Joshua Warren  0:06  
Everyone's saying that either the metaverse doesn't mean anything or 2023 is the year the metaverse and it's funny. I've been in the E commerce world for a very long time. And I remember when we first started hearing the word omni channel, and it was basically just a buzzword. It didn't apply to anybody. No one was actually really doing anything with it yet, but everybody said, oh, yeah, we support omni channel, we support omni channel and say, Well, what's omni channel mean? What's that support look like? Oh, don't worry, we support omni channel. I feel like that's where we are right now with metaverse.

Darin Newbold  0:39  
Good day, everybody, and welcome to Commerce today. I'm Darren Newbold, here is your host with our fantastic commerce guy, Josh. And Josh is going to share with us a little bit about the 2023 commerce trends that we're looking at. And so while Josh, we got a lineup of about five with the bonus six, one, which I can't wait to get to, but first up, the thing we have are what we're wanting to talk about was cross selling upselling, kind of, what's that all about? Can you help us? Yeah, sure. So we're all seeing challenges with product availability. And with pricing, and discounting, it seems like everybody either has too many products or not enough products. And so we're actually seeing across the web that about 16% of products are out of stock, and about 26% of products are on sale. And so that presents some challenges. Obviously, you can't sell it, if it's not in stock. And if it's on sale, you're probably not profitable. So the ability to take visitors from a product that's on sale, and upsell them to a higher profit margin product is really important, as is the ability to cross sell from a out of stock product or didn't start product. And I think a lot of people would probably think in a cross sells upsells. You know, we've had those in E commerce for what, 20 years now, probably. But I still find that either there are web platforms that don't have that functionality, or that it's just not enabled and retailers haven't configured this. I think that as people are looking to maximize their sales and their profitability during this potential recession, you're gonna see more people flushing out their cross sells and upsells. Is there. Is there anything particular that maybe merchants can do that make this easier? Now I know, I know, some platforms may not have the ability to do this, and then others may have it. But maybe a merchant hasn't even looked at that or opened the hood, if you will, yeah, I think it's kind of crazy. Merchants will spend so much money on an E commerce platform, and then we'll find they don't even use all the features or functionality. Or sometimes I don't even know all the features or functionality. So I think just being aware of what your platform has to offer, I think especially with

Joshua Warren  2:51  
the products that are on sale, the ability to kind of pull that data out of your platform, maybe run some analytics, run it through a spreadsheet, figure out which products are profitable or not. And then really hone in on the products that you know aren't profitable, could save you some time instead of trying to address every single product.

Darin Newbold  3:09  
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I can see that well. So next up, this is this is one that on your list here is one that I'm familiar with being a bit of a gadget geek and all but you're you have an interesting play here. So tell us about refurbished products.

Joshua Warren  3:25  
Yeah, so something we've seen during the past couple of years is electronics companies, especially in order to fight their supply chain issues. And those same pricing concerns we're talking about. They're starting to offer more and more refurbished products for sale across all electronics retailers online, about 20% of their products are refurbished products. And so just seen a lot of have moved to that in that industry. Not really seen it outside of electronics yet, but I wouldn't be surprised. Just thinking about all of us that bought exercise equipment. In 2020, I wouldn't be surprised to see the exercise equipment industry start offering more refurbished products. And again, that's a great way to kind of fight those pricing and supply chain challenges you might be facing right now.

Darin Newbold  4:11  
Yeah, that's an interesting one, because it's gonna ask you what industries and we talked about a little bit before we started here, and the healthcare not healthcare, but the gym health and workout items. There's definitely a definitely a big opportunity there. So, okay, and so here's another one that that you've got here, which this one, I have to say one piece of it at least I may struggle with a little bit, but given that I'm kind of older and hopefully wiser that you're talking about live streaming and then affiliate marketing. I totally get the affiliate marketing piece, the live streaming piece. You're gonna have to help me out here, but tell me what you got. What's your thoughts here?

Joshua Warren  4:54  
Yeah, this one kind of surprised me too. I've seen some retailers offering live streaming and using that to generate more sales. But it's still very rare. But the analysts, IDC, they actually predict by the end of 2023 40% of retailers will be using live streaming and specifically will have live streaming integrated into their commerce platform. That surprised me a little bit, too. I think, live streaming is an interesting new trend on the web, because it's not that new. But it's an interesting new trend for E commerce. And just seeing the way that brands are starting to offer these themes, shopping experiences. It's a little different. It's interesting, it takes kind of the old home shopping network model combines it with what Twitch has been doing for years for gamers. And if you had to ask me kind of this, the two strangest groups appear together, it's probably home shopping network and gamers. But it seems to be working. However, interesting kind of tie into this. So right now, affiliate marketing is only utilized by 11% of retailers, but online retailers, I thought it was bigger than that. However, it's driving 16% of E commerce sales. And so there's more and more interest growing in that, and kind of what I'm seeing is, it's not gonna look like the affiliate marketing in the 2010s you're not gonna have people necessarily driving traffic to product pages, things like that. I think you're gonna see that paired with this live streaming trend and you're gonna start seeing established live streaming personalities that are doing deals with brands and kind of doing an affiliate marketing type play that combines their live streaming efforts with that brands products.

