A weekly podcast with the latest e-commerce news and events. Episode 191 is an interview with Lockie Andrews, the Chief Digital officer of UNTUCKit.
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Lockie Andrews is the Chief Digital Officer of UNTUCKit (@untuckit). In this broad ranging interview, we discuss UNTUCKit origin, Omni-Channel strategy, customer acquisition, Amazon, and challenges and opportunities of scaling a direct to consumer business.
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Episode 191 of the Jason & Scot show was recorded on Wednesday, August 21st, 2019. live from the eTail East trade show in Boston, MA.
Automated Transcription of the show
Transcript
Jason:
[0:24] Welcome to the Jason and Scott show this episode is being recorded live from the etail East trade show in Boston on Wednesday August 21st 2019 I’m your host Jason retailgeek Goldberg
and unfortunately Scott was unable to join us today so you’re getting twice the Jason for half the usual cost and if that weren’t a great enough deal I’m sweetening the pot by asking a request to be on the show today so this morning were talking to aqui Andrews who’s the chief digital officer
untuckit welcome to the show lucky.
Lockie:
[0:59] Thanks for having me.
Jason:
[1:00] I am super excited to have you for listeners that may not have experienced the life-changing,
advantage of owning an untuckit shirts can you give us the to the Reader’s Digest on who you guys are.
Lockie:
[1:16] Absolutely thank you again for having me and it’s super exciting to be here to talk about until,
untuckit was started by Chris Rock a Bono and Erin San Andres they’re still actively involved in the business which is amazing and they had a simple idea of creating the perfect
untuckit shirt as some of you may not realize it but the traditional shirt is not meant to be worn untucked
and it actually looks a bit sloppy so they had the great idea to design a shirt that would make men feel and look sharp even at their most casual.
Jason:
[1:48] I feel like that was a great Insight were they in the apparel business and so this was like a new thing or or did they have that insight as a user and have to figure out how to get into the apparel business.
Lockie:
[2:01] Totally as a user and they were not in the apparel business but notice that now traditional shirts are just designed to have longer Tails so by having the
bright idea to actually design something that didn’t exist at the time they took it upon themselves to design at shirt and it took them several years to prove
but now we’re in a movement wear untucked shirts are a real thing and we’re excited about it.
Jason:
[2:25] Yeah I know I definitely think that a real thing I feel so I work at a big digital agency and there’s there’s kind of this up for the men there’s kind of fishes uniform which is like
jeans and a sport coat and I I feel like we’re right at the Tipping Point where you’re it’s possible to show up at a client meeting she’s me in an untucked shirt,
and so now it’s it’s like a little boy that’s my question to my like account manager before I go visit a client like at his talk to her on top.
Lockie:
[2:59] Yeah and it’s it’s been going on and it’s been a good Tailwind for us when they started the brand they actually didn’t think that it would be a brand that would extend past now the Millennials The Pool Guys in the off,
but what we find is with the casualisation of America and general,
and the fact that body shame so our average age is actually 2260 which was really surprising but part of it is your body changes and we designed shirts for all bodies which is something that the traditional apparel industry had not thought of.
Jason:
[3:29] Awesome well I’m glad it’s going well I want to dig into your business a little bit but before we do how did you come to untuckit.
Lockie:
[3:38] Yeah I bet.
Actually a client so I have a consultancy that focuses on digital transformation and I’ve been working in the industry for 15 years as untuckit and and the great Founders had their insights they built the business,
I haven’t necessarily invested in technology and they’re now at a point and have the size and the with VC backing,
that in an effort to make sure we become the billion-dollar unicorn that we want to be at we needed to invest in technology so I started out in a Consulting role and
really love the brand love the people love the culture and the inclusive mentality that they had and at the start of the year they asked me to be Chief digital officer so I except.
Jason:
[4:19] Wow that so that puts a whole new stress on the invite you had to get them before you took the gig that you’re like.
Lockie:
[4:27] Yo absolutely.
Jason:
[4:28] Wait a minute if I take this job like I’m have to see that advice through which is the secret of the Consulting industry is that we usually don’t.
Lockie:
[4:36] Exactly yeah and then because I had my background is mostly in networking with venture capital or private equity-backed brands,
I’m always held to Tasca those relationships run long when you’re working with a peer Avicii fun so from time to time I actually have to implement I’ve got to eat my own words so to speak so if I make the recommendations sometimes I have to actually come in and implement it so this is Ben,
perfect segue into untuckit.
