Curiosity and a deep understanding of consumer behavior have been the driving forces behind Melissa's journey from working at Target headquarters to her current role as Director of Retail Strategy for digital solutions provider, CI&T. She joins us to shed light on some of the biggest tech mistakes retailers are making today and the potential risks that come along with them. We corner every aspect of retail technology, discussing how many brick-and-mortar stores are falling behind by not leveraging technology to increase efficiency, and the underestimation of the importance of an appealing and efficient online presence by some retailers.
We grapple with the challenges retailers face, from time and financial investment into the right tech to the fine line of providing just enough information without overwhelming the customer. Melissa shares her experiences and insights on the tug of war between decision-makers on how much to push the consumer into a step-by-step process, the potential loss of shoppers who don't want to follow through, and the implications of providing either too much or too little information to the consumer.
The retail industry is continually evolving, with customer experience, AI, and emerging trends shaping the way consumers interact with technology. In our conversation, we explore how accessibility and experience play crucial roles in technology adoption and how retailers need to stay ahead of the curve by keeping a close watch on consumer behavior and new technologies. It's a deep dive into the complex world of retail technology that you won't want to miss.
Connect with Melissa on LinkedIn
RetailWire is the retail industry's premier source for news, analysis, and discussion. With a focus on the latest trends, technology, and consumer behavior, RetailWire provides a platform for industry experts and thought leaders to share their insights and perspectives. Whether you're a retailer, supplier, or service provider, RetailWire is your go-to destination for staying informed and ahead of the curve.
Be sure to leave us a comment and let us know what you think. You might even hear your comment read on the next episode!
To learn more, or to join our Daily Discussions, visit RetailWire.com.
Curiosity and a deep understanding of consumer behavior have been the driving forces behind Melissa's journey from working at Target headquarters to her current role as Director of Retail Strategy for digital solutions provider, CI&T. She joins us to shed light on some of the biggest tech mistakes retailers are making today and the potential risks that come along with them. We corner every aspect of retail technology, discussing how many brick-and-mortar stores are falling behind by not leveraging technology to increase efficiency, and the underestimation of the importance of an appealing and efficient online presence by some retailers.
We grapple with the challenges retailers face, from time and financial investment into the right tech to the fine line of providing just enough information without overwhelming the customer. Melissa shares her experiences and insights on the tug of war between decision-makers on how much to push the consumer into a step-by-step process, the potential loss of shoppers who don't want to follow through, and the implications of providing either too much or too little information to the consumer.
The retail industry is continually evolving, with customer experience, AI, and emerging trends shaping the way consumers interact with technology. In our conversation, we explore how accessibility and experience play crucial roles in technology adoption and how retailers need to stay ahead of the curve by keeping a close watch on consumer behavior and new technologies. It's a deep dive into the complex world of retail technology that you won't want to miss.
Connect with Melissa on LinkedIn
RetailWire is the retail industry's premier source for news, analysis, and discussion. With a focus on the latest trends, technology, and consumer behavior, RetailWire provides a platform for industry experts and thought leaders to share their insights and perspectives. Whether you're a retailer, supplier, or service provider, RetailWire is your go-to destination for staying informed and ahead of the curve.
Be sure to leave us a comment and let us know what you think. You might even hear your comment read on the next episode!
To learn more, or to join our Daily Discussions, visit RetailWire.com.
Welcome to the Retail Wire Podcast, your source for all things retail. Whether you're a seasoned industry veteran or just dipping your toes into the world of retail, our podcast is your one-stop shop for the latest trends, insights and discussions that are shaping the future of retail. Let's dive in to today's episode, melissa. What's the biggest tech mistake retailers are making right now and what's at risk for them?
Speaker 2:Tech mistake. Sadly, there are a few, I think. In terms of the brick-and-mortar store, I don't think it's being incorporated the right ways. I'm seeing some smart fitting rooms being approached in ways that are really tough for consumers to actually leverage and creates more inefficiencies rather than seamlessness. I would go with that one first and foremost.
