go way beyond member discounts. Listen now to find out how Infor Loyalty powered by CrowdTwist enables retailers to connect with customers in meaningful ways, with experiences that matter to them.

On this episode of Reinventing Retail, we’re joined by Harlan Bratcher, Global Business Development Head of JD Fashion at JD.com, and Rod Sides, Vice Chairman, U.S. Retail and Distribution Leader at Deloitte. We discuss how the Chinese retail market has been able to jump a generation head of the United States in retail technology use—and what Western retailers can learn from their Chinese counterparts.

Making the most of customer data can be a difficult proposition. Not only are retailers reluctant to change the ways they use customer data, but many consumers themselves have demonstrated an aversion to any kind of technology that clearly monitors their purchasing activity—even if the purpose of such tracking is to improve the shopping experience. In this episode of Reinventing Retail, we're joined by Forbes contributor Richard Kestenbaum of Triangle Capital, to discuss the ways data tracking and algorithms can enhance everything from the shopping experience to product design (if we’ll let it).

In this episode, we’re joined by David Hogg, Sr. Principal Consultant for Converged Commerce at Infor, to discuss retail’s evolution from multi-channel to omni-channel. And while customers enjoy omni-channel shopping experiences like BOPIS, AI-powered customer service, and ship-from-store, the role of the retail store associate is getting more and more complicated. To keep up, retailers need to equip those employees with software that makes their jobs easier and more efficient. David’s solution? Converged Commerce.

If you’ve ever used Facebook, watched an episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians, or played in a Fantasy Football league, you’re feeding data into the AI that determines what’s available in your local stores. In this episode, Doug Tiffan joins us to explore how Demand Management powered by machine learning affects retailers and consumers every day (whether they know it or not).

Convenience stores might lack the big-box buzz of larger retailers, but they have their own specific concerns to address as customer expectations continue to evolve. In this episode of Reinventing Retail, Infor's Jordan Stasi joins us to discuss the future of convenience store retailers. From getting more customers into stores, to streamlining the shopping process, to hiring friendlier employees, we cover the many ways modern technology can improve the C-store customer experience.

Infor’s own “caffeinated unicorn” and HR software expert, Matt Bragstad, explains why user-centered design remains at the forefront of HCM software—and how it’s helping foster trust within human resources departments, eliminate the complexities of traditional software, and make every user the master and commander of her own HR universe.

In this episode, we’re joined by IHL analysts Kelly Sayre and Jerry Sheldon to discuss the ongoing sensationalism of the so-called death of retail – and why it’s simply not true.

With the advent of "cashier-less" stores like Amazon Go, tomorrow's retail shopping experience has the potential to transform in a big way--but are retailers ready? We discuss the benefits and pitfalls of adopting this exciting retail technology in its early stages.

In this episode, Matt Gunn chats with Tom Barbaro of PebblePost, the company that invented programmatic direct mail. As most retailers have gone digital in their marketing efforts, the mailbox has become relatively vacant, clearing the way for “digitally reactive mail”—allowing retailers to retarget customers at home and capture advanced analytics about buyer intent and conversion.