Jason:
[5:01] That that is terrific so you were on a piano lady till yesterday and if you like your panel title had a little bit of attitude.
So the first half seem like super conventional omni-channel is table Stakes but then you you throw in the what are you serving.
Lockie:
[5:18] Yeah yeah.
Jason:
[5:19] So there were few retailers on the show a friend of the show Chris hard to see from now Clark’s was one of the panelists and for our listeners that weren’t lucky enough to get to attend the panel
can you start to give us a high-level about what your POV was on the panel.
Lockie:
[5:38] Yeah I’ll meet you in the lobby is overused and it means different things to different brands to different customers but we really tried to break it down obviously at the heart of omni-channel is a single view of customer at a single view of inventory,
and if you’re at a legacy retailer like a Clark says it was some of our partners were it’s a lot harder than when you had to digitally native brand like untuckit and we’re starting from scratch so we were sharing some of the pitfalls in successes that we’ve had but it,
all comes back to data and I don’t think big data is overused an overplayed because it is real,
and part of that is having to Technologies at a cost effective to be able to draw insights from that data and so we spent a lot of time talking about.
Everything from getting a CDP a customer data platform to building out the foundational elements of an Erp enterprise resource planning plan so that you can get,
360 degree view of your customer this is all hard stuff I think we all agree that is not easy and there’s very few who are actually getting it done appropriately.
Jason:
[6:41] For sure and it’s one of the interest in contrast to me on your panel so it was a lot of conversation about data and that single view of the customer you’re a digitally native brand,
this far as I know exclusively sells direct so both online and in stores but you but you own the customer in all cases
and of course there are two or more traditional Brands Clark’s in Novato.
Who are like for the most part disintermediated from that customer so when they’re thinking about both what date are they can collect and what date are they can act on.
That data is much rarer and more precious for them and I would argue it’s it’s an ordinate Lee hard to get it right even in your shoes where access to the data is probably not a primary problem in so you think you you.
He already one of their shoes and you really have to start getting clever about how you use aggregate data on what you can do.
Lockie:
[7:39] Absolutely it’s hard for all of us out here it’s not an easy effort to get omni-channel but at the end of the day it’s the customers were demanding it and whether it’s hard or not we have to do it.
Jason:
[7:50] For sure so let’s unpack that untuckit when they first had this Epiphany and they they.
Figured out how to make the dish first product did they do any kind of Market validation or did they just go all in and say where we’re putting our,
our life savings on the line and we’re going to open a website or how did that work.
Lockie:
[8:13] The great thing about having to Founders is we had one founder who was definitely all-in chips all-in on the table and another founder who actually was a little more reserved and that’s the brilliant balance that we have as a startup and we started with a one store in the website
and both the founders worked in the stores and actually did those customer phone,
Roots one online working in the stores and understanding how to fit could be better they also mind all the customer feedback that they got through the website so if there were,
plants are returns they were the ones responding to it so is your digital Founders story,
but It ultimately we took a while before we kind of hit the gas to say let’s do this let’s open up what we have now 75 stores across the us we perfected it from 2015 to 2017 and then.
Up and to the right it’s been a really exciting Journey once we got the fit right and understood our customer base.
Jason:
[9:10] That’s awesome and I’ve already learned something so I made a false assumption so many did you need to bring ends course the easiest way to sell stuff from,
level of effort and cost standpoint as the ones that website and so most it’s only two Brands start as a pure-play e-commerce Venture and ultimately
like discover that there’s a lot of benefit to opening stores as well but so know you guys open the store simultaneously of the website lets it you’re based in New York today was that first store in Manhattan.
Lockie:
[9:43] Yes it wasn’t so how it’s the store still there on Prince Street.
Jason:
[9:46] Got it which is a super uncompetitive retail section for people that both apparel retail and Soho.
Lockie:
[9:53] Yeah and we’re also headquartered there so that helped as well so having the headquarters in your the store and making sure there was a split between when we launched the website which would have been in 2011 versus when we actually open the store which was in,
15 but ultimately getting that consumer feedback in that real touch point I think they noticed.
Hopefully sell that having stores is the best thing that you can do is a digitally native brand so we we definitely understood that very early on.
