With the NRF around the corner Jeff Roster – Retail Industry Expert and Influencer talks with long time Retail industry veteran and VP – General Manager Retail at Salesforce Rob Garf about what retail went through in 2022 and what Retailers can expect going in to 2023. Rob touches upon an important topic of connecting the dots between digital and physical and how retailers need to not only focus on the customer experience and safety but also pay attention to their store associates and the impact a single associate can create on the Retailers brand and image.

Podcast Guest

Rob Garf

VP and GM, Retail

Salesforce

Podcast Host

Jeff Roster

Strategic Advisor, retail

Third Eye Advisory

Jeff.roster@thirdeyeadvisory.com

https://thirdeyeadvisory.com/

[00:00:19] Rob Garf: you doing today?

[00:00:22] Jeff Roster: Thanks. Yeah. Fantastic. Well, you know what, I could read your bio, but I think you're gonna be able to tell us a little bit more about yourself with a lot more passion than I could do. Give us a little bit of sense about what you've done in the industry and what you're doing now

[00:00:34] Yeah, it's really great to be here and we've known each other quite some time, so it's good to always reconnect and hear what you have to say about retail. And I guess I'd summarize it as I'm a retail guy. I've been in and around the industry for a long time on all sides of the table, from analyst to strategy, consultant to actual practitioner in, for the last 11 or so years, have been on the tech side with Demandware, and then of course, via the acquisi.

[00:01:21] And also I'm out in the field all the time talking to retailers about what they're seeing and what we can do to help them. Okay.

[00:01:34] Rob Garf: 2020? Yeah, it's interesting, as we sit here today, we're coming off actually a really positive cyber week.

[00:02:11] But as I talk about, even though we saw this recent surge, it really has been. a rebalancing. The narrative in the headlines was often, oh gosh, digital gave everything back that they surged over the last couple years since the pandemic, and now it's all back to physical. And what we're seeing really across retailers globally, it's this rebalancing of connecting the dots between digital and physical.

[00:02:54] So there's so much opportunity for, yeah. Retailers to stub their toes, but really, [00:03:00] The understand, the rebalancing, really connecting those dots between digital and physical has been what a lot of retailers have been up to over the course of this year.

[00:03:13] I've never understood why we have to have this war between the physical store and digital. It is the stupidest thing ever. I know why, because there are people in my line of work that, that for whatever reason, need to have con, controversy, but I don't care. If I'm a consumer, I don't care. I want to use whatever channel I want to.

[00:03:44] Of course we're gonna spike over Covid and once we're hu we're humans. We need to pack together. We. To go and have physical connection. Of course, we're gonna see that spike come back down a little bit. Big deal. Who care?

[00:04:03] Over 2020, we saw a 40% increase of net new digital shoppers based on our shopping index at Salesforce. So there are a whole new set of people buying online, whole new set of people that now look to digital, but it's not just going to a website, it's bringing their phone really being the remote control into.

[00:04:42] Shopping experience and those retailers that have really leaned into that reality, broken down the barriers that you and I, you said 10 years, I'm thinking more like I'm probably aging both of us, but 15 years at least we've been talking about this. It's

[00:05:00] It is what it is. Just so

[00:05:31] And what that means is, according to our research, 60% of the digital sales. Are influenced by the physical store, so just that stat alone should motivate retailers. Yeah, to think about how to empower the associate, have them really drive ultimately, the engagement and the transaction no matter where the product is sourced and wherever the product is

[00:05:55] Yeah. We haven't talked about this, but, one of the kind of fun subjects that are popping around now is the [00:06:00] metaverse and there's some people friends that, that debate back and forth with that are not fans of it. And I think that probably is a big chunk of.

[00:06:19] I'm a huge fan of immersive commerce, which is a term that, I dunno if it's gonna gain traction, but some of the tech folks are using, I have a pod that's gonna drop on that. And that's the idea of, you pick your technology augmented reality, live streaming maybe vr, I don't know.

[00:06:55] I would say is the best camera shop on the planet. And their salespeople are highly skilled very [00:07:00] knowledgeable to all photographers and So if you're gonna do business with them, we used to either have to call 'em up or get on a text chat and, which was awesome. I've bought thousands of dollars worth of gear through, through Tech chat.

