Brick & Data

In the red corner, Target and Kroger. In the blue corner, Amazon. Ding ding!? | What's the point of a digital transformation and do we even need that jargon anymore? | Retailers are betting big on another Prime Day outage this upcoming July | Weird news of the week (poor Macy's) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

Lila and Jeremy Stuart are the founders of Hari Mari. When shopping for flip-flops and discovering bland inventory, they found an idea — creating a new and improved flip-flop. You might call them flip-flop fanatics? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

Drew Green is the CEO of Indochino - Drew has built one of the world's fastest growing apparel brands. Under his leadership since 2015, the company has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 48%. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

As always at National Retail Federation's yearly bonanza, we get to meet with some of the most interesting new technologists, thought leaders, and retail pros. This year was no different. Sara Whiffen from Rohvi took a little time out of her crazy schedule to sit with us and talk retail. Specifically, we talked about a new-ish term, called "re-commerce". --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

Like every show, José and Todd end up roaming the halls like a couple decently dressed zombies. With coffees. And bags. Anyway… This time we ran into a really interesting company that found a VERY underserved space for brands. IRL, meaning exactly that - In Real Life - is helping brands of all types find new customers in that gap between retail stores and online. Using emerging channels such as Airbnb, WeWork and Health Clubs, IRL not only makes it possible but super easy for brands to cut through the noise and make their products the centre of attention. So, next time you stay at an Airbnb, open the fridge, and find a six pack of beer with some promotional materials, it might just be from IRL. Oh, and don't forget to drink the beer.  Listen to the episode for more on how they are doing this. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

In this special Shop.org 2018 episode we have someone we found really charismatic and interesting during her Shop.org mainstage session with Guy Raz. Her name is Miki Berardelli, CEO of KIDBOX, and she sat down with José and I to talk about just that - her time at KIDBOX and why it's been such an impactful few years for her and the retailer. We will hear more about KIDBOX, but essentially KIDBOX is the first kids' personalized style box that provides parents with a convenient way to dress kids in cool brands at significant savings. We also learned about her background in retail, what the early days at KIDBOX were like, and one thing that no other retailer is doing. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

Casper the friendly store | Old Brands & New Brands | Google’s Double Decker in Chicago | Weird News of the Week --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

The hype is real. Even after hours of downtime, countless cute dogs served on broken pages, and frustrated shoppers; Amazon still rakes in $4B+ in revenues on Prime Day 2018. In this episode, we have a little fun in our post-mortem of the only Black Friday in Summer. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

José gets some time with retail and consumer trends business reporter Barbara Thau to talk about the one thing people really want with their in-store experience, the impact of out-of-stock situations on the bottom line, the tech that is cool but maybe not as useful as we thought, and the domination of Amazon's retail and marketplace models. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

In this Golden Jubilee of an episode: Subscription disruptors disrupted | Luxury finally caves | Children's Place wins the toy | Weird News of the Week --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

Amazon is your new stalker | Kidbox | Can Algorithms Dictate Taste? | Weird News of the Week --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

When you think of Detroit, do you think of fashion? You may not, and that's ok - but not for long. Jeffry Aronsson, retail turnaround and transformation specialist, is hell bent on changing that. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

3 Things We Learned at Shoptalk | A Shoptalk session reaction | Wonder twin powers, activate! | Weird News of the Week --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

Economist’s jobs are hard. There’s really no other way to put it. In this episode, we spend 20 minutes to take a look back at 2017, a better than expected holiday season, and what’s to come for 2018, with National Retail Federation’s Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz at NRF BIG Show 2018. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

Where did those discounts go??? | Sit down, Microsoft. | Store No 8 Gobbles Up Another. | Weird News of the Week --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

It didn't fit, so she did something about it. Not just for her, but for all women. We got to spend a very interesting 20 minutes with Cricket Lee from FitLogic at NRF 2018.  ---- About Cricket Lee While shopping for clothing and struggling to find clothes that fit, Cricket Lee realized there was a fit problem across the fashion industry. She set out to solve that problem, and improve the shopping experience for all women. Cricket is a veteran of the retail industry who has invented a revolutionary sizing technology called Fitlogic. Fitlogic is a universal sizing standard for women's clothing. It's currently being evaluated by top retailers interested in adopting it to their clothing lines. Cricket is a marketing expert with over 70 awards for advertising excellence, and learned how to solve problems from her father who designed missiles for NASA. FitLogic  Fitlogic is a world patented commercial clothes fitting standard that includes size and shape applications. The technology was developed with more than 60,

José and Todd got a few minutes at NRF 2018 with Michelle Bacharach from FINDMINE. It's a little noise in the background because there were just a few thousand people in the area. Michelle tells us all about FINDMINE and why their "complete the look" tech is changing the way we pair our outfits and the way retailers represent their brand. Michelle Bacharach is CEO and Co-Founder of FINDMINE. As a product and strategy expert, she’s experienced in growing startups and large media companies by launching apps and websites to millions of people, putting together joint ventures, and conceiving of new products. Michelle has shared her expertise with thousands of leaders in retail and technology as a speaker at SXSW and NRF Retail’s Big Show. She has an MBA from NYU Stern and a BA from UC Berkeley, where she wrote her honors thesis on managing innovation in multinational organizations. FINDMINE  FINDMINE scales outfitting across a fashion retailer's enterprise. Their automated "Complete the Look" technology creates c

Great story behind this hot custom clothing company out of Boston! Fan Bi is the Founder and CEO of Blank Label, a custom men's clothing brand based in Boston. He dropped out of Babson in 2009, with one semester left, to start the company. He's a recipient of the BusinessWeek 25 Under 25 and INC 30 Under 30 awards. Blank Label Overview Blank Label is a men's clothing brand with stores in Boston, Chicago, D.C., Atlanta, Denver and online. Through their own custom clothing line, their mission is to help men feel comfortable and confident in the clothes they wear. The company's vision is to build a long-standing national clothing brand. Founded in 2010, they raised $1 million in 2013 to expand into brick-and-mortar. Four years later, they have six stores and are expanding their retail presence. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

It's a Game of Pac-Man for Amazon. | Bot or Not? | Do I Hear an Echo? | Weird News of the Week! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/brickdatacast/support

Nike moving out. Whole foods has some rotten apples. Honeymoon is over for Gap. Wait, what honeymoon?. Weird news of the week ---- Nike Moving Out Donald Trump’s private real estate empire officially lost one of its most important tenants on Monday, when Nike announced that it is closing its store at the president’s 6 East 57th Street property in New York City next spring in favor of a new location just a few blocks away. The announcement comes a year after commercial landlord SL Green disclosed that it had signed a 15-year lease with Nike at 650 Fifth Avenue. Whole Foods Has Some Rotten Apples Whole Foods shoppers complained about finding bruised, discolored, tasteless, and rotten produce in stores across the US. Shoppers also cited persistent out-of-stock issues. Many customers are blaming the problems on Amazon, which acquired Whole Foods in a $13.7 billion deal in August. "Price reductions are appreciated but not at the expense of reliable quality," one customer said. Whole Foods told Business Insider tha