Jason:
[10:21] Interesting and I want imma get back to you in just a sec but the so assuming they didn’t have a ton of experience in e-commerce or retail in additional peril mean you’re not in Wise wait podcast it’s hard to see the knob,
just teasing so.
Did they like I’m trying to think 2011 Shopify would not have been like a super well-known platform at that point like today.
What like how to divide do they hire someone to build a custom website today what would you know what they did or.
Lockie:
[10:53] Fortunately Shopify was in their sights
and we are actually still on Shopify plus so part of the beauty of it is our Founders are very conscious of dollars it was their hard-earned money that went into the business early on cuz we waited some time before we took outside Capitol and they grew it very wisely bootstrapping it and Shopify was and I believe very strong and it’s a great
a platform to launch especially now a new brand.
Jason:
[11:17] Yeah I think it might like today it would be pretty easy for a brand to find Shopify and it’s super easy to launch a site my recollection from 2011 they existed but it.
It would not have been an obvious slam-dunk there would have been a bunch of other choices with equivalent Buzz that might not have been so successful for them so,
so they said they made a good a good fit Choice there watch that side and so then fast forward a couple years they open a store adjacent to the corporate headquarters and.
[11:49] If there’s a bunch of mistakes you can make launching a website way more mistakes you can make opening a store but the awesome thing about having even that first store is.
You can you have to interact directly to customer in your to your point like they both worked in the store so it’s almost unavoidable that you get this customer feedback this voice of the customer and it creates this.
Opportunity for a really good feedback loop that bothers tools to capture the voice of the customer online.
It feels more disassociated.
If you was more like data you get after the fact it doesn’t feel like a human being standing in front of you telling you their problem with the washer they bought or finding a shirt that are all those sorts of things.
So I suspected that was a nice Advantage for them,
but now they’re selling online to the whole country and they’re selling in-store out of one particular store,
were they in that you’re aware they shipping from that Supply do they have one inventory in New York and that’s where all the the shipments went out.
Lockie:
[12:54] We actually had a local DC so it was very small and Connecticut and we,
since then to have being a major Nationwide Global 3pl with logistic.
It’s at the early start it was all bootstrapping so a very small supplier who is helping us out and shipping we didn’t do it ourselves because our Focus really was on perfecting the shirt.
Jason:
[13:17] And that gun shop if I didn’t have the omni-channel feature set in the POS so you probably.
Lockie:
[13:22] I’m close to that yes.
Jason:
[13:22] Probably had to pick some other stuff and figure out what was important to integrate than in all those sorts of things so good news that works it caught on and yusuke how many stores did you say you have.
Lockie:
[13:36] 75 stores right now.
Jason:
[13:37] Yeah so so in all in the US right.
Lockie:
[13:40] All in the US and Canada and the exciting news is that were opening to stores at the end of the year and let them.
Jason:
[13:47] Oh my gosh so that’ll be your first International fanchon and will you launch a UK website.
Lockie:
[13:53] We Will We Will spin up a new UK website and we’re also spitting up a Canadian website to give the Canadians their own product and we are moving inventory and Country both Canada and the UK this is an exciting time for the brand.
Jason:
[14:05] Is global expansion exciting opportunities / all sorts of new interesting challenge.
Lockie:
[14:12] Yes yes we love challenges.
Jason:
[14:14] Yeah boy be boring if you just did easy stuff.
Lockie:
[14:17] Play slam dunks all day long.
Jason:
[14:18] Exactly yeah I myself cannot dunk but I’ve I’ve been told that it’s.
Exactly exactly that room is way up there I don’t know if you know so with a fleet of stores and e-commerce.
You know you mentioned that single view with the inventory when you’re talking about on me and channel like that becomes more difficult to maintain.
Do you have unified systems today and you have a single view of inventory across 220 stores and your your fulfillment center.
Lockie:
[14:52] We do it’s not fully mature and we’re laying the bricks one by one to build on and bolt onto a core system,
right now in the US we do offer our customers and ability to order through endless aisle and we have a mobile POS system with new store,
which is definitely state-of-the-art and revolutionary and next-gen all those,
things rolled into one and it allows us to have the customers actually be able to provide feedback and I’m building the connections is the CTO to make sure we get that view from both
call center too as well as Merchants they want to have an ability to log in and see if their customer complaints about our shirts if there’s a fit issue or quality issue,
so we’re building at 360 degree view as well as giving technological enablers for that feedback loop.