[00:07:34] The numbers, a couple of guys that are doing it here in the us, they're unbelievable. And it's not this super overarching high production. It's literally a $600 camera with a knowledgeable salesperson and passion associates. What do you want to call that? That sounds a lot. I love it. That sounds very metaverse to me.

[00:08:05] Rob Garf: Bingo. Well, wow. Yeah. You're gonna get me started here, Jeff. Yeah, as you usually do.

[00:08:22] Jeff Roster: Now you're making me jealous, brother. Doing, my first meeting for, or my first schedule for NRF is bnh photo.

[00:08:45] The outside. Anybody that, and that's what retail should be, where people are so passionate about the brand experience that you take subways in front of it. I

[00:08:58] Jeff Roster: tell you what, man. I'll [00:09:00] what. I might take you up on that one.

[00:09:01] Rob Garf: that would be, but I think, you I, I want to, I wanna borrow into what you're talking about here, and, metaverse, it's somewhat of a polarizing term. I typically don't use that with our customers, but something that nobody argues about is what you just talked about, which is, did you call it immersive commerce?

[00:09:31] And I went, yeah, because it solved all my problems, Rob. It's okay, I can listen. I'm a pilot. We've used augmented reality for 20 years. We've trained sim, my dad in World War II used a mechanical simulator. Okay. Not an ounce of electronics. It's all mechanical, but we've. Pilots flying the most complex aircraft with this technology.

[00:10:05] Rob Garf: I don't. Yeah. Well, it's interesting I liked immersive commerce.

[00:10:32] Fragmented event. What I mean by that is shopping. You don't go shopping anymore. You're just shopping. And that's immersive, as you talked about. That's within everything we do. And so from a marketing funnel, which was all about pulling consumers to our property, it's now about pushing our brand to wherever the consumers are.

[00:11:11] The point is commerce needs to be embedded in these points where people are being inspired. And you must put the buy button there because that's what shopping is looking like. , bringing it back to the example of the store associates. Sure. That can be shopping at the edge when somebody is traversing.

[00:11:49] So I like immersive commerce. I like the idea, again, of pushing the brand to wherever the consumers are and breaking down that. Yeah.

[00:12:09] For sure. Rob, what do you think? 20? What are you looking at for the new year and what do you, what's what's Salesforce gonna be talking about at nrf? It's only weeks away now at this point. Wow.

[00:12:35] And they're gonna really move from. Scrappy to scale. We're gonna see coming out of the holiday season, likely that margin will be the Grinch that steals Christmas coming out of the reconciliation of returns and the holiday season when public companies are going to go through their earnings in.

[00:13:22] So as we think about NRF and beyond, certainly the idea of data and. Activating the data, operationalizing the data to drive personalized experiences. We talked about Genie at Dreamforce just a couple of months ago, and we'll be talking about that again in terms of how to take advantage and leverage the loyal shoppers that you've gained over the last couple years to retain them, offer them new services, whether that's media or health, or broadening the assortment through.

[00:14:14] Figuring out how to scale through automation and productivity, all across not only the supply chain, but the store and marketing. And speaking of supply chain I really do see, I was having a conversation just earlier today that supply chain is moving to the front office. The supply chain is moving to the interesting customer experience.

[00:14:49] Jeff Roster: stop talking now.

[00:15:05] That's a mess. It's a place where revenue goes to die and our profits go to die. And revenue's leaked and it'd be cool. I love the idea.

[00:15:21] And you're right, it could be a triple whammy if retailers don't know how to handle that well. and we're seeing some new interesting and not so liberal return policies that are happening as well to try to get a handle on it.

[00:15:47] I'm. , you know what? I don't care what term we use. If we can somehow say stop returning stuff, that would be good. And it was a really interesting angle and I went, wow that is clever. If you can get people to say, listen, how do we figure out what [00:16:00] sizes are better so we don't buy, three knowing we're gonna return to?

[00:16:14] So Rob congratulations on another good year in 2022 and let's head outta the park in 2023.

[00:16:26] Jeff Roster: you initiative. For sure. For sure. Sounds good. Well, thanks for the time. See you in New York City.