Speaker 1:Let's back up a little bit, because I jumped right in with the first question what's your current role and your focus in your career?
Speaker 2:I am the director of retail strategy for a digital solutions provider called CINT. I have been here for almost three years. My role is to identify emerging and current retail trends so that we can stay on top of our client work and ensure that we're providing the best technology stack for the most optimized consumer solutions in the retail space. We do also have financial services clients. We have health and life sciences clients. My focus is just the retail industry and making sure our offering is relevant to the needs of retailers today for their consumers.
Speaker 1:I'm really curious what drove you to focus on retail technology. Was that always an interest of yours or did it evolve over the years?
Speaker 2:It definitely evolved by way of working at Gartner. Actually, I originally started at Target headquarters. I was in merchandise presentation and store design, partnering with buyers for Target Canada to make sure that the experience was really shoppable in the domestics category. While I was there, I realized that I actually wanted to take an earlier step in the path to purchase journey and identify from market research what the consumer insights were that would drive shoppers to different parts of the store. That's really what fascinates me in just shifting consumer behaviors.
Speaker 2:I ended up at Gartner for about six years. It was then that I was really exposed to the technology that powers the actual retail trends and strategies. When I ended up at CINT and the fact that they are a digital solutions provider and they really focus on the technology that enables these experiences it, just by nature of the role that they hired me for, ended up becoming a big part of my career and what I'm always thinking about now. It's not just what are consumers doing and how do they want to shop, but what does the technology then need to look like to enable that shopping experience for them?
Speaker 1:It makes me think like this isn't the type of career where there's a clear bachelor's degree program designed specifically for it.
Speaker 2:How have you been able to?
Speaker 1:keep up and learn. Is it on the job? Is it life experience? Where do you stay ahead on staying educated on it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you definitely have to be curious. I think it's a great point that you bring up. I did focus on marketing and undergrad and then when I went to grad school, my focus was also marketing and market research, just because I love understanding what makes consumers tick and why they would buy one brand over another or why they would go to a certain retailer over another and just how their spending patterns would change stuff like that. But then I think it's that education mixed with. I'm just a really naturally curious person and I will get bored if I'm not learning every day. I really enjoy going to places like Retail Wire every single day to make sure that I'm staying up on what's happening in the space and whether or not consumers are in lockstep with the industry and what brands are trying to push out for them. It's a combination of getting that fire lit in undergrad with market research experience and then realizing that if I wanted to actually put that insight and information into practice, I would have to go to who actually powers those experiences for retailers.
Speaker 1:It's really interesting. The world of technology, especially, is one where you kind of are on the front lines. Whether you like it or not, you have to be always there. I'm curious being director of retail strategy, how is that shape your views and how do you think that your point of view is unique compared to your colleagues? What did they look to you for as far as a unique perspective?
Speaker 2:Yeah, these questions actually go hand in hand, because I would say what's unique about me is I tend to be a little bit idealistic in my approach. I'll go with the most blue sky ideas. I like to borrow from categories outside of retail and learn there. I love to travel and see what international markets are doing and what I can bring back as learnings here, because I think there are a lot of countries that are way ahead of us in terms of providing shopper experiences and doing things that our retailers aren't even imagining. I like to bring a lot of that inspiration. I love going to art museums and sourcing inspiration there because I like the way artists think about.
Speaker 1:I would not have thought of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great place just to kind of mix up my mindset and be exposed to a topic that wouldn't necessarily make it into my day-to-day role but then forces me to think about shopping differently.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting to me. My approach is unique in the sense that my inspiration sources are kind of unique In terms of what my role at CINT has taught me and how it's changed how I think about the space. It's had to ground me a little bit, because I will come in pretty hot with some of these ideas and I'll say let's do this, let's create this type of experience when we're crafting some type of proposal for a client and then we take a look at the technology behind the scenes and we realize, okay, we need to do this in baby steps. It's not going to be overnight and it's also going to require XYZ to happen first in order to get us to that destination. I definitely didn't set out necessarily to incorporate technology into my career, but it has made me much more realistic and a little bit more humble when I start brainstorming for a prospect or for a client.
Speaker 1:It's interesting to think about technology as a grounding aspect because often people see it especially now with AI it's like the sky is the limit. We can do anything now but coming from more of a marketing and branding side, where you can brand something any way you want, it can be risky if you take a completely different anti-brand approach. But technology being a grounding aspect to your creativity is just such an interesting angle I never would have thought of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's kind of ironic when you point it out. Sometimes it's the other way around, but for me that is because I am a little bit unique in my perspective. I will go sometimes farther than technology can, versus the other way around with my thinking, Speaking of technology and kind of seeing a gap in the market.
Speaker 1:where do you think that brick and mortar physical stores are neglecting this technology? Where is there a gap that you see?
Speaker 2:There's just so many spaces to or room to create efficiencies. Yesterday I was shopping and I was asking a sales associate if they had my size in something they didn't in stock and I asked her like, okay, well, you know what can I do about that? And she said, oh, you can order it online and get it shipped to your home, but I would have just shopped online if I were going to do that. So I think there's an automatic gap there of how can we ensure that retailers are achieving conversion in physical stores when certain operational efficiencies aren't humming along like there aren't perfect in stocks, right. So I think that's one big opportunity.
Speaker 2:There's also many stores that struggle with their fitting room lines. I won't necessarily name names, but there are certain retailers where I know I'm not trying on clothes when I go there. I'm going to have to just buy things and hope for the best and potentially return, which makes me a horrible person because I know better, but I don't have time to wait in that fitting room line. Or similarly, with a cash register line. There are some stores that just really struggle with that, and those are all prime opportunities for technology to intervene and make the experience more efficient for both the sales associate and the customer and kind of that relationship, to be like the dot connector in physical stores. So those are our call outs that I would make for sure.
Speaker 1:Just that example of they didn't have the size and they turned you away, basically to fend for yourself.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Now an alternative would be the associate has a device or technology to be able to help you through that process. Maybe she saw you and thought, oh, here's a young person, she can figure it out, but on the other side she might stereotype someone who's older and go, hey, let me help you through that. So missed opportunity there, because she kind of assumed that you can fend for yourself and just buy it online. Hey, it's easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a good point. I hadn't even thought about that, but I do think now, because so many brick and mortar chains have an online presence most I think they do actually rely a little bit too heavily on that presence sometimes, and it comes at the cost of the associate customer relationship or just how positive the experience ends up being in physical stores. And I think when you look at a lot of retailers' websites as well, the same thing is happening in reverse, where you'll look at a website and I'll think, oh, this is. I mean, I'm conducting an audit right now for our annual Connected Retail Report and I'm looking at so many websites every day and I'm so frustrated.
Speaker 2:One, because we take care of those things. So it's something that I know can be done better and I know how it can be done better. But two, I think it's happening both ways. I think and I know you guys had an article about this on RetailWire today was just is OmniChannel strategy becoming almost a crutch for retailers? And knowing that they have multiple channels, does that mean that they're putting less investment in each of them? Because in aggregate, they're just spending so much? You really have to build up every single presence and you can't assume that a consumer is going to just figure it out and DIY the experience, because you have other channels available to them.
Speaker 1:That's good. Are there categories, as you're doing these audits, are there certain categories of retail that are just further behind than others?
Speaker 2:You're smiling really big Okay grocery.
Speaker 2:Because I really wanted to bring. I'm trying to diversify the examples in the report. I want different categories. I cannot, for the life of me, get a grocery example that I feel super good about, in terms of both the aesthetics of the experience and the efficiency of it. Usually it's one or the other it's very shoppable, it's very easy, but it's not visually appealing in any way. Or it's the other way around it's a lot of fun to shop, but it's not efficient, it's not mission focused, and consumers are both today, and so I would say grocery is part of. It is because American consumers don't really buy their groceries online. So maybe out of necessity, retailers are comfortable letting that channel go a little bit, but that's been very discouraging for me to see.
