Unpacking the Digital Shelf

In today’s new era of digital commerce, it can be incredibly difficult for executives at brand manufacturers to know how to measure their performance on the digital shelf and to make decisions on what metrics to use. To answer these questions, the Digital Shelf Institute partnered with Profitero, a leading ecommerce Analytics Platform, and brand executives from the DSI Executive Forum, to create A...

Thomas Parkinson, co-founder of PeaPod, ItemMaster, and dean of grocery ecommerce and digital experiences, is now putting his 30 years of experience into creating Sifter.shop, what he calls a Nutrition as a Service platform that helps consumers find, explore and buy products that fit their personalized dietary needs. In an age where sustainability and nutrition also happen to drive better margins,...

There may be no more rapidly evolving element of consumer marketing today than retail media. At the forefront of that evolution is Kroger Precision Marketing, as America’s largest grocer innovates to create a retail media platform that drives a delightful experience for the consumer and attributable results for their supplier partners. Things are moving very fast over there, so we invited Cara Pra...

This is the 150th episode of Unpacking the Digital Shelf! For this episode, we returned to our very first guest, Sonesh Shah, who is now Global President at Dremel. Then, and now, we count on Sonesh to help expand our brains around what great leaders should be thinking about now to continually reinvent an organization and products that drive growth and connection. Rob Gonazalez and Peter Crosby re...

Every moment of friction in the consumer journey represents a revenue risk to the organization. The trick is, knowing what those frictions are and knowing which ones to focus on to drive the greatest financial impact to your bottom line. Paula Courtney, President and CEO of The Verde Group, uses their customer dissatisfaction research to ID and quantify those opportunities and remove costly fricti...

There is a dirty word in Amazon ecommerce that we have to discuss: profitability. Or, in many cases, the lack thereof. Driving profits on the world’s biggest online retailer is not an easy mission. That’s why we invited Martin Heubel, former FMCG category manager at Amazon, and now leading his own Amazon consultancy Consulterce, to join us on the podcast to discuss his detailed framework to maximi...

Fred Reichheld has spent a career at Bain creating and advancing the Net Promoter Strategy at some of the world’s greatest companies. And he knew it worked, not only to drive happy customers, but also outstanding financial success. In his new book, Winning on Purpose, he brings the receipts to prove it. Full of data, case studies, and practical approaches, Fred outlines the path to quote, turbocha...

Today it's never been clearer that Performance advertising-- forever linked with the DTC start-up media darlings of the past five years-- is the cool kid on the block. At the same time, mention the word brand building to your CEO and you're likely to be sent to the land of misfit toys . In fact, in his book Post Corona, professor Scott Galloway went so far as to declare the death of the brand age,...

When we heard that Outer, the premium outdoor furniture company, had achieved 1000% growth in no small part through customer-hosted sessions in their backyards during a pandemic, I knew we needed to find out the strategy behind it. Terry Lin, an industrial designer plus former Walmart.com merchandiser and Co-Founder & Chief Design Officer at Outer, joined Lauren Liva and Peter to talk nanoinfluenc...

Throughout a 15 year career at Johnson & Johnson, Matt Fantazier, has careened from Finance, to Brand Management and now Director, Digital Experience at Johnson & Johnson Consumer Health. Each stage of that journey has informed a way of working as a servant leader, helping teams prioritize, execute and focus on the right metrics to drive the right business result. Matt joined Lauren Livak and Pete...

Excelling at ecommerce and digital marketing takes a certain combination of diverse skills, often difficult to find in one human being. Aaron Zagha, CMO of Newton Baby, thinks of it as a mix of math, magic, and art. Aaron joined Lauren Livak and Peter to walk us through how that mix shows up in the daily battle for consumer delight, well-rested babies, and optimizing for total growth at Newton Bab...

The internet as we know it is in the midst of massive change. The buzzwords abound - blockchain, crypto, Web3 NFTs. It all adds up to a new way that people connect, interact and transact with each other digitally. It will have significant impacts on marketers, but many of those impacts and their timing are yet unknown. It seems like now is the perfect time to begin an extended conversation about w...

Beating the competition on any digital channel, but especially Amazon, is not a set it and forget it exercise. From their deep expertise as the Amazon digital marketing agency of record for over 125 brands, the team at Bobsled marketing has developed a POV on what it takes to succeed on Amazon. And the measurement of maturity makes you a caterpillar, spider, chameleon, or Lion. Kiri Masters and Ca...

No question, being an ecommerce leader is one of the most challenging jobs in commerce. You need people that are on your side - shepherds, you might say, that get how hard it is and spend a lot of time thinking about how to help. Chris Perry and Oskar Kaszubski, cofounders of FirstMovr, have sat in that seat across brands such as Kelloggs, Reckit, WellPet, Kimberly Clark and Mondelez and now spend...

Welcome, everyone, Peter Crosby, executive director of the Digital Shelf Institute here. Welcome to the 7th webinar in our 10-episode Digital Shelf Playbook Series, and the first of 2022. Continual optimization of the product page is the holy grail of driving discovery, conversion, and brand impressions and loyalty in this digital-first age. But in reality, you can’t optimize everything at all tim...

Today, Shoppers are creating post-purchase videos on over 35 platforms in 89 languages. Each of those represents an opportunity to amplify an influencer’s voice or learn from them. But how do you discover, amplify, and drive conversion through the right videos on the right product pages and channels? Ajay Bam, CEO & Co-founder of Vyrill, has created a platform that watches & listens to millions of...

It’s 2035. When you get there, what is it you wish you would have done as a leader in commerce for your organization now to prepare to win in that future? John Rossman, Author of the Bestseller “The Amazon Way” and Managing Partner at Rossman Partners, is spending every week spinning out a newsletter offering the practices, metrics, and skills you can use to make sure your 2035 self isn’t mad at y...

The product information management (PIM) category is at a pivot point with Forrester, IDC, and Ventana Research all releasing analyst reports in 2021. The report leaders have changed several times in the last 10 years as the evaluation criteria for PIM has been rewritten by analyst firms and buyers, reflecting that a new and volatile market has been emerging. In this podcast presentation of a rece...

Leaders of digital and ecommerce are always trying to influence the adoption of new ideas - new products and brands by shoppers, and new ideas for how internal teams must transform to both meet the challenges of a shopper-led buying journey and to maximize growth. David Schonthal, professor of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the Kellogg School, is co-author of The Human Element: Overcoming the Re...

A podcast topic so important we needed two guests to do it justice! The role of the ecommerce leader extends beyond ecomm strategy and performance to being the educator for the rest of the organization. Education that is critical to driving the business and mindset shifts required to achieve maximum growth and efficiency. And that takes a village. That’s why Lauren Livak and Peter were excited to...

With acquisition costs rising and margins tightening, expanding the value of the customers you already have is the new growth strategy. Now with more app users than Starbucks, closing in on 12 million in the US, Fetch Rewards is supercharging the ongoing engagement of consumers with their favorite brands. Wes Schroll, CEO & Founder, Fetch Rewards, joined the podcast to talk about the opportunities...

For brands to tell stories and connect with consumers personally and at scale, the right first party data is increasingly becoming the essential fuel. Shelley Bransten took the learnings  at top retailers like Smith & Hawken, Williams Sonoma, and 15 years leading customer marketing at the Gap, and is now applying them for the entire industry through her role as the Corporate Vice President, Global...

When Covid accelerated the importance of digital, hybrid footwear brand KEEN was ready. Not that it wasn’t hard, but they had already been making the investments in digital channels, digital and data teams, and the organization and processes to do it at a global scale, driving success both online and in-store. Matt Krueger, Vice President, Global Marketplaces & Pure Play at KEEN, joins Peter and R...

Business Professor Gerald Kane of Boston University, along with his co-authors, found themselves in the middle of a pandemic conducting deep research through hundreds of interviews with executives that resulted in new scholarship around thriving through disruption. This is part 2 of Peter’s conversation with Professor Kane, focused on the necessary capabilities to thrive, and how the right technol...