In all the ways that digitally native retailers are remaking the industry, perhaps the most important is by finding a way to embrace fearless customer love.
Digital natives, by-and-large, understand that friction is the enemy, that online retailers need to create a shopping experience that customers want to have. They have come to grips with the natural tension between friction-free commerce and safeguarding the business against those who would take advantage of retailers.
On Day Two of the National Retail Federation’s Big Show, Signifyd Vice President for Growth Marketing Indy Guha will explore a retail world in which retailers have conquered their fear of being ripped off and have instead built customer experiences that create tremendous consumer loyalty and customer lifetime value.
The brief video interview below provides a sneak preview of one slice of the presentation, “Striking Balance Between Fear, Risk and Customer Love to Unlock Omnichannel Growth.”
In an age of Amazon and rapidly changing consumer habits, the digital natives might be showing the way to continued retail success. In our longer conversation, Guha talked about companies like Kylie Cosmetics, the buzz-worthy online retail operation run by Kylie Jenner.
While the company has drawn attention because of its young, celebrity leader, its business success is what is actually noteworthy.
“I want to say they’re currently valued at something like $800 million,” Guha said. “It’s an eight person company. Those eight people are purely focused on core products and making sure that they curate the brand and product and customer experience. But the how behind each of those initiatives is outsourced services, technology and best of breed players.”
As Guha said in the video, parceling out some of the operational aspects of executing retail also means that merchants can quickly move to the next new thing. They are not bogged down with legacy systems, some of which cost millions to build. Instead, when they see consumers behaving in a new way, they can rapidly head in that direction, sometimes by simply moving to another technology or another technology provider.
In the end, consumers are the winners. But on the way there, nimble-footed retailers don’t do too badly in the process.
Crowd photo courtesy of NRF
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