Customer Centric Solution Highlights from NRF 2023

Back by popular demand! In this episode of The Clienteling Podcast, Bryan Amaral highlights what you might have missed, including some of the more compelling customer-centric solutions on the show floor. See what happens next in the world of #Clienteling and #retailtransformation!

Bryan's original Retail Geek's Take on NRF 2023 recap article is available here: https://tinyurl.com/5fdr73fa

Highlights of today's podcast: 

• Friday Nights Kick-off Event - The VIP Awards
• NoteWorthy News - Shopify and Square
• Staffing and Store Operations  Vendors
• Clienteling Vendor Update
• The Growth of Livestream Commerce
• New Social Selling Platforms
• Advances in Fit Tech
• Metaverse Update
• Retail Telecom, 5G  and IoT Advancements
• AI in Retail for 2023
• Wrapup

Resources:

Bryan’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanamaral/

Bryan’s Website: https://www.clientricity.net

Bryan’s Email: bryan@clientelingpodcast.com or bryan@retailtechexec.com

Call Bryan: 404-348-4849 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:14

In each episode, we'll be talking to the retail industry most intelligible and successfully negative creating value of retail and technology. In every episode, we'll hear about new innovative and transformational customer center ideas. Redefining health and creating evaluated customer experiences. If you haven't already done so, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and let your friends know by liking us on social media. So let's get on with the show. Well, hello. I'm Brian Amarall, and uh I'm back. After what seems like way too long, um, I am uh relaunching the clientelling podcast. And I think that we're going to uh we're gonna be able to see what's been going on really for the last 18 months, 24 months um in and around uh customer-centric engagement, clientelling, and various other sorts of you know, live streaming, all of the things that are happening today that are really personalizing that customer experience. Um we've had uh a lot of requests for people uh recently that that wanted to really get me back out there, uh, bringing in uh retailers, bringing in vendors, bringing in luminaries that really have a sense of what's happening next and where we go from here. So I thought let's go ahead and start it up again. Um, and uh what better way to start it uh than really talking about what is essentially the kickoff uh every year of retail technology, and that is what goes on uh in New York uh in in January for the NRF. So um I just got back from that a little bit ago and uh thought that maybe I'd share some of the things that I saw, some of the ideas that I thought were really interesting and compelling, and uh perhaps uh give all of you that didn't get a chance to go an opportunity to uh to see what's happening next. So, with that, let's talk a little bit about NRF. I mean, this marks my 30th NRF big show. Hard to believe it's been that long, uh, but uh as usual, it certainly didn't disappoint. This year um it was crazy. I mean, the energy was palpable. There were throngs of attendees waiting to get in as it opened. Um, and there were just so many vendors there. I think there were well over 800 vendors, and it was just filled with people that seemed anxious to see what was happening. And I assume that's because a lot of people didn't make that pilgrimage to New York City in January over the last couple of years. Um there certainly weren't many people there last year because I did go and it was it was uh pretty sparse. Um, but uh I think a lot of those people came back and they were excited to see what was going on, they wanted to catch up, they wanted to learn, they wanted to engage. And uh so it was really uh an extremely busy show. And it was a place where I think those folks can, you know, see what the industry's brightest minds have in store for 2023 and beyond. So as I've said in previous years, you know, whether you're there seeing the latest innovations in technology or kind of exploring or talking about new business models or just reconnecting with friends and clients and colleagues, the Javit Center in January will always be the room where it happens. It is ground zero for all of that in terms of retail technology. Now, I've been privileged personally uh to you know to work with global retail brands, I get a chance to work with tech companies, I get to work with the finance community, and uh, you know, really kind of figuring out ways how do we create value at that intersection of customer experience and digital enablement. At NRF, I get the opportunity to meet and hear from each of these constituents, and I get to really do deep dives, you know, kind of one-on-one conversations, exploring how they envision their customer-centric future and how they'll create value with new disruptive technologies, uh, more than anything else. So, um, what follows are some of the highlights uh from those uh from those discussions. So let's uh let's start with um you know what happens on Friday night at NRF every year. You know, this year, uh