Jason:
[15:38] Not your enemy your panel you mention you do have a CDP in place.
Lockie:
[15:41] We do we do and so for our marketing team driving those insights of which customer segments were,
Express how can we and sent them to come to our stores or to shop online whichever they like and whatever we would like them to do so you leveraging Ai and machine learning to be able to
do. In a predictive manner as well as driving insights about those customers and what they want from us whether we also offer not two shirts we have pants and shorts and other things as we complete the look and
all in an effort to make our customers feel and look great but to be able to do that you definitely need technology.
Jason:
[16:17] Yeah so I want to Pivot to customer acquisition you alluded to it but before you one more question like there’s one more piece I feel like to hear your sales make so we got the stores we got the e-commerce like you are also a three-piece seller on Amazon.
And it wouldn’t be a Jason Scott show we didn’t bring up the the Amazon so I meet a lot of entrepreneurs dinner,
on Amazon because they think it’s a great customer acquisition Channel and I’m happy to be there and they’re investing in it I mean other entrepreneurs day.
I’ll characterize it as like it less but feel they have to be so I’m like where are you guys in the spectrum is it.
Lockie:
[16:55] I’d say we’re probably in the Middle where they’re not in a major way
but we recognize that we want to have learnings from the channel in case we do decide but as you noted early on with so many other things on our radar right now we are really focused on keeping control of our brand and the messaging,
is a lot of competition out there and we want to make sure we protect our Earth our patent so to speak on the untucked shirt.
And as we do that going into new channels just presence obviously Newberry has new issues new obstacles so we’re being very cautious as we roll out with Amazon.
Jason:
[17:30] End it over his nose like it potentially could feel oily or not but the reality is,
there’s a ton of Shoppers on Amazon they’re going to type searches that are relevant to you in their search engine,
if you’re not there at all there’s going to be a bunch of squatters that are going to figure out how to show up in the top of the search results and
very often Brands will put a limited assortment on Amazon
just to win that search battle I not have their brand be usurped if you do have some IP protection there’s many more Tools in Amazon has to protect your IP,
if you’re a seller and of course the path you take him where you’re selling yourself on Amazon as a three-piece seller.
I wouldn’t see you get to control the experience as much as you’d like but you for example get control over pricing which is a very big deal.
Lockie:
[18:19] Absolutely.
Jason:
[18:20] Yeah so not uncommon strategy but it doesn’t sound like that was necessarily like your highest priority pass the growth was the about your shift from your own store website to Amazon in the world would like on fire for you.
Lockie:
[18:33] Exactly exactly.
Jason:
[18:34] Okay so let’s give it to that customer acquisition and how are you finding new customers.
Lockie:
[18:42] How are we not finding new customers I I’d like to Big that we we participate in everything and I think that again goes,
to the strength of our founding team and recognizing that with a brand that,
in addition to men’s we also have women’s and a lot of times women are also shopping for the men in their lives or maybe it’s Grandma buying a gift for her son so we kind of needed to be everywhere to understand the
extent of our reach and we’re everywhere in print ads I enjoy coming to conferences like this where most people tell me they actually discovered Us in the airline magazine.
Which is very cost-effective but the how have you heard of us has been very tremendous on that series of Airline ads we do social paid social Billboards television hopefully some of you have seen RR.
But we also think of our stores actually as a great way for us to have marketing,
365 so part of where we want to go is understanding who we can appeal to and then through all this great technology we’re bringing in will be able to segment them.
To them in the way that they like to be on that one to one basis.
Jason:
[19:49] Yeah that’s awesome the stores is an Acquisitions and I feel like it’s kind of settled territory now that for a long time that was very controversial,
in there there’s a ton of data that what you open a store in the market and your web traffic in that market dramatically picks up picks up and conversely if you’re one of these retailers that’s atrophying,
closing stores.
You take a big hit to Brand awareness and e-commerce traffic and it’s I’ll be honest like you walking or retailer this planning on closing stores and almost always the strategy is working to capture those customers digitally.
And you don’t have to like not only are you not going to capture those customers digitally you’re going to lose other customers that discovered you because of your stores.
