Cream City Calculation

Data Driven Retail IQ

• Cream City Calculations

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Sal, Colleen, and Frankie talk about how retail has changed from before, during, and after the pandemic. The goal of the episode is to prepare you for your holiday shopping and provide data and insights around retail and advertisement.


Here are the sources utilized in the discussion:

Welcome to the Cream City Calculations podcast. We're three colleagues and friends that love data and to talk about how data is impacting our lives. I'm Colleen. I'm Frankie. And I'm Sal.

Sal:

Welcome back to Cream City Calculations. Today we're talking about data-driven retail iq. We're gonna talk about how retailers are using data to understand their customers, understand who they're going after, especially as we get into the holiday season. We just wanna understand Where our retailers are, where people are shopping and then also see how it's evolved from pre COVID to during COVID to post COVID and see how that movement has changed

Colleen:

some of the articles I read in preparation for this conversation were suggesting that people missed shopping during the pandemic. And that five years after the pandemic, we've actually hit. Levels of people shopping in person that are higher than before The pandemic. People are spending less time in the store, but they're going out shopping and, and going into a physical. Brick and mortar store more than they did before the pandemic, which is interesting to me. I would've definitely thought that a bigger percentage of, shopping happened online, but apparently it's only about 20% of purchases take

FRANKIE:

I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that more people are working remotely. Just because like for me, when I went, when I switched to remote work, I wanted to find more ways to get out of the house. So I would purposefully go to a store so that I didn't have to stay home you know, found different ways to make sure that I was still getting out of the house.

Colleen:

right. Different ways to kind of socialize somewhat and, Be out in the world.

FRANKIE:

Exactly.

Colleen:

Yeah. Yeah. I dunno. Some of the other interesting things I was reading about too, we talked about supply chain issues and about how retail businesses need to have really solid relationships with their suppliers in order to, I guess, take into consideration some of the issues they may have getting product shipped to them.

Sal:

Yeah, I've seen like a lot of companies that are getting product last minute or building out last minute, and they're getting it from possibly China or something. They've actually cut down on what they are importing just to keep the costs down. Because the import costs or for the tariffs were so astronomical that they couldn't get it and fill their stores enough and they couldn't then charge a customer that excessive amount.

Colleen:

Yeah.

FRANKIE:

That's a really hard thing to do and you like, you have limited warehouse space have to be able to supply all of your stores and it's very complex, but it, I've found that a lot of companies are using more machine learning to. Predict how much supply that they're going to need for each location. And they've been able to maximize on that.

Colleen:

Yeah

Sal:

how? I wonder how accurate that is. I would imagine it's really hard when you have on and off tariffs, on and off supply chain demand or differences. Like I think out of all years, this might be one of the harder years.

Colleen:

Yeah. Even though we're five years out from the

Sal:

Yeah.

Colleen:

Still enough, I think one article called it Geopolitical Uncertainty to, cause I think some you know, maybe, maybe two on their end just. Drawback, like withholding or, or holding back from stocking things at the levels they might normally, because everything is just in flux so that they don't, they can't really maybe even feel like they can rely on people coming in to, to shop for those things because the cost of things overall is, is

FRANKIE:

And you can use historical data, but all of your historical data has all this, all these different implications. I mean, like thinking about the past five to 10 years, I mean, there was times where we had the pandemic, we had a lot of political uncertainty. we've had a lot of world uncertainty and I think that gotta be really hard to take all that into consideration in your machine learning models.

Sal:

Yeah,

Colleen:

Yeah, for sure.

FRANKIE:

And I, I don't

Sal:

that's.

FRANKIE:

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know like the level of success that, that they're seeing with using them. That's what I've been hearing and I'm not really super in touch with the retail side of things myself.

Colleen:

Yeah, and you gotta imagine too, like retail takes in, you know, includes like department stores, but it also includes grocery stores. And so there's been a lot of uncertainty on that side as well, because of tariffs and be.'cause of ecological Going

FRANKIE:

do you guys shop for online versus in person?

Colleen:

Good question. I think I typically online I shop for like those kind of essentials house cleaning supplies, when I'm say essentials, more like shampoo, body wash, that kind of stuff. Toothpaste, cleaning supplies, like little things like that. I don't think I ever buy them in person. I think that's the kind of stuff I order and have them shipped to me.