Speaker 1:From my experience actually I have not shopped grocery online probably for two years but I remember the experience being almost like I'm just looking at their inventory, versus you shop at another store. There'd be a splash page, there'd be something showing more the lifestyle or you would think if you go to the organic section there'd be something about the lifestyle that imprints that feeling. But I felt like the products were just lined up like just a big inventory with categories you can click through.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and grocery this is something I'm so passionate about because grocery is such a routinized shopping category for us. We all have our local grocery store kind of memorized and the blueprint is in the back of our minds. We know exactly which aisles we're likely going to go most of the time, and so there needs to be a parallel experience online so that we feel confident that we can just zigzag through it like we would in person, get what we need, but also feel like it was a really enjoyable experience, especially because, for people who like to cook, it is part of that whole path to purchase is brainstorming the recipe, figuring out what ingredients you don't have on hand, all of that, and so we're starting to see some grocers create content and incorporate that into their websites. But overall, the struggle has been real to find a grocery store that I really like. Their online channel, and I would say some of the department stores and discount department stores are struggling with that too.
Speaker 1:Have you seen any standout stores that are leading this tech change, whether it's in store or website?
Speaker 2:So I am including I kind of broke my rule in my report because I wanted all the examples to have all three a online store, a physical store and an app. But I came across Zeni optical while I was doing all of this and their website is Incredible. They don't have a brick-and-mortar presence, but I decided I need to include them in the report because they incorporate virtual try-on in such a precise way. They have, you know, oral instructions for just how to walk you through getting the the different glasses on and trying them and making sure that it matches with you know your face shape. But they have a whole guide with that. They have so many cool features. I've been really impressed with them. So, and it's a very easily shoppable website. It's, yeah, it's a really cool experience. I would say definitely check it out if you haven't seen it.
Speaker 1:I've seen. I've actually been a customer for probably six years. Yeah and Well, I mean the prices. When they first came out it was, you know, $35 for a pair of glasses prescription when you go into a store and you'd have to do like a double down deal to get even $99 frames. So I I have probably like 12 pairs of glasses from them because I always buy like multiple. The virtual try-on is really interesting. You know, you have your, your phone and you hit a button and then you have to turn, turn your face and it gets at least one turn of your face so you can kind of see the glasses from a few angles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love that. It coaches you through. From an accessibility standpoint. You know they have some written instructions and then they also have those auditory instructions and I think that's really cool. It's so detailed and it tells you if you want this accurately to scale. Hold up, you know, a credit card or your driver's license. If you don't care as much, you don't need to do that. I've seen a few other websites incorporate virtual try-on and I tend to be kind of a naysayer of it just because I think we as consumers are so tactical and we don't really trust. But I would. I would trust theirs and then also Nick's cosmetics has some really good virtual try-on, but yeah, I didn't end up going with them in the report, so I don't feel as bad sharing that one right now.
Speaker 1:It's, you know, not necessarily a sneak preview, but it's a very cool website to experience now One thing that I'm curious about when an online store is looking to incorporate some kind of virtual try-on or a kind of a step-by-step process, I Would think there's sort of a push-pull between the decision-makers. Do we force people into this step-by-step process and we could like lose people who want to just go their own way, because the old, the, the, the standard way is, they can click around, they can choose their options and it's all kind of selectable all at once. When a lot of these streamline things like the virtual try-on is kind of you have to do step one and then step two, step three, and there's that risk of kind of losing someone who doesn't want to follow through that. Have you seen any of those decisions happening and and where people have decided not to go with it because of just that experience?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I mean, there are definitely statistics on shopping cart abandonment and the fact that if your website takes too long to load, you can lose people there on certain pages. I would assume if some of these virtual try-ons are taking a really long time to load, they will absolutely lose consumers there. The nice thing is, when I've seen them incorporated, like on the Knicks website and on this, any optical website you can definitely opt out of it. You certainly don't, you know, have to try them on that way. So I would think that anyone that's engaging with it is open to the fact that it may take a little longer To experiment on that website then it would if they weren't doing a virtual try-on.