Lockie:
[20:33] 100% you nailed it and I’m part of what we find now and this new omni-channel world where we’re really creating the rules is you actually have to change your match.
You can no longer simply look at sales online and sales and store because customers are shopping across channels so you could ultimately make bad decisions because your customers now splitting their revenues so we look at revenue on tomorrow
faces and when we open a store to make sure we don’t get to a point where we are cannibalizing our sales,
we want to make sure we’re growing within market for each of the customers who live there and then of course customers travel so having that
technological stack that we can look and see well Jason actually flew to another city Austin maybe I maybe stopping to Copley Place in purchase there how is all of that impacting our brand overall.
Jason:
[21:24] Yeah as someone who travels every week I feel like I am the high stress on the cdp’s of a lot of the brain.
Lockie:
[21:29] Oh yes yes.
Jason:
[21:30] I use cuz I’m not I’m almost certainly not the customer Journey that’s on their whiteboard.
Like that attribution thing is a super challenging thing to do.
Have you guys adopted like a particular like approach to attribution and are you like to have a notion of customer lifetime value and any.
Lockie:
[21:53] Definitely notion of customer lifetime value and thinking about it and cutting the data and many different ways to drive those insights,
yo attribution we’re working on some models internally with a with external partner Partners boat as well as looking at internally how can we measure it,
obviously last-click is not ideal and ultimately we want to be able to double down on those things that are working but it has to be an integrated View and there are some really exciting Partners out there some of them are here at this conference
we’re starting to think about the world in a real life scenario with all these integrated points versus how the world used to be which was very siloed so we’re still working on it it’s exciting to be in the in the game and trying to figure it out for the untuckit brand.
Jason:
[22:34] Yeah I think in your panel you you omitted to one of the marketing escapes and it’s like the number of vendors is just exploding.
And I feel like one of these areas is attribution so in the good news like there’s a lot of smart people out there thinking about the problem in the bad news it can take a fair amount of bandwidth,
talk to these guys and figure out what’s going to be the best,
fit for you which are you smarter than the exploratory phases or if you found some vendors you really like that that have already yielded some results for you.
Lockie:
[23:07] Yeah that guy coming to conferences like this is amazing as you get to drop in really quickly and understand from a cultural fit perspective as well as from the.
Who’s where and are we aligned and how we think and so we’re still in the exploratory phase as we do have a short list of vendors that were talking to but if someone else drops out with and it just takes one product release right
for a new feature to come out into really help solve some of the challenges that we have given that we do have stores we
do you have an online presence and we do send catalogs so that’s a very difficult model for some people to understand and ingest but I’m at least building the foundation so from a date of birth
after we can unify it it’s cleansed it’s normalized and then it can feed whatever algorithms their they’re developing and a pretty rapid real-time fashion but it’s really hard work to be able to get there and those vendors are not there yet.
Jason:
[23:57] For sure.
So you’re you are clicking much to say that you got the CDP you have a broad range of customer acquisition tools are you at the point where you’re activating any of that customer data to
Serta personalized those outbound marketing activities are using it primarily to Target who gets what activities or using a taxi change the the content in those activation.
Lockie:
[24:23] We’re at the start of changing the content because I obviously requires some Partners who can an able that Dynamic rendering that would be necessary so we’re not there yet
but it’s definitely on our Horizons and so part of what we’re doing now is just understanding from lookalike audiences perspective we have the CDP were able to look at our most.
The customer is our highest lifetime value customers and then understand how we double down on them by leveraging the lookalike audiences on all of the social class
forms and we’ve seen tremendous return on investment in a very short time and I I believe in that wholeheartedly having started out on Wall Street in my career I want to make sure if I’m bringing on a new vendor that they’re going to prove out
from a revenue increase or from a cost reduction for.
In a very short amount of time and so that’s the selection criteria that I use and bring it in but where it would starting at we can definitely see the momentum.
Jason:
[25:13] Yeah so I want to give it to a way I can sometimes be a difficult conversation so that you guys would have to having racing money I think last year right or late last year maybe or,
2 years ago okay and your aspirations Richie that unicorn status that that billion dollar valuation,
lots of exciting things about being in that phase of growth,
but you’re now in the situation that like if you can’t that she’s that kind of growth it’s not a success for the investors right so you just kind of taking off the table the option to,
be a successful medium-sized company.