Sal:

Yeah I typically my big things are probably like. And I go directly to the real retailer and not like Amazon or something like that. I'll get clothes through like specific ones that I know that I like. And I think that's a big thing. And one of these articles actually talks about it is like more of a personal branding. Where if you go to these websites, they can say oh, we would recommend this'cause you bought this in the past from our site. And it's, you already know that you like their quality, you know, you like their. Their style. So like the, it's really kind of building out that personal brand or personal kind of structure to it. That helps me. And honestly, I like the algorithms behind that'cause it actually helps me like that oh, that actually does look nice. The other place I typically get it is sad to say I, I do fall into the Instagram trap. I find a lot of good things on Instagram and maybe. It's fast commerce or whatever they call it.

Colleen:

Yeah.

Sal:

some of it's actually really good and it actually has worked out really well.

FRANKIE:

What about your groceries? Do you guys do you ever do the Amazon grocery delivery or Walmart grocery delivery, things like that?

Sal:

Yeah, we do Instacart every week. Which is really nice, but now we're actually kind of falling into a point where are we paying more from Instacart? Not that the membership or the tip. Yeah. You're probably paying a little bit more based on the tip, but it's more of it's so easy just to click on the button and add more than you probably need. And so I'm definitely a person of hey, maybe we should starting to shift back to going to the grocery store.

Colleen:

I can imagine with little kids like you have Sal, that would be amazing. I remember when my kids were little thinking the same thing. Like that was the worst chore to have, to take your kids to do in person. I do it, I do my own grocery shopping in person. It kind of feels, like, I would be incredibly lazy if I had somebody shop, grocery shopping for me. And I say that just because my kids are grown and it's like my partner and I had a home and one grown son that works full-time. So it's like, I don't, I don't have any maybe to, to need to do like online orders for grocery shopping, though I certainly could. I, when I think about it, there's no real reason. It's just something that's in my head that really doesn't mean anything. If you do order your groceries online, you really aren't lazy. You're still just shopping for your groceries. You're just sort of doing it in a different way. but I will say to your point, your comment about, you know, it was really easy to just add additional things to your cart, grocery stores, design. Themselves or, or people who design grocery stores do that on purpose, design them the way that they do so that you do walk through aisles that you don't really necessarily need to go down in order to get the things you need. And the grocery store closest to me that I probably shop at the most recently reorganized the store so that instead of having two sets of aisles, shorter aisles with like a, an aisle in between, they now. Run the complete like width of the store so that you have to go all the way down the aisle to get to the end. You can't just like in the middle of the aisle make a turn and, and, and go to a different section of the store. And I know they did that because then you're forced to walk by a bunch of products that you probably don't need to look at that you could then you know, see and say, oh, I, that's useful. Maybe I should get a jar of pickles or whatever. But annoyed by it because it takes longer to get through the store.

Sal:

Yeah it, so I went this week or the last week, which I way over purchased. Funny enough it took me probably twice as long than that, what I normally would go grocery shopping because I've done Instacart now for so long that I have no idea where anything is.

FRANKIE:

Oh sure.

Colleen:

What about you, Frankie? What do you

FRANKIE:

pick like smaller grocery stores personally because I try my best not to get a bunch of junk. and so like I've always just gone to a small store where it's mostly just, your essentials. And. I think it's really helpful to go to a small store,'cause I only go to those big grocery stores, like when there's things that available at a small shop. And that seems to help a lot. But I also like going to the grocery store. I don't mind, I don't have kids, so it's easy. just put my AirPods in and listen to an audio book and it's it's no problem for me. I don't know. But there's certain purchases I make online, but I've been actually like making it an effort to go to stores again. and there's some things I would never buy online. Like I, I would not buy furniture online ever. Like that's something you just have to go and test it out, right. And see if you like it. but yeah. I would say like things that I do buy online I have a subscription for dog treats and dog food. So, so the pups get their food all the time and, that's one thing that I do that's just simple and easy and you don't have to think about it. That's what makes it so accessible and nice to do. But I, yeah, I'm like, I think it's important to make an effort to go to local stores too. So that's why I've been trying my best not to buy things like and some of those items that you might have a local chaperone.

Colleen:

Yeah. Yeah, I do that as well. I like to go to the little stores in town for books and for, well, I do that too for. When we go out to eat we, we stop at a bunch of little, there's a bunch of really great little restaurants in the town where I live, so it makes it easy to do

Sal:

So kind of, I feel when you shop local and do those things you're not gonna return as much. I feel like that is some of the

Colleen:

Yeah.

Sal:

largest waste that we do. They say that, like I read an article that was like 19.3% of online sales are returned. Within one year within that year. So like 2025, 19% of them are returned. So you think about it like every, almost one in, one in five, right? Pro things that you purchase gets returned online. But I can guarantee that in person, I am not returning anywhere near that level.