Darin Newbold  6:35  
So is this something that you mentioned I was gonna get to it is the personalities here is are we going to see a, the, I don't know, the live streaming shopping personalities that, you know, just like people are getting more and more likes on Instagram and have be the be the popular person is this Is that what we're kind of looking at and that brands are going to really want to maybe find the right live streaming personality for their brand.

Joshua Warren  6:59  
definitely seen some of that already. And the gaming accessories space, some of the brands that make basically competitive gaming hardware has partnered up with live streamers that stream specific games. And so I do think we're gonna see where it relates to your industry. And there's good synergy there, you're gonna see people going for kind of specific existing streamers. Twitch does not yet at least as of last time I checked, they don't have a category just for shopping. I'm kind of thinking that in the next year or two, you're gonna see the rise of a streamer that literally is all about shopping or maybe shopping even in a specific product vertical. So I think that's going to be interesting. And then probably the most off the wall use of streaming I've seen my brand so far is Kellogg's actually launched a new live stream that is hosted by Tony the Tiger. So that's the other thing is your brand comes to life and actually host the live stream.

Darin Newbold  7:53  
Oh my gosh. So Tony the Tiger outstanding? Well, it sounds like that could be a very interesting I could see that being a potentially a big play in the in the apparel industry, with you know, the clothing and those brands and really almost having a inside shopper experience, if you will on basically how your the look and feel of all of that. So, okay. Well, next up is diversified, verticals, channels and price points. So what all is, how is that going to kind of be a trend for us for next year?

Joshua Warren  8:27  
Yeah, that's the one that I am kind of at the same time most certain about, but also most unclear about. So I think it's a certainty that as brands are facing challenges and facing the potential of a recession and thinking about inflation, they're gonna want to diversify, they don't want to be dependent on just one type of product, one price point, that type of thing. Exactly what that looks like is where I'm still a little fuzzy. resenting it could be, hey, if we sell apparel, we start selling jewelry, and maybe that jewelry is at a higher price point, that type of diversification. But honestly, again, I'm not really sure where it's gonna go the the one that, I don't know, it almost it doesn't quite scare me. But it concerns me a little bit is we are seeing and a lot of the economic data, the that inflation is hitting different, different demographics differently and hitting different, especially household incomes differently. And there's kind of a, I hesitate to use the word sweet spot, but there's a point in the data of people that are maybe making more than the average middle class person, but they're not wealthy by any means. And that kind of band, right, their products that they purchase, and retailers that serve them aren't suffering as much and aren't seen as much of a drop in sales as retailers that either service the incredibly rich or kind of that middle class. And so I've kind of put some feelers out. I'd be interested also for any of our listeners, you know, if you work with a retailer, have you seen a move to add a product assortment that is maybe at that price point that would would serve That group or maybe there's another group you're starting to target. But overall, I think there'll be a lot of experimentation with this and kind of trying to find what, what can help brands remain profitable throughout the next year.

Darin Newbold  10:11  
Do you potentially see brands, maybe, maybe partnering, not necessarily merging or anything but brands that might partner like you mentioned, an apparel group that maybe partners with a, with a jewelry group in a way that, you know, has a has a synergy to what they're selling?

Joshua Warren  10:29  
Yeah, I think, last year, or even now, and 2022, we would have seen them just acquire each other. But with all the free flowing money and low interest rates getting turned off, I think you'll see more joint ventures, partnerships, things like that, for sure.

Darin Newbold  10:45  
Okay, well, and our fifth one here, this one's kind of fun, and definitely something that both you and I at least like to tinker around with, in a way on the automation side, but the physical and digital automation, that's got to be a big thing. And I'm, in a way, I'm kind of surprised that maybe maybe this has been there for a while. But it's got to be a big thing for 2023. Oh, definitely.

Joshua Warren  11:08  
I think brands are always looking to use automation to lower costs. But now it's a little bit different. Now, even if you have the money, it's challenging to find the employee. And so in this difficult hiring environment, then I think we're seeing brands either simplify workflows through digital automations, or just employ more physical automation, so they need fewer people. And so I think we're going to see that continue into the next year, I know, Amazon just announced that they now have robots that can actually have the same dexterity as human hands. And so they are getting closer and closer to basically automating literally the entire warehouse. And then on the software side, you know, everyone pretty much is looking to reduce the number of systems they're using and allow, you know, one big example we see is customer service reps, lots of times customer service reps, for one interaction with the customer are logging in at three or four different systems. That adds up to a lot of time. And so I think we're gonna see changes being made or all that can happen in one system and reduce the amount of time. And in that case, I don't think it's necessarily to avoid or to eliminate hiring people. I think it's just to allow you to get more out of your existing workforce.