In inside like when you’re in this situation where you have to keep scaling one of the things that’s really interesting as we see Watson of these digital-native Brands hit when I called the the d2c plateau.
Here’s my promise and you tell me if,
if you guys already passed it or you think my promise is wrong or if you have a hypothesis but essentially.
Go pre-digital go 2007 if you had some new idea for a product and you launched it could be a great product.
[26:24] There were millions of people that wanted to buy and it would take you five years to get the word out to those millions of people.
So your girls would be very slow and steady right even if it was up again a phenomenal product that had a big Cam that was desperate for your product just,
the vehicles available to you to Market that product where we made you weren’t going to be able for broadcast television it first and so you’d have this nice when your scale,
today you got this fabulous idea to revolutionize the shirt industry and you have these wonderful digital tools to reach that that core audience immediately and so the growth that would have taken you five years,
you now potentially get in 6 months or a year,
and so there it looks the first year of your business as a in the digital era looks vastly better than the first year of businesses in the pre-digital E Roblox but the mistake is a bunch of companies go oh my God.
We’re going to keep scaling like this forever until we hit that billion dollars and we’re going to go sell it and live on a boat in Nantucket and the reality is.
There was some addressable Market that really wanted your product and you just find those guys earlier and so to keep Drilling.
[27:36] The next you have to pay that and now fine.
These customers that maybe you have to evangelize more you have to educate more or you know that are just less of likely to be your customers than that,
that first tranche of growth was and so we see a lot of dtc’s with this nice hockey stick and then it flattens out
and they’ve got to figure out it didn’t flatten doesn’t mean they’re doomed it means what got them there is not the same tactics they’re going to have to use to that next phase of growth so they have to dramatically change their customer acquisition are you guys,
see nothing on and on and all you feel like that’s already in the rearview mirror and you’re blowing past it and my high and you.
Lockie:
[28:18] No not at I think it’s a brilliant inside having worked at a startup for 6 years.
Jason:
[28:22] Can you be my sound bite for the.
Lockie:
[28:24] Have you worked at a.com in the early 2000s I completely agree with your assessment and that’s why I’m super excited to be with untuckit now because the cost of being able to scale is come down dramatically and the tools that are out there exactly as you stated
fortunately we haven’t hit plateau and I I think it’s the incredible insights of our team that’s very strong and grounded many of us have work
the.com era and we took those lessons that we got from there and have now apply them to this business but got in a while we’re still growing and now building the infrastructure so that we can leverage and start to think,
and the great thing is we’re experimenting and iterating all along so I think part of the reason why we haven’t found that,
cytopoint yet is because we are out there doing things very smartly staying very close to our customers making sure our store is which are possible within the first six to eight months which is
pretty incredible so as we double down on that and get smarter about how we measure different markets
measure the different segments again women shop very differently than men so we’re in understanding the female purchase behaviors which may vary when do vary from how many hours
purchasing from us and the messages that we put in front of them so I doing all of that at the same time we’re ensuring that we maintain if not accelerate our growth rates even as we grow.
Jason:
[29:43] That makes total sense you one of the things I’m curious about because you have this level of customer intimacy you know your customer super well you’re clicking on the state up
when are the traditional problems in the apparel space in particular is returns and like the I don’t you can’t sell apparel without having meaningful returns unfortunately which is just
you know it’s an extra expense to doing business but I do have a hypothesis that if you know the customer well there’s more you have more levers to pull to mitigate returns and I’m curious do you feel like
your data is like is a competitive advantage to help you manage returns and keep those costs manageable or do you see that as an opportunity.
Lockie:
[30:26] Yeah we have done a lot of work in that was part of the early years that Chris and Erin spent and perfecting the shirt is an understanding from a sizing perspective.
What works for men and as part of that I think in our store is the brilliant Insight was to have the try on shirt in store,
so once a guy comes in and he locks into his size,
it’s golden he may never come into a store again but my own 30 some shirts because he knows what he likes and he can simply go online after he had that first experience in,
yeah baby you got a glass of bourbon while he was in there too but he enjoys the brand and how easy we made it for him and yes we still even with that have
pre return partners that are helping us because we’re experimenting and we recognize that customers are going to exchange they’re going to return product that’s the nature of our business,
so we try to make it as seamless as possible and then if we get a return to work with 3pl so I can clean the Prada.