like the last uh several years, uh the event started uh with that always spectacular VIP awards, uh the Vendor and Partnership Awards. And this retailer-vendor partnership event um really kind of brings together some of the best and brightest people in the industry, truthfully, some of the people that really have had a a long-term impact, and some of the brands and vendors that uh that are really kind of setting the stage for what happens in the future. They're really um uh being recognized at this event for their innovation, uh, for their empathy and the way that they're working together and collaborating, and for excellence in in kind of transforming uh what's happening in the retail industry. Just a few uh short years ago, Vicki Cantrell, who's a good friend of mine, had created uh this event um as something that she really felt our industry was lacking. She understood both the vendor side of our community and the retailer side of the community and was able to bring together uh a group of some very bright people, um, some great experts around technology and retail to become the judges for this event and to really select those brands and vendors that are making the biggest impact. Uh this year Dave Finnegan um was the uh keynote uh speaker. Uh he was the former, I believe it's CIO of uh Orvis. And uh he shared uh a pretty extraordinary story um of how he traveled the world for the last year. And he had done um, I don't know how many countries it was, he told me, and I've already already forgotten, but he was gone a full year. Uh and in all of that, he was able to really gain some extraordinary insights around humanity, what kind of makes us human, what how community really works, and how people collaborate. And he he shared that here at the event in a way that I think was awe-inspiring for many people. It was really a great keynote, and uh Dave did a great job with that. Um when it came to uh so that's Friday night. Uh, there are a lot of different kinds of events that go on Saturday night, uh, but on Sunday morning is when the uh the conference really starts, when NRF really begins. So there was just this massive crowd. I believe there were about 35,000 attendees at NRF this year. So there was this huge crowd of people kind of forcing through the front of the Jabbit Center, getting either two sessions or getting out onto the show floor uh as it opened. And uh, you know, I did what I do every year. I scrambled through the crowd and uh I tried to visit as many vendors uh and solutions uh as I possibly could, particularly those that were really focused around customer-centric engagement, clienteley, e-commerce, search and personalization. Uh looked at a lot of things around influencer marketing and CRM and loyalty and video chat and streaming. I looked at things in social commerce, uh some size fit technologies, tons of AI, uh, some Web3 and some other relevant retail engagement platforms. So I really tried to get to see as many things as I possibly could uh in just uh in just a couple of days. Um so um I'm gonna be talking a little bit about what I saw there as this uh podcast goes on. Uh, unfortunately, um I was a little too busy uh shuffling between the different floors uh of what goes on at Javits um and uh getting up to the innovation lab, which I'll talk a little bit about. Um, but I was unable to attend a lot of the sessions, the main sessions. However, those keynotes are always relevant and they're always thought-provoking, uh, and there's plenty of value uh even in the sessions that go on down on the show floor for those of you that uh that are just kind of going to uh to see the expo, uh, those big idea sessions, there's also some great insights on that every uh every time I go into one of those. So, what follows are some of those observations, and uh we're gonna um I'm gonna tell you what I found most compelling uh well as I walk the show floor. You know, the one thing I want to say is kind of a disclaimer is the opinions here are my own, right? And it's based on some really brief meetings in most cases, and this is not the kind of comprehensive review of the products that I might do for a client. These are just very high-level um insights and and commentary around what I saw there. Um, but uh uh and for those of you that I did get a chance to talk to, uh, and I'm forgetting right now, I apologize. Um uh I really did enjoy all of the insights and all the great conversations that I had um over those uh those few days. So let's talk a little bit uh maybe about what was really noteworthy. There were some things that were uh kind of a surprise for me um uh at the show. Perhaps uh perhaps the um one of them that was almost unimaginable just a few years ago um was that Shopify, um which is those of you that that know the uh know the platform, you know, they really started out um focused very much on the small uh on small retailers, and uh it was not an enterprise class product, but they are going after the large enterprise now, and uh they started touting a component architecture that addresses uh the unique needs of the