Colleen:

Well, yeah, I think the tendency to have to return something is lower because like Frankie said, if you're buying a, a couch or a chair or something like that, you're gonna go sit on that thing or lay on the mattress or try the shirt on. And so the percent. Chance of you needing to make a return is probably goes down simply because you've already interacted with that item. You already know it fits or

FRANKIE:

Well, in a lot of places you're almost like incentivized to, buy the thing. Take it home and then, send it back if you don't want it. And because they offer free returns or they offer, try and buy things like that. Mm-hmm.

Colleen:

Fast fashion is a, is a real thing, and it's really detrimental like to the planet. I don't know if either of you have ever seen articles about what happens to the clothing waste from this country when you make donations to like a, a charity shop or something and they, they have more inventory than what they can sell. Oftentimes that stuff gets shipped to other countries and it's. Detrimental. There's nowhere to go with it, it's really easy if you're shopping online to just see, oh, here's a shirt, it's$10. I might as well try it. And to your point, sale, like if, if you need to return it, it's really easy. You can just ship back free versus having to go to a person, to a store in person to go make that return. Interesting stats that I saw too is that some of the types of stores that haven't fared as well after the pandemic are drug stores. and I think that's really interesting to me because you know, drug stores were so, necessary and needed during the pandemic. I'm not really sure what that says. It basically they're suggesting that you know, drug stores are more than just your prescriptions. You go there and you you know, there's makeup, there's toiletries, and I think that's some of the stuff that at least I buy online because it's very easy, you know, you're not gonna buy the wrong size toothpaste. So maybe it's a matter of that combination or that type of store no longer. As much draw simply because you can get that stuff online so easily.

FRANKIE:

that's really interesting. And it's ironic because every time that I have been to a drug store In a city, they're absolutely packed and they are, there's so many people there. Every time I've been to the drug stores in A town, it's empty. I feel like I'm the only person there. Yeah.

Colleen:

Yeah, I think buying methods have definitely shifted in that way. Think about it. So much of the inventory at drugstores, like I think of my local Walgreens or CVS, it's stuff that, you know, isn't specific to, to drugstores. And they probably do that because they know you were coming in to get your prescription or whatever. And again, you'll see it on an end cap and you'll buy it, you'll pick up some Halloween candy, you'll pick up a card for somebody's birthday or, or whatever while you're there. and you know, if. If statistics are no showing, people spend less time in stores, it's probably'cause they buy something online and then just go pick it up in the store. And so you're not spending the time walking through those aisles while you're waiting for your prescription to be filled. Kind of looking at all the other random things in the store. You're just there to pick up your one thing and then go,

FRANKIE:

Not to mention you get notifications now like that are super accurate for when your prescriptions are ready. You're not really

Colleen:

yeah.

FRANKIE:

spending

Sal:

and out.

FRANKIE:

That's an interesting fact.

Sal:

I think a big thing is also because of supply chain, right? And so because costs are of all these big bulk stores or what you could say is like these medium bulk stores that are now pharmacies and the to, for them to stack all their shelves and have it filled all the time. That's a lot of logistics and a lot of supply chain kind of movement. And it's gonna cost a lot. And they have so many of these stores, like even here in Shorewood, we have like between on I think it's Oakland Avenue. I think there's three or four CVSs or Walgreens less than two miles. It's do we really need that many?

Colleen:

And I think that's why you're seeing the trend of some of those chain stores closing or some of their locations or just eliminating how many locations they have because people aren't buying those extra things in the store as

FRANKIE:

But it's crazy.'cause I'm thinking of Walgreens, where they're on like the corner of their slogan is. Yeah, whatever. They're, they've been like priding themselves on how many stores they have available and how convenient it is. like they would have to completely rewrite their book and com, come up with a new vision, which they probably are working on, I would imagine.

Colleen:

Yeah, I would think they are too.

Sal:

I know a lot of them are banking ongoing, moving into the more e-commerce side of it. I've never shopped on walgreens.com or

Colleen:

Yeah.

Sal:

but I feel like a lot of these companies, that's what they keep saying in these articles is like they're moving to more of a digital platform, you know, digital kind of marketing. I'm like I still don't think I'm gonna shop there. If I'm gonna shop online, I'm gonna either go directly to. The retailer that I need to buy it from, or that makes the product or it's going to be probably an Amazon because I know I already have free shipping.