Back on the shelves as quickly as possible or get,
out to customers through online so we recognize that is the dirty side the Secret side of a retail but there are tools out there to help you make it a little easier for you to manage.
Jason:
[31:37] Yep and you would have just Partners is that some of the the happy returns of the.
Lockie:
[31:42] Is that happy returns narvar returnly all of them are here this week and they’re doing great jobs in different ways and ultimately I think is that,
edited set shrinks,
will understand ultimately how our customers like to behave with us and as we have more stores will take a look at it because what ends up happening is some customers would like to bring it into the store again we need an opportunity to streamline that process and get it back on this
floor for a sales associate to be able to sell.
Jason:
[32:10] Yeah I think that’s super smart and I I really like the I feel like those vendors have hit up front upon a real problem statement that there’s real economic incentive to solve Soh.
So that’s exciting I did I wrote an article I think last week,
talking about like the challenges of e-commerce profitability in and specifically around returns and I found this old quote I had forgotten about for Mandy done when he first started bonobos and it was like.
E-commerce as awesome as long as you don’t care about Eva.
Which have you like isn’t isn’t always true but it’s important cautionary tale like it turns out it’s not just throw the stuff online and you’re guaranteed a profit.
Lockie:
[32:51] Exactly while fortunately we are chasing profit so that’s the.
Jason:
[32:56] It sounds like I want to put it to the Future before I do want to close the loop on one thing on storage because it just makes me super happy untuckit is finally opening a store in Nantucket.
So I feel like that’s very melodious.
Lockie:
[33:11] There you go and we want to do that for sure.
Jason:
[33:14] I know I know that that was a high priority.
Lockie:
[33:17] Absolutely.
Jason:
[33:18] Although you have to be careful and I know you follow the Nantucket news lately but they’re shark-infested.
Lockie:
[33:23] Oh yeah look at that sharks in the water we put some on the shirt you know just go with it might as well go with it.
Jason:
[33:29] I feel I just embrace it like if you want it if you do a local shirt that would be the shark warning.
Lockie:
[33:34] There you go.
Jason:
[33:35] Shirt.
Thank you sit I feel like we’re in a super fascinating time like the best tactics that word when you guys want start playing at the exact same best tactics. I wear using today there’s a lot of trial in the morning you reference a lot of,
the different vendors and tactics that are available at shows like this,
if you try to put your futures hat on and imagine coming back to this show in 2025 how do you think,
the industry is going to have all but which of these problems do you feel like,
maybe we’ve solved and what do you think the new the new problems are do you do you have any POV about where like it would be in 5 years.
Lockie:
[34:17] Yeah well again putting on the future as head you never know no one has a crystal ball I actually feel like there were many things we learned in.com 1.0 and that we forgot somehow and now we’re here talking about the butt
hopefully we continue to double down on the lessons we get I think an advance on some of the benefits we give it’s a.
Of the product and right now there’s so much
access inventory out there for whatever reason it’s not selling I’m excited about a future where we can leverage technology and data to be able to get there and obviously Stitch fix Rent the Runway they’re all looking at
different components and attributes of products to understand how do you get the product that this customer will like based on their preference,
as well as getting the manufacturing tolerances of these products down to a point where you are actually getting what feels like a custom fit.
But is actually off the shelf.
That’s where we’re going to go if we continue this trend of leveraging technology to get better which equals last waist in the world which I love her no more landfills closed because we’re producing only what will get sold so I’m super excited about that future.
Jason:
[35:26] Yeah why when you put it in terms of saving the earth now I have to totally jumped on board on your vision of the future as well,
lockie that’s going to be a great place to end it for the day because it’s happened again we’ve used up all our a lot of time,
but folks are eager to keep the conversation going you’re welcome to jump on her Facebook page
follow us on Twitter as always if you enjoy the show wheel of that five star review on iTunes but more importantly lucky if folks want to find you online I can do you hang out in some digital corner of the universe.
Lockie:
[35:58] I do Twitter and Instagram at lucky Andrews. Com you can find me anywhere I speak a lot of conferences but please reach out to me and thank you again.
Jason:
[36:07] Awesome I will put those links in the show notes thanks again for all your time and really enjoyed chatting with you until next time happy commercing.
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