enterprise. Um and probably just as uh as surprising Square, which we all know kind of started out being, you know, that little tiny plug-in into your phone, um Square really um um has decided to start to reach beyond that small independent retailer segment. And it's also targeting larger enterprises. So they as they started making some announcements uh that they're gonna enhance their platform and put together a go-to-market for uh uh for the larger enterprises. I suspect they're gonna probably start, you know, in the smaller uh large enterprises, I guess I'd say mid-size enterprises, um, as opposed to uh going after you know the the large tier one uh retailers. But uh as we've seen with other vendors in the past, as they expand their capabilities, they're gonna be able to start to meet not just Chainstore, but maybe, you know, uh very, very large enterprise um uh requirements uh in the business. So let's watch these powerhouses, see how they're gonna impact the uh the enterprise technology landscape in the future. Um let's uh let's talk a little bit about uh something that people were very focused on, and that was cut, you know, everybody's been talking about customer experience for a long time. I'm gonna talk a lot about customer experience, but I think it is a recognition today that you need to execute in the store in order to have a decent customer experience, certainly in the bricks and mortar environment. So uh a lot of focus this year around staffing and store operations. For enterprise retailers, I think that these tight labor markets are making staffing, retention, employee performance really a big challenge. So if they're going to you know create this uh uh customer experience um that's that's a high-quality customer experience, it's gonna be very tightly correlated with the quality of the staff and the quality of the service that that staff is delivering. So getting it right has become, I think, uh, you know, a top three priority for most of the retailers uh that uh that I've been talking to. These um the vendors that are focused on store execution tasks and communication training and associate enablement all had very large crowds around their boots. And some of these platforms that I'm talking about are platforms like UBIC and Zipline and Storeforce, and even Siegid, um, who just recently acquired StoreIQ, I believe. Um, and I think all of these vendors are really kind of changing the game for store operations executives and associates. They're really giving the enterprise the opportunity to start to really control behaviors of what needs to happen. How do we create excellence um in our in our stores and really get our sales associates doing the right thing at the right time uh with the right person uh uh as that becomes more and more relevant. So um, you know, it's uh um their uh Storforce uh was interesting. You know, they have a workforce management uh platform in addition to some of these other execution sorts of tools uh and individual performance metrics and capabilities. And I thought that that what's always interesting about Storeforce to me is that they they think in terms of the total operational part of the business. So I spent a little bit more time with them than I did with some of the others, kind of taking a look at how they're dimensionalizing a full set of tools uh that can be uh that can be used to improve performance uh in the store. Um I think that the uh the people over at Ubick have had uh an enormous amount of larger store uh sorts of of success in the last year. Um and uh and I think Zipline is is is growing as well. So we've seen a lot of it. I don't know as much about what's happened now that CJ owns Store IQ, but I'm interested in, you know, store IQ's been around for a while. It'll be interesting to see uh what happens, uh what happens next there for them. But I think that one way or the other, these kinds of staffing and store operation tools um are gonna become table stakes uh as we take a look at what's going on into 23, 24, and 25. I think everybody's taking a look at this and trying to figure out where to go. All right, so let's go to the kind of the next level of what's happening in store. And it's the area that, you know, I've spent my life uh basely focused around, and that's clientele, right? And you know, clientelling has morphed in a few different ways, but some of the core pieces of that are still much the same as they've always been. Um, and and anyone that you know kind of knows how passionate I am about this, I have to spend as much time with these vendors as I possibly can when I go to the show. So um what is interesting to me, perhaps, is that it has taken, you know, it's taken decades really since you know the the first uh clientele, commercial clientele platforms were brought to market. Um, and now it's really becoming a must-have technology. And I think almost every service-focused retailer today is uh has it has either implemented it recently, updated it recently, or has it on their wish list to do in the near future. So it continues to evolve um as omnichannel commerce