Colleen:

Yeah. No, that's interesting. I think, you know, some of the things I've read, recently suggests that that the more successful retailers are sort of bridging that gap between mobile or online ordering and the in-store experience. It's interesting to see, like, as you hear about, like retail companies in the news that are struggling it's like, why are those specific retailers struggling and other ones aren't? And I think about too, the trend of having self-checkouts. I read something about Target a while back how, you know, they offered a lot of self-checkout lanes and Target is a department store that people would typically spend a lot of time in browsing. But because people are there less time and they're now not even interacting with a checkout person like that really like, takes away the personalization of that shopping experience. And their retail numbers have been way down. Some online platforms suggest it's because of this shift that it's become so unpersonalized that people just don't see it as like a shopping experience anymore and just kind of running, get the two things they need and then duck out.

Sal:

I saw an article on the National Retail Federation

Colleen:

Mm-hmm.

Sal:

it talks about 82% of customers say that free RET returns are an important consideration when online shopping. I feel like. Everybody is now offering free returns, which is amazing, but it's also, it's one of those things that like, I feel like it's easily driving away people from going to the brick and mortar shops for sure.

Colleen:

Screen. So you mean, so like if they have a brick and mortar store and also an online presence, you think that might

Sal:

Exactly.

Colleen:

order something online?

Sal:

It's almost like they're cannibalizing themselves by oh, like you mean I don't even have to drive to go to your store?

FRANKIE:

Yeah, that's interesting. Well, and like some of the bigger stores, like I heard that Amazon is rethinking that strategy and that they were planning on making some things, Either non-returnable or giving you a cost to return it. And that was for prime members too. So not just not just the average Joe. But I thought that was really interesting that they're kind of re-strategizing because they get so many returns and they're wasting so much money processing those.

Colleen:

Yeah. Do you guys know of the like pallets that you can buy of returned Amazon product that they won't restock?

FRANKIE:

Yeah, and they also have some actual stores with returned Amazon products.

Colleen:

Yes. It's like small electronics or clothing, things that don't cost enough for them to, you know, repackage it. So they just sort of lump it together in big lots and auction it off. Or to Frankie's point, make it available in one of these little, you know, brick and mortar stores that you can go big, buy a big lot of random things for. A really low cost. I've had friends that do it that, you know, work in businesses where they resell, you know video games or small electronics and things. And so then they separate out the items that are worth money and then they resell them piece by piece. But I think it, it's, it a picture of how much waste there is a business like that'cause it's so easy to click something and add it to your cart. And not have to worry because you can just return it if you don't want it.

FRANKIE:

Yeah, that's kind of crazy how much there is from online shopping.

Colleen:

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

FRANKIE:

been to one of the, Amazon returns, resale stores. I mean, it was just mostly junk. You know, like the things that people buy that nobody really wants'cause they turn out to be kind of crappy products or, there's so many times when you buy something online expecting higher quality and it comes and you're like, wow, this is the worst item in the world. That's what it felt like is I just felt like I was walking through like a garage sale of absolute junk.

Colleen:

Yeah. Yeah. Or you get a shirt and it's like, wow, this does not look anything like what I saw in the photos online.

FRANKIE:

Yeah.

Colleen:

Yeah.

Sal:

So big re retailers and even I think small mom and pop should start to kind of think this way is like kind of building or using data to build out their customer profile and understand who their customers are, how to price to their customers. I feel like we've known big real retailers like Walmart and these bigger ones that have been doing this for years. But just curious on, do you think it's gonna shift into, because data is becoming a lot easier to access and manage. And then I feel like we can never not bring up ai. AI gives, allows users or re small mom and pops to ask questions of the data a lot easier. I'm curious if you think that more and more smaller companies or more smaller mom and pops are gonna shift to this more like customer centric data collection. So they and kind of pricing structures that they have.

Colleen:

I definitely think they will. I think the smart ones will, right? I would imagine it's much more important for a small again, locally owned store to m. Use data not only to target their, their potential customers successfully, but also manage their inventory successfully. And I think both of those go a long way toward how, how much they're making, how much money they're making, how much money they're saving by not buying the inventory that isn't gonna move fast enough or that maybe has a lower profit point. so I think those smaller organizations that do that well will be the ones to. Last longer. And I think that that area is rife for analysts and professionals like ourselves to reach out and work with, companies of that size because I think it's really beneficial for those smaller retailers. I mean, it's beneficial for the larger ones as well, but I think to scale it's probably more impactful for even those, those smaller retailers. What do you think sale.