Speaker 2:But one thing I did notice with the Knicks website that I I would like to see maybe improved is the fact that when some of the Shades are out of stock then you can't try them on virtually. So that's a little bit tough because with a shade that's not the type of thing where you can just buy a different shade because it's in stock. You it really has to match your skin tone. So you know, it's things like that that I still think a lot of these virtual try-ons Do have to work through and and allow for those aspects to be a bit ironed out, because Maybe there's a shade in there that I would want to buy and I could waitlist myself for it. But if I can't virtually try it on, I may just say I'll forget it. I'll try a different formula, either, you know, with their website or with a different retailer.
Speaker 1:It's very good point. We kind of covered this, but I was curious why? Why do you think that some retail websites are falling behind, you know, is there any kind of specific Curtle or challenge that they're that they're hitting?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean from a behind the scenes technology standpoint. So from more of the CINT perspective, there are definitely challenges that retailers are facing and they are serving as hurdles and reasons why they're not able to provide the best shopping experience. And a lot of that is mostly associated with not wanting to necessarily invest in either a long term project and what's required there, or also, if it's not necessarily even the money, part of it it is just the knowledge that a lot of other aspects may have to be reworked in order to overhaul some of the other elements. So when you think about composable architectures, for example, getting a retailer to a composable architecture ends up being a really big victory ultimately, because then they can make these tweaks throughout the technology stack later on. That don't take apart the stack as a whole, but becoming composable isn't something that's done overnight necessarily. So I think that that tends to be.
Speaker 2:One of the big challenges is, if you're going to be a retailer who realistically should have that architecture, there are going to be some hurdles that you'll have to accept things like time and money and maybe building out certain teams to really support that whole endeavor.
Speaker 2:So I think that's one aspect and then, from more of the B2C side. Some of the challenges I see is just deciding whether these retailers want to be really chaotic and throw all of their merchandise at the consumer right away, so that they're seeing everything, or being a little bit more intentional about it but then worrying that they're running the risk of not exposing the consumer to everything that they offer and everything that they could sell them. So there were a lot of kind of opposite end of the spectrum examples, as I've been auditing, where some of the retailers have absolutely everything on the wall and they're trying to see what sticks with the consumer and then other retailers just have very minimal merchandising strategies but the consumer might leave because they're not convinced that the retailer sells what they're looking for. So that tends to be another challenge that we hadn't talked about before.
Speaker 1:So to kind of summarize that it's a tech leap where there's some foundational pieces that cost a lot to change and may take. Maybe the existing team isn't even equipped to make that change.
Speaker 2:Exactly, it's intimidating for a lot of businesses. I think it's absolutely worth it because it's a long-term strategy, but sometimes in retail, long-term strategies are terrifying to retailers because the industry moves so quickly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then that I thought of the word funnel when you said the merchandising strategy. Maybe the home page or the first things are advertising bring them to kind of there's different strategies. Maybe low-ticket items are the first thing and then once they opt in, then there's kind of this middle level and then your best customers kind of get to know the select stock. Yeah, I won't go down that rabbit hole on this one, but I would love to talk about that sometime.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you can bring in consumers in so many different ways, with different pricing strategies, with different merchandising strategies. Absolutely, and when we conducted our personalization research, what we saw from consumers was that they don't want to feel like they're missing out on being shown product. They want to make the kind of filtering decisions for themselves. So you do have to be careful that you show them a ton of options but you're not overwhelming them, and it's been hard for me to find retailers that are really striking that correct balance from a virtual standpoint.