is evolving, right? So and and it allows um, you know, the um uh integration of clientele with POS and order management and e-commerce platforms, and we'll talk a little bit more about how that all comes together, but but everything is getting more and more tightly integrated, and we're even seeing some vendors trying to pull all these pieces together. So perhaps the most exciting aspect of it is the convergence, in my opinion, of live streaming and one-to-one video chat with traditional clientelling work workflows. If you really kind of think about it, what they're doing is that they're kind of tearing down the walls and extending um uh, you know, or humanizing might even be a better way to think about it, humanizing online commerce um by creating live stream events that bring together the best of what a one-to-one clientelling interaction might have been in a store, or a uh a broadcast kind of experience in a store, uh, you know, maybe product demo kind of idea, um, bringing that together uh with with online commerce. So um I think it really is, you know, bringing together the best of that in-store customer experience. And uh and some of the uh um uh vendors that I think uh are still you know making great inroads and and getting talked about a lot. Of course, you know, Tulip, who's been a longtime leader in the space, um, they added some streaming, I think, during uh during COVID and have continued to make uh transactional POS enhancements uh to their product suite. Last year, I believe they also acquired a workforce management product to uh gain greater insights into associate performance. So this is that what I was kind of talking about a minute ago, the idea of bringing together everything we can in store in order to improve uh operational excellence. Um uh Salesforce um has a partner, Proximity, uh, I think it was called Proximity Insight, and I think they just branded to just Proximity. But um they uh they're calling their Converged Solution kind of the retail super app. Uh and it they're gaining lots of customer logos, they've been doing some great work, the product looks really good. Uh they've been adding to their team, uh, and they are doing a fair bit of work both in Europe and here in North America. Sales floor, um, you know, they're another online to store, I would say online to store to online uh engagement platform. Uh they really kind of began began as a an e-commerce chat messaging tool, uh kind of a plug-in into the browser, so to speak, uh, or into the e-commerce experience that allowed um, you know, online customers to engage with live people in the stores. Uh, but it continued to grow out some of the other capabilities. And today they have things like clientelling and streaming capabilities. Um, there's uh another vendor um who you know started seeing last couple times here at NRF, Mercau. They're this French uh based store platform, uh, and they've also extended their offering from what I saw last with them. And it appears to me um that um not just for them, but I think for everybody, this there's this roadmap um as these as these vendor platforms mature, and they're really trying to complete uh create a complete in-store omni-channel uh solution. So I think that's what we can probably expect. There were some newcomers to the space too, and I'm sure I didn't catch all of them. Uh, but uh that one of them that I did get a chance to spend some time with is a little uh Italian startup called Alpha. Uh the company was founded by um uh former executives from Gucci and Nike. And uh this was, I think, their first show, but they had some interesting ideas um in terms of how they felt that uh mobility could be used, both consumer mobility and associate mobility in the store. Uh and it's different than what I've seen from some of the other clientele uh platforms. Alpha um presents uh the way that it works is uh an alpha-equipped uh associate will present a QR code uh to the customer and um uh on their device, and that generates a link and that immediately creates a profile um and enables an ongoing interactive online or in-store uh associate to customer dialogue. And uh and then it's streamlined with an in-app transaction the way you'd expect in a live streaming or a you know uh a lot of you know self-shopping sorts of applications. So um uh, you know, it's it was uh I thought it was it was impressive, uh, the way that they were thinking about it a little differently than I've seen with some others. Um, and uh and they were newcomers, so let's see what happens there. Um while not exhibiting, I did have a chance to run into uh uh the CEO and the CRO of Lux Lock. Um continue to be pretty impressed with the elegance of their offering, uh particularly the luxury segment. They're very small, uh, but they're doing some interesting things. And then um, you know, not to be outdone, um, there are some really big, more established commerce platforms that are adding clientele capabilities to their offering. Uh OneView Commerce, uh, which is Boston-based headless commerce vendor, uh, demonstrated kind of their first uh wave of