Sal:

Yeah, I'm, I completely agree. If they don't start doing it, I think they're gonna fall behind. There's always been this thing, like we know our customers, we're a small place, we're locally owned, and we have the locals coming here, but I think. As those locals shop everywhere else as well, I think you have to have a really good grasp on what they're seeing and what their preferences are more than just like chitchatting in a coffee shop. There's definitely a great element to that. But that's just one part of it and I think smaller shops need to be able to adapt and kind of start to collect more data.

Colleen:

And I don't think they need to

Sal:

Yeah.

Colleen:

crazy, right? Like I'm not suggesting they need to write some algorithm. They need to just, you know, look at their sales over the last, I don't know, one year, two years, five years, and just do some basic analysis to see, hey. sales usually are really high in November. Are they as good this November as they were last November? And make adjustments accordingly. Like that's really all it comes down to. This is there's like nothing special or fancy to this. It's literally just looking at numbers and then looking at the business decisions you made just prior to those numbers being your sales numbers, and then kind of asking the question like, did the other decisions we make affect these sales numbers in some way positively or negatively?

Sal:

Yeah, perfect. I have a perfect example, which actually like really surprised me. So I went to a cooking class with the North Shore bur it it's a French bakery. And they did. Croissants, which is amazing. And they have really great croissants, great french foods and bakery. But one person in the class was like, how do you like, compared to other French bakeries that they've been to, this French bakery is substantially. Pricey. It's it's it for croissant. It's a dollar or two less than what others are. And the guy the head chef and the owner was like, I am an academic. And I came from data and I. Do everything in Excel. I track every little single thing and that helps me re be as optimized as I possibly can in the kitchen and give the best prices for my customers. And he's, he has people outside a line outside the door every day. So it's like amazing that he can do that. But he knows the value of the data.

Colleen:

Mm-hmm. That's a really great example. I think the word you're looking for is

Sal:

Oh yes. What did I say? I.

Colleen:

be obnoxious for a minute.

FRANKIE:

I was even thinking back to like when we had a more brewing company talk speaking to us like. They were able to have success by just looking at the data and understanding their customers and what their customers were looking for. I remember him saying that always got better reviews on higher content of alcohol drinks, it was something as simple as that, and looking at that correlation and how it would affect their business, I mean, it's always gonna be positive, right? If you have more good reviews, you're gonna have more, customers coming back and more new customers coming. so they could take that and create more beers with a higher level of alcohol content and that was really impactful for them.

Colleen:

And I think about that conversation with him often, that episode that we did, he, he even went so far as to say that breweries that offer flights have lower beer ratings. And it's probably because when you're, you know, trying a flight of beers, there's probably gonna be one in there that you didn't like and you're just, because you have to come up with four, you're gonna try a beer that's maybe outside your normal range. And because it's something you don't particularly care for, you're gonna rate it lower. Which doesn't mean it's a bad beer, it just means somebody who doesn't like that type of beer, tried that type of beer. And so, just to be so thoughtful as to. that. and then not offer that simply because they want their beers to be highly rated. They want people to enjoy a Czech pilsner to come in and order a Czech pilsner or a hazy IPA to get the hazy IPA and to know if that's your jam. It's gonna be really good. yeah, I think that's a great example. And I, I think about that scenario a lot.

FRANKIE:

Same'cause he just used data in such a cool way and it was impacting his business significantly.

Colleen:

Yeah. And sale. I think you should reach out to that pastry chef and see if we can interview him. He would be super

Sal:

I actually thought about that. I was like, he's actually, so he has his PhD. First of all, I am gonna go and kind of take a tangent here a little bit, but I would like to help him out. He has his PhD in yeast and so he has. Literally a scientist and he just studies yeast and how yeast is, and he's a bread maker. Like obviously, like you gotta go into the profession. But he taught classes at Carnegie Mellon, I believe. It was like very smart dude. Now he's just baking for every day, which is amazing.

Colleen:

Yeah. Could you imagine if that was your job and like you knew the exact

FRANKIE:

I need, I feel like I

Sal:

Yeah.

FRANKIE:

Maybe we record there.

Colleen:

I,

Sal:

Yes,

Colleen:

yeah,

Sal:

we should record there.

Colleen:

that would be amazing.

Sal:

They also have great other food. But to go back to the point of using data small mom pop, like I think the big thing is consistency as well, so. Like brewing, right? Like people knew that they could come in and have very similar beer, have a quality that they like, but like even these small mom and pop retail shops, right? They, to know their customers and say, all right, let's not take away products that they come in consistently for, and understanding what those products are, and then expanding like, all right, what are other products that. Are very similar to this that other people would maybe bring in, come in and want that consistency as well.