Speaker 1:That's good insight, because you'd think I'm afraid to show them everything. But if you have enough self-selecting usability, then you should.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:Is this something where retailers can invest in small, incremental ways, or is it always a big fundamental change?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and I think that might even be kind of a misconception when it comes to composable architectures is that you have to do it all at once.
Speaker 2:You definitely don't. It's just that when you do that, even though it's baby steps, ideally you're doing it with the intention of it ultimately being to execute on a long term vision. But there are certainly ways that you can bring in technology providers that Are not going to require you to overhaul absolutely everything about your stack in one go, and, for us at least, we do really work with our clients to ensure that it's the right approach for them, and we bring in the partners that actually are relevant to the project, based on what their needs are and what they want there. So it really just depends, but I do think that's surfacing. Another component of the intimidation experience that some of these retailers are going through is feeling like they have to do it all at once. Are they really have to commit to doing it all at once to keep up with consumer demands, and I think that's also stopping a lot of them from making those decisions for sure.
Speaker 1:Let's let's jump into the holiday season for sites. You've been looking a lot into this and I'm curious from your perspective this is. It could be just opinion or you may have some solid data on this, but what are some of those tech trends that are key for this upcoming holiday season?
Speaker 2:So I think we all know that I will definitely be incorporated in even more ways than retailers had previously been incorporating it. They've kind of given themselves permission now because it's been such a hot topic in the space. The way I see it being incorporated is definitely to elevate customer service experiences, so we're not going to be seeing the traditional chatbots that consumers get really frustrated with. We will actually see Generative AI being used as a tool here, will also see AI leverage to optimize delivery routes and to make sure that demand forecasting is more accurate than ever before, which I think we'll all be very grateful for. I also think in stores will see more point of sale technology introduced, just so that we can create some of those efficiencies, because I do think consumers will be flocking to brick and mortar At higher rates than at least the last two years, and I know you know some retailers are already attempting to experiment with point of sale solutions more, but I think the holiday season is a great time to really roll that out and ensure that consumers are flowing through the store as quickly as possible.
Speaker 2:So that's that's another technological aspect that I think we would see, and then tons of QR codes. I know we're already starting to see those, but I think those will be more likely to be used in the future. So those are just a few things, but I do think it can be overwhelming to roll out new technology during the holiday season, but I think that this year having everybody excited about AI has also kind of opened the floodgates for everyone to be excited about other potential Technological innovation in retail. I'm hearing a lot of customer experience. Yeah, yeah, it's always the customer experience. Everyone has to enjoy the path to purchase, otherwise I think they'll go elsewhere. I really do.
Speaker 1:And I heard the word AI, so whoever was playing a drinking game?
Speaker 2:with that, that keyword, you got it in terms of AI. Now, that's an interesting thing because so many people are excited about it and there have been a few other trends in the past.
Speaker 1:You know, every year there's the retail conferences. Talk about the retail conferences, and the retail conferences are very much in the hands of the people who are interested in the retail conferences, and I think that's the best you know. Every year, there's the retail conferences. Talk about another different thing, right? So metaverse. What was the other one?
Speaker 2:Omni channel for a lot and like connected commerce. There's been a lot of different buzzwords.
Speaker 1:I think there were some years where cryptocurrency was a thing.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's like all of those, at least the metaverse and blockchain had some excitement but also some a lot of fear, and I think AI has a healthy amount of fear but, like in general, people are able to touch it, type into it. If I mean, I would, I would bet I don't know what 75 percent of marketers have tried it. I don't know there should be some stat there, but it seems like anyone I talked to doesn't have like a fear around it. They have like a practical I've experienced it. Right, it helped me organize some kind of spreadsheet to help me do this. I wrote my resume with it and so there's that's something that I think metaverse or blockchain or some of the other things have not had, which is that practical hands on experience that counters the fear definitely leads to more of a friendly acceptance on the consumer level.
Speaker 2:Totally. I think the word that comes to mind is really accessibility, and we last year did ask our consumers how many of them had shopped in the metaverse and how many of them intended to, and the numbers were absurd, where most people I think it was 80 percent said they hadn't yet, and we measured this across all generations and no generation was over indexing really on being in the metaverse. The same thing to your point goes with blockchain. I know cryptocurrency was really big in the gambling community, especially starting in like 2014. I felt like that was being talked about a lot, but both the metaverse and cryptocurrency are similar and I know there's a lot of overlap between them, but they're similar in the sense that they tend to really start with younger generations and they are not necessarily accessible to all because, like you said, they're very nerve wracking concepts for generations that wouldn't have been born into using them, whereas with something like chat, gpt, anyone can go online right now, can give it a try, can see how useful it is, how harmless it can be.
Speaker 2:Certainly, generative AI has a dark side. I think we all can acknowledge that but that there's also, you know, a very positive side to the innovation there, and so I think that that barrier tends not to exist with AI, especially because also retailers have been using AI For years. They just weren't really talking about it. It was inherent in a lot of their modeling and so now that it's being talked about and they're sharing the examples and use cases for it, I think people are realizing oh well, that's been happening for a while, like I've seen those examples in action, which makes it less scary in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is more of a wild card question. So look into the future, knowing that you're someone who looks at this blue sky, looking at the art gallery, and you think of something really crazy. What is one big innovation that might catch retailers off guard?
Speaker 2:This is a very tough question because I think it will come from technology, and I think it will specifically come from consumer oriented technology.
Speaker 2:So Consumers will learn some sort of behavior and expectation from a new consumer technologies that is rolled out, and then they will kind of demand it of the shopping experience. It doesn't happen that often and I think retailers thought that's what the metaverse was going to be. I don't necessarily think it was, but I do think one aspect of it in particular could still surface as something that will catch retailers off guard, and that is just that a couple days ago, roblox announced a few new benefits to the experience and just kind of features and functionalities you can do like a live call to someone within Roblox, as long as they have the account. So they're really getting more and more lifelike and, yeah, incorporating some features there that I think will change the way consumers want to interact with technology when it comes to shopping as well. So that, and then we have a new you know a bunch of new Apple announcements coming out in just two hours. I wouldn't be surprised if there's something embedded in there that may throw retailers for a bit of a loop as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, are we going to float it like a mystery?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I genuinely have no idea. I don't know. I just have a feeling, just given the feedback that Apple was given on their last announcement with I'm blanking on the name, but the goggles Vision Pro.
Speaker 2:Vision Pro exactly. Just given the feedback and the nature of how that was received, I think maybe you know there was some pressure put on this next announcement to be a bit more impactful, and I wouldn't be surprised if that impact trickles into the retail space. I truly have no clue what it could be, but I just I think that whatever throws retailers for a loop is going to be rooted in consumer native technology that we really start to love and adapt to, and then we want to bring the behaviors that it teaches us to the shopping space.
Speaker 1:So it could be a takeaway that retailers should look to the consumers what are they doing in their personal life and what are they going to demand that retailers are going to conform to that kind of personal behavior, rather than looking to other retailers who might be pushing something of their own. Keep your eyes on consumers.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I always think that innovation should come from some sort of hidden gem discovery that is sourced through consumer behaviors and consumer insights, because it goes back to push versus pull right, and if you are pushing things on consumers that don't align with their inherent behaviors, it's you're fighting an uphill battle. So I definitely think retailers can always benefit from learning from the consumer and then cultivating an experience that is still innovative and edgy, but it aligns with our needs and expectations that are already existing.
Speaker 1:That's a really good insight. I think we can wrap up there. Thank you, Melissa, for your insights. This is I've learned so much from you. Love to just have you back on the show sometime. But thanks to everyone for taking the time out to listen to today's episode, and if you found today's discussion valuable, don't forget to hit the subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And for latest news, engaging discussions and a vibrant community of retail enthusiasts like Melissa, be sure to visit our website, retailwirecom. See you next time.