clientele capabilities and um you know got a chance to see what it was. Um and uh and Microsoft, uh in the Microsoft booth, uh they were showing um a Microsoft Dynamics-based uh clientelling uh offering. Um both of these products, candidly, are a little nascent uh from my perspective in terms of feature and functionality, but they're sitting on a really highly scalable, highly customizable platform. They can leverage that data in a way that you know um really you start adding features on top of this enormous data set, right? And and all of the these insights. So um I think that you know we're gonna see more and more uh I think as I said before, it's become kind of table stakes to have these things. I think we're gonna see you know lots of uh of lots of new offerings in and around one version or another of clienteleing sitting on uh integrated uh data platforms, customer data platforms of various sorts. So uh we kind of talk about that. From a live commerce perspective, you know, um the first thing I'd like to say about that really is that I personally believe that this virtual sales modality is here to stay and will continue to pick up momentum in 23 and 20 uh and beyond, really. Uh it's um I was just looking at some stats around this, and I they're escaping me, but I want to say in China right now, it's something like 15-17% of uh online commerce is being done through live streaming. And I think over the next couple of years, the estimate here is that we may be as high as five percent um in terms of how much business will be done through the live streaming channel. It is growing very, very quickly. It's in the tens of millions of dollars. I think it was something fifty or sixty million dollars estimated for this year. Uh again, don't quote me on that. But if you want some great insights into the real numbers behind all of this, Coresight Research is an excellent source of industry research in that space. And they do a lot of work both in China or Asia in general, uh, as well as here in the U.S. So you get a chance to kind of see where, in particular, live streaming is starting and how what the impact of it is there, uh, and how that's growing just exponentially, and then what we can probably expect parallel here in the US. Um the um, you know, obviously that COVID shutdown is what really got this whole video streaming uh and chat platforms going, right? And uh uh, you know, there are a lot of vendors around the world that you know kind of jumped onto that as soon as it happened. One that uh that I had a chance to spend some time with up uh in the innovation area uh was a company called Lisa, and they're a German live shopping and social commerce adapter. They kind of think of themselves as a white label adapter that can plug into a lot of different things. Um, and uh they've got some good capability in that to kind of a uh a simple, good-looking app. Um, there's a Korea-based um uh uh live shopping app uh called uh Shoplive. Um, and uh uh there's um another company uh that many of you may have heard of uh based here in the States called Firework. Uh we also have Comment Sold and uh and then a small startup player called EStreamly, and they all had white label uh live shopping products. There was an interesting company um based out of France called Squatted. Uh and uh they created uh something that um I just incorporated a couple of interesting ideas. It was a social shopping app. And again, this is up in the Innovation Lab, um, but they put another spin on live shopping. So with Squatted, it brings together e-commerce and a shop with a friend concept. Uh and you know, really that capability uh is really quite interesting. I think they won an award uh from Deloitte for one of the hundred fastest growing startups. So obviously they're getting some uptake in what it is that they're doing. So we're talking about social here. Let's talk about some social selling platforms. Um, this solution area is continuing to morph and evolve in various ways. Um, one small startup uh was a company called OneShop, and they demonstrated a store-side social content creation tool that really allows associates to post inventoried items and short form videos directly uh from the store floor on the various social platforms. So, you know, some pretty cool stuff going on with what they're doing. Um, and you know, I think you know, we have to think about the full life cycle of this, right? When that customer that's getting content straight off the sh the shop floor and likes all of that and is happy with their remote shopping experience, um, how do we tell them how do we talk about that? Well, one vendor that's uh uh that's able to help with that uh is a company called StoryTap. They really kind of close the loop. So what they do is really prompting the user to create an authentic video story about their experience. So I was thrilled with what just happened as I came out of the store. I was thrilled with just what happened with this online experience, and that gets recorded um, you know, uh through a link uh that comes into their email or as a text. They record