Darin Newbold  12:19  
Do you see for 2020 3d? Do you maybe see, is there an industry that where this maybe has been lacking before, where you might see a big plus for them looking going into 2023? Or maybe, maybe an area where maybe some places already been doing it well, but there's going to be that leap that that large, while we're this really going to, you know, really change things?

Joshua Warren  12:46  
You know, on the b2b side, b2b sellers are either amazing at physical automation or horrible at it. And I think a lot of it honestly comes down to some I've invested in it, and some haven't. And so there's definitely some very clear best practices out there for b2b brands to employ more automation in their processes. And hopefully, we'll see more of them kind of leveraging that if they haven't already.

Darin Newbold  13:09  
Okay, well, very good. Well, everyone listening, we've gotten to the bonus one, and this one, this one's fun, and I can't wait to hear what what Josh has to say. So as everyone's seeing on social media, and any kind of media and whatever. It's the Year of the metaverse, so what does that mean for merchants and commerce?

Joshua Warren  13:34  
Oh, yeah. So everyone's saying that either. The Metaverse doesn't mean anything or 2023 is the year the metaverse and it's funny. I've been I've been in the E commerce world for a very long time. And I remember when we first started hearing the word omni channel, and it was basically just a buzzword. It didn't apply to anybody. No one was actually really doing anything with it. Yeah, it was this. It was still a very nebulous concept, but every platform, you know, every everybody said, oh, yeah, we support omni channel, we support omni channel we say well, what's omni channel mean? What's that support look like? Oh, don't worry. We support omni channel. I feel like that's where we are right now with metaverse. And honestly, kind of going back to omni channel. We all know what omni channel is now. It's a very real thing. It's very important thing. I think the metaverse is going to get there but I don't think 2023 is the year it gets there. I saw actually recently that Walmart has made a big play into the metaverse, so there's definitely some people experimenting with it and doing some interesting things. And I think if you view engaged with gamers, technologists, people are always chasing the cutting edge. And there might be some space for a Metaverse play in 2023. But I think for most of it, most of us and most retailers, we're gonna sit back and watch what kind of these other people are doing that are trying to even answer the question of what is the metaverse and what does it mean for E commerce that it might be two, three, maybe even five years before a lot of retailers are are integrating and are working with the metaverse. You mentioned kind of from an industry standpoint, gamers are technologists and stuff I was gonna ask, is there potentially an NA? And again, I

Darin Newbold  15:09  
know I'm putting you on the spot here. But is there potentially maybe even that you could see a product? That might be a neat play in the in the metaverse? Obviously, the gamers and technologies, we're geeks, we're gonna be out there, we're gonna tinker and we're gonna, you know, out of just pure darn curiosity, we're gonna want to check it out. But why would a Walmart kind of thing that that intrigues me of what's what's out there? What are they? What do they see? What do you think they might see?

Joshua Warren  15:36  
Yeah, you know, the Walmart example. It kind of surprises me. And sometimes I think Walmart, having the money and the resources and the Reach they have I know they have a very strong approach and love of experimentation and of not wanting to get left behind. I think they've learned over the years with Amazon kind of surprising them. They don't want to get surprised again. So I think that for them, I don't think necessarily they even know what they're doing yet. I think they've just decided that they want to make sure they're one of the first to figure it out. As far as other brands or other products that might pair well with it outside of gaming. You know, there's a big push around experiences. I know, there's been talk for years about how you know, some of the younger generations. They don't want to buy products. They're not they're not buying your product to buy a product. They're buying your product to buy an experience. You can really provide that in the metaverse. I know there's been musicians doing really interesting things with concerts in the metaverse that can go way beyond what you could do in an in person concert. So that might be an interesting way to then say, Hey, you can also now I don't know if you would really click a button but wave your hand at a button in the metaverse and say, Hey, I love this concert. I want to buy the album and that type of transaction I think would be I'm sure it's already happening. And I'm sure that that we'll see a lot more of that before we necessarily see you know, hey, I'm gonna go browse my local Walmart via the metaverse.

Darin Newbold  16:57  
Right, right. Man that is very interesting. Well, well, everybody, I hope you've enjoyed our Commerce today episode and learning about the 2023 trends. As always, I definitely want to remind you all to follow and rate, our fantastic podcast here and definitely provide feedback. We would love to hear from you. So with all of that we look forward to connecting with you again here at Commerce today.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai