Trust and authenticity are the new currency for retail Rich Roll, author and athlete, set the tone for the panel discussion The Wellness Revolution: Consumer Behavior in a New Retail Era, when he outlined what he sees as the secret of success for his podcast. “One reason (it) works is because it is honest and unpolished,” noted Roll. “We are starved for connection and something that is real.” Roll started a health and wellness podcast The Rich Roll Podcastmidlife after spending part of his career as a corporate attorney. Each of his podcasts has an average of 250,000 to 750,000 downloads, and he’s totaled over 50 million downloads. He encouraged retailers to embrace corporate culture that values honesty and integrity. The same theme was echoed on the panelGetting Out of Your Own Way: How Retailers Enable Innovation, when Anthony Marino, President of fashion resale marketplace ThredUp, said “there is no substitute for straight talk.” With every shipment, ThredUp includes a letter asking people to help spread the word, so the company can save on marketing and pass those savings on to customers. Marino said he believes customers appreciate this honest, straight talk. Sustainability continues to gain traction ThredUp is a company that has built its business on a sustainability theme: Upcycling clothing for reuse. For some customers, it’s about saving money. For others, it’s about “doing the right thing.” Over the past two years, ThredUp has upcycled over 60 million items, from Gap to Gucci. The company is changing how consumers think about where their clothes come from. Amy Hall, Director of Social Consciousness at Eileen Fisher, says that some 40% of the company’s customers are willing to support brands that embrace sustainable values — even if that’s not what first attracts them. “Most of our customers do not come in for sustainable,” says Hall. “They are looking for style. But when they find out that there is a cool value behind, such as fair trade, it makes them feel much better about the purchase and they attach to the brand.” Kroger is looking to tap into this ongoing shift in consumer preferences by investing more in sustainability through a program offering a $1 million award for food waste prevention programs. [caption id="attachment_63176" align="aligncenter" width="642"] Source: Coresight Research[/caption] Retailers are reimagining stores Chip Bergh, Levi Strauss & Co President and CEO, discussed how the company just opened a new flagship store in Times Square, New York. It’s the largest Levi’s store in the world, weighing in at nearly 17,000 square feet. “We are reimagining our stores. The world is a smaller place than it used to be and now we have stores in places unimaginable.” Bergh said that the new flagship store is focusing on personalization and customization. The store has the largest Levi’s Tailor Shop, with four on-site tailors who provide customers the ability to customize their garments. Bergh said the company tested the concept in London and found that customers loved the idea of having their name, sports team, or favorite number embroidered on a jean jacket. Customers can also view the new store through its virtual 360-degree 3D shopping experience online. Virtual steps into the physical world Just as brick and mortar stores are working hard to build out digital capabilities, purely digital brands are looking to create physical presences as they learn most consumers want to interact with products. Speaking on the panel What Happens when a Digital Native Vertical Brand’s Journey Turns Physical, Eleanor Morgan, Chief Experience Officer for online mattress retailer Casper, emphasized that an omnichannel brand has to feel like one store to the customer. To do this, the company held a “nap tour” of pop-up shops to let customers experience the company’s product. This led to the company’s first physical store. Morgan said that the line between a pop-up store and a permanent store has become obsolete: To customers, they are stores. Indeed, a survey by Wakefield Research said that 47% of consumers have gone to a physical store for the first time after a positive online shopping experience. Lessons learned from digitally native brands moving to physical spaces When asked “what are the tough parts of going from digital to physical?” this is what the panelists had to say:

1. The decision-making process and the speed to make decisions is much slower in a physical environment than in a digital environment. A website can be changed in a few hours, but physical store changes take longer and require far more coordination, collaboration and planning.
2. Some physical marketplaces do better than others, and customers can vary greatly by location — which you don’t realize until you’re in that market.
3. Most digital first brands don’t have a lot of physical retail, and they require very different skill sets. Digital-first brands should align around a one-channel philosophy and ensure they deliver a cohesive customer experience whether the interaction is physical or digital.

Technology continues to proliferate, within and alongside retail We’re seeing that digitalization and technology are getting more deeply integrated into retail, and new technology to support retail is emerging. One clear trend is that companies are continuing to look for ways to use technology to learn more about their customers — and tech startups are working hard to deliver more solutions. Bobly has developed in-store kiosks so customers can rate the in-store experience right there — rather than asking them to look for information on a receipt, then go online and take a survey for some vaguely defined reward. Trigo Vision has developed cameras and an associated technology that helps analyze in-store behavior to give retailers better insights into how customers interact with their stores. Optimove has developed tools to help retailers better understand customer behavior and how to effectively market to them, with tips on tactics such as when to schedule messaging, how to improve targeted adds and other features. Endor has developed an analytical tool that provides predictive analytics, that is, it can predict what a customer will do based on how other, similar customers acted, providing a vision of the full customer journey instead of an individual’s partial journey.