it directly off of their device, and then it gets shared and uh uh and amplified even with uh with SEO, and it can be prioritized as kind of search for video content. So now all of a sudden we essentially have user-generated content um driving future potential customers to a specific product uh on an e-commerce site. Kind of cool stuff uh if that starts to pick up real momentum there. Um given the uh the importance of customer reviews in general, and we've seen a lot of this going on for a while, uh, there are obviously some big players out there. Um, I thought it was um uh interesting to see that Amplify, uh, which you know continues to expand their offerings, uh, they recently acquired a company that I had looked at a while ago called Pixly, and uh it's a pretty sophisticated ratings and review uh content platform. Um and uh they're gonna go ahead, it looks like Amplify will go ahead and embed that into their social marketing cloud and social commerce cloud uh offerings, um, which uh I think is uh you know starting to round out that broader set of capabilities, particularly for the target market that Amplify goes after, which I think tends to be larger, larger enterprises. Um LTK, which was formerly that like it to know it uh group, uh, you know, they showed their latest creator influence and shopper uh platforms that are enabling uh social influences to monetize and uh and really to help brands engage with audience through this creative a con creator economy. My word I want accent just came out there, I think. Uh so in any event. Um Okay. So I'm gonna take a breath. I know I'm covering a lot of material here. Um, hopefully um I haven't bored any of you into oblivion. Let's talk a little bit about fit tech. So um, you know, size, fit, and visualization technology, I think, is about ready to explode. We're seeing a lot of new vendors coming in, we're seeing lots of people, you know, concerned about uh the return problems that exist in our industry. Uh, and there the assumption is if we can get people so that you know when they make their online purchase, they have a higher level of confidence that it's going to fit them, and that when they get it, it does fit them. That's going to reduce returns. Obviously, I think I saw that uh returns last year went up 178% um over the previous year. So, you know, we've got some real problems. And if you think about you know how getting a product, the cost of getting a product back into a sales channel, either your own sales channel or through a secondary uh sales channel, it's it's you don't want returns. I mean, you're gonna avoid it at all costs, right? And so um I think the fit tech space is is really getting uh a lot of interest because of that. There's also this whole issue around sustainability uh and all the rest of that. So, you know, people not wasting product, and I mean there's just a lot of things that go with it. There's a lot of different use cases, I think, would be probably the best way to talk about that. Um, but uh but customers are getting a higher level of satisfaction, e-commerce players are getting uh a lower number of returns. So uh some of the vendors that I saw at NRF were there's a company called FitMatch AI, My Size ID was another one, and Size Bay. They all showed slightly different but similar approaches to solving the online apparel fit problem. Um, there was a little company called uh Xyler, Z-Y-L-E-R, um, and they're using customer photos to create photorealistic renderings of the consumers uh wearing garments, and they're using a combination of measurements and an avatar body type in order to create that. Um, and they're not so much about fit as what you're gonna look like in it uh when you get it. Um there is a company that's doing both of these that I'm pretty familiar with called 3D Look. And you know, they were at the show, but they were actually, I I didn't see a booth. I don't think they had a booth this year. Um, but they have an offering that really does, I think, both sides of this really quite well. So, you know, we're talking about um fit. Um, you know, uh I saw an interesting company that was kind of tangentially related to all of this, and that's a company called Taylor, and that's uh basically the word Taylor with two O's in it. Um and they're out of Italy. Uh and uh, you know, I I walked by and I saw some interesting, um, as I used to call it when I was in the custom clothing business, you know, sleeve heads hanging there. And I said, okay, what are these guys up to? This is not technology, they're showing garments. Um, but what they have is an online to offline made and measure clothing program that's using uh and they built out their own 3D configurator. They've got a pretty simple design tool that allows you to kind of go in and style your garments, um, and then uh their manufacturing facilities are getting um getting them made. So, you know, the one thing I will tell you is I was completely jazzed when I saw this because you know, well, and I've worked with a few people that are trying to bring things into market, but it seems like these guys have really gotten there. Uh, and as a matter of fact, uh I think some of the uh one of the fabric mills um that uh it's an investor in this company and uh and a and a partner in in all of it, uh, and the one of the senior executives were there from the fabric mill, and he recognized the fabric in my sport coat uh as one of his fabrics. So I thought that was all pretty funny, but you know, I have I've been waiting for this that's this part of the industry to finally explode. I think it's finally starting to at least catch on in a significant way. Um, and uh, you know, it's it's time. It's time for, you know, um that kind of uh of I guess I would say agile manufacturing, you know, meeting e-commerce meeting. Uh long tail customer demand, um, you know, made to measure apparel is we're gonna see be seeing more and more of it as we go uh forward. Okay. Um, of course, you know, everybody wants to know well, what about metaverse? What was going on with metaverse? You know, how real is metaverse? Uh I can't say that I spent enough time talking to all the vendors that had something at least tangentially related to Metaverse. Um, but uh I didn't get a sense that it was, you know, on anyone's real shopping list right now. I think that people are experimenting with it, they're doing some cool stuff. We we're reading about that in the trades, but I didn't see people at the show really kind of lining up uh to talk about um you know uh new metaverse technologies. Um I did see uh a loyalty and engagement platform that utilized some interesting Web3O. Um there's a company called, I think it's pronounced Beyond Beyond XR, and there was a virtual AR platform um from Obsess uh that I saw first a year ago. Um, and they are continuing to win some new highly creative projects. Uh they're doing some very interesting things about you know creating virtual shopping spaces um in a in a metaverse sort of way. I like a lot of what they're doing there. Um the other thing that was uh interesting, kind of moving away from metaverse here for a second, um, is um is the telecom industry. Um and I don't know if they've made these kinds of of uh interesting presentations in the past, uh, and I've just happened to miss them at NRF. But this year I had an opportunity uh to spend a little more time with them. And um it was the first time really that I saw their presence in a way that I thought, oh, that's compelling, different, and I get it. I get why they're here. Um T-Mobile uh was actually uh a winner at the VIP Awards and uh and a sponsor uh of a big idea session where they really talked about the enablement of the immersive retail store with 5G. And as you start to think about how this pervasive uh network is going to transform, we've got all these new devices and capabilities and IoT and all the rest of the things that are happening out there. When we get to the point that 5G is everywhere and every device can inexpensively get onto this network, um the uh the digitization of a lot of workflows, a lot of processes, um, uh a lot of you know creative opportunities uh are going to start to happen. And this is kind of the the plumbing underneath all of it that needs to be there. And they're partnering um with their research lab uh to bring forward some of these new tools and uh and and some some you know really kind of sponsoring or lifting up some innovation partners that are delivering valuable insights um for these retailers and giving them a chance to really start to take advantage of these pervasive networks. So um, you know, the the way I like to think about it is you know, T-Mobile's kind of ensuring that the connected future is in fact connected, right? That's kind of what they're pushing at. Now, so aren't some of the other vendors. I'm not gonna say it's just T-Mobile doing that. Um I did get a chance to spend some time with ATT, and they took up um some floor space both upstairs and down. Um, and uh, you know, um they were talking about some of the same things. But what I really thought was interesting there um is that they were demonstrating uh a an IoT smart hub called Floor Link, um, which I actually am quite familiar with uh with the company. I've spent some time with them in the past. Uh, but they were really talking about how an IoT platform can really impact um, you know, everything from any anything kitchen related, right? So it could be um, you know, the back at backside of a restaurant, um, you know, it could be uh uh anything with refrigeration, it could be grocery stores. It was it was in this area they call the food and hospitality pavilion. But they were showing how you know coffee grinders or coffee makers, uh the commercial coffee makers were keeping track of exactly where it was in terms of the amount of usage and how many cups were left before they had to put in more beans. They were showing you know temperature uh sensing, things that were kind of manual, difficult processes in a lot of environments and how this IoT hub was really leveraging, uh being able to be leveraged across this. And I think their overall goal really is to connect a host of smart devices to provide these kind of real-time actionable alerts about really anything from customer activity to device health, uh, you know, across all these different endpoints in the environment. So it's some some pretty cool things they're they're doing there. Um, I think that we're gonna see a lot of IoT. That's another thing that I think we're gonna see a lot of in the next couple of years here is is more and more devices. From what I understand, the devices and what I mean by devices, you know, smart refrigerators, right? Expensive, but it's but we start to look at ways that IoT can drive down, can solve some of the sustainability, you know, energy related issues, you know. So if we start to have um uh a way that we're really monitoring and not wasting electricity, all of that stuff has a has uh uh an environmental impact. Um, and I think that as more and more focus moves to that, IoT is going to become a more and more important part of the in-store um um operational architecture, uh, back of house, front-up house. So uh, you know, we'll we'll see. But I think that uh it's an important place to watch, I think, when we talk about customer satisfaction, sustainability, and operational efficiencies. So uh we'll see kind of what happens with that. Okay, I said I was gonna talk a little bit about AI and retail. Um, you know, no summary of NRF would be complete without mentioning uh the pervasiveness of AI in emerging retail uh landscape. Um while there were a lot of AI and enhanced solutions there, uh I think the real conversation about AI that everybody was talking about was chat um GPT. Um seemed it, you know, everybody was talking about it. Everybody was like, oh wow, now I get it. Oh my god, what is it gonna do to us? You know, so I think it's gonna disrupt, I think we know that AI is gonna disrupt disrupt uh life as we know it. There's gonna be some great value in it, there's gonna be some scary stuff in it, but it's uh it's finding its way into virtually every solution from autonomous store platforms to digital shopping advisors to call centers and anal analytic tools. We're seeing some interesting bot sorts of things going on with all of it, obviously. So I'm particularly impressed with how AI uh enables hyperpersonalization. Um, and particularly in the areas of search and fashion. So there's some recommend recommendation vendors that I've been watching for a couple of years, one of them being Lily AI. Uh, and there's some interesting things coming out of uh Algolia. Uh, but uh, you know, Lily told me um, if you're not familiar with Lily, I mean they're essentially using AI in order to really understand the nuanced style aspects, um, the the the attributes of garments um that can be categorized in the way that human beings think about the garments. And so we're starting to be able to map what what uh what is being seen in a garment with what the really underlying um style uh uh taste level or style interest is from a consumer that's engaging around that product. And of course it could be used to to personalize uh an online shopping experience. But they were telling me that their systems are getting better and better at assessing these style nuances. And, you know, because up to this point, I think a lot of this has been heavy training from you know human beings saying, okay, that's a boho chic top, you know, uh with a you know, a tie eyelet kind of a finish and you know, whatever it is, right? So I think that um uh it's very, very interesting to me how AI is going to do a better and better job of understanding products and mapping those products to customer demand uh in some very specific ways. Uh and um, you know, I think we'll see these capabilities married to, you know, even deep customer data and clientele data. And you know, as as this kind of goes forward, yielding, you know, a genuinely I think personal set of recommendations. Uh, and that'll be really interesting and and deliver value for I think both sides of of of that uh of that value chain, right? The consumer and and and the retail business. Um just you know, kind of a key thought here is that with nearly an infinite amount of choice available to consumers with online shopping, personalized curation is the easiest way for a shopper to navigate all of that. And I think it's gonna be, you know, the main battleground for the future of online retailing. So, in any event, I I think I've spent probably enough time on here, uh, so I'll I'll go ahead and sign off with uh this um you know kind of first relaunch of uh of the clientelling podcast. I hope I've shared some good information. Um it's uh you know, if if you get a chance next year, you should definitely go uh to to the NRF where you're gonna see that next wave of innovation. Uh and I ask that you um you know continue to listen to the podcast. We're gonna have a lot of new content this year. So I hope this has been helpful and I'm wishing all of you uh you know some happy retailing here in 2023. Well, that's today's show. Thank you for listening. 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