Colleen:

Yeah, that's a good point too. There's just so many different ways in which data can be used, I think, in the retail space. One of the other things I was reading about earlier is about advertising dollars. So when you think about let's say you own a little local furniture shop. Back in the day, you'd put a little ad in the newspaper, you'd have a bigger ad, maybe in the Yellow Pages, and you'd advertise your furniture shop. Well now, nowadays, not only. Do you need to account for online advertising dollars? But the way that, and the places, I think too, in which you advertise has really shifted over the last few years. There's more of a shift to advertising, to your point earlier sale on Instagram, to have targeted ads on Facebook, to have you know, maybe people use your items or mention your store in a TikTok on TikTok somewhere. The whole TikTok shop is a real thing. Generates tons of of income for some of these, these retail organizations. Frankie, do you have any thoughts about how some of that advertising may have shifted over the last few years? Not just from the physical newspapers to online advertising, but to this more targeted you know, Google ads or ads that you might see while you're watching a YouTube

FRANKIE:

We actually did a lot of studying of that when I was in school and in my MBA program in marketing. and. Something that came up that we had a lot of conversations about is with those very targeted ads that you know and understand are specifically intended for you with those influencers that you follow and that are creating ads, how comfortable are you with those? And for me, that like it's an influencer creating an ad, I'm often less likely actually to buy something. I know that's not actually how they view the product and feel for the product. But it is interesting, like that's been like, the shift is that it's very targeted and they're tracking your every move. It's you know, sometimes you're having a conversation about and then all of a sudden you're getting advertisements for paint and the colors, you can paint your house and things like that. And it's I always actually am like a little annoyed when I get things like that personally'cause I'm like, wow I don't feel comfortable with that. And my mom actually got an ad in the mail recently it was a window and door company and they had taken drone footage of her house and zoomed into her window to show her that, like the window or her patio door was. In need of being completely redon. And I remember saying to my husband, I'm like, if somebody sent me a mailer that had actual pictures of like my back door of my house, I'd be like, no way I'm using that company. But companies are getting a little more invasive and into your personal space to be able to better target you as an, as a customer.

Colleen:

Yeah, I would definitely say pictures of your own house being sent to you is maybe a step too far and, and while I mean. True. Like you really don't have any reasonable expectation of privacy. Anything people can see from the street or from a drone. Probably in this, this instance, it is fair game, it's still, I feel like crosses a line that just is maybe not a really great selling point. I understand what they're trying to do there, but also, no, I don't, I don't want, I don't wanna get pictures in the mail of. I my windows or my patio door. I do typically enjoy the more targeted ads because I don't wanna see the midd drift bearing shirts. I'm not the market for that. But I think there is a point, a creepiness point in there, and maybe there's like a name for, for that term or that idea. but yeah, that's, that's maybe a step too far.

Sal:

Yeah, I would definitely not like that. That would, yeah. I would never go and work with, have them do work on our house. But it's funny, I think there's a spectrum from the, like Instagram or TikTok side of it of like where influencers are doing it. The influencers that do it more naturally is like, Hey, this is what I like. Maybe they're getting paid to do it or they got the product to be, but it's more natural. I'm more likely to be influenced and be like, okay, that is, versus the one or the ones that are like more productionalized and you're like, oh my God, this is, this person is just selling it and they definitely don't use it. Like there, there's definitely a spectrum where I'm like, oh, okay, maybe this is actually their real opinion.

Colleen:

I think it goes back to the idea people don't wanna be sold to. That's a very old school kind of concept, but don't make it seem like you're selling this to me. I think of those, get it, get ready with me. Videos that you see all over, it's like a woman usually, not always, but getting ready in the morning and like putting on her different, you know, face products and then makeup and things like that. I, I, again, to your point, like that's a more realistic thing. Like this woman probably really does use this type of lotion or whatever it is. I think when it's like obvious product placement that's when it's like, all right, don't, don't sell this to me, even though we know we're being

FRANKIE:

Yeah,

Colleen:

all the

FRANKIE:

no, I totally agree because I hate being sold to.

Colleen:

That concludes this episode. our conversation on data in retail. Thanks for joining us. We hope you found it enlightening especially some of the trends that have happened over the last five years with the pandemic and everything in there. I was certainly surprised to learn some of those facts. If you like this episode, please subscribe to follow our podcast on Apple Podcast or Spotify. until next time, keep calculating.