PSFK's PurpleList

Mastercard has been rethinking how its brand fits within a changing retail landscape. At PSFK’s Future of Retail 2019 conference, founder and CEO Piers Fawkes spoke to Cheryl Guerin, the executive vice president of Mastercard North America Marketing & Communications, about the next generation of online and offline retail experiences, as well as how Mastercard sees itself within them. In this show, Guerin explains why retail is increasingly catering to the fluidity of today’s consumers, as they expect to move seamlessly from a digital to a physical outpost and back again throughout their day—and sometimes within one transaction.  She also shares why Mastercard is dropping copy from its logo, instead letting the design speak for itself as a symbol of retail’s immersive and streamlined modern manifestation. For more from PSFK and Mastercard, see the New York Retail Innovation Guide 2019 . This post is sponsored by Mastercard

Fatherly is a multimedia brand dedicated to creating content to support the contemporary millennial man, with a focus on parenting from the male perspective. In this show, PSFK speaks with Fatherly’s CEO, Michael Rothman, about the publication’s unique blend of content and commerce, as well as and how its recent popup activation, called the Playroom, functioned as a solution for driving brand engagement and product sales in a more authentic, experiential way. For more from innovative brands like Fatherly, see PSFK’s reports and newsletters. 

In an always-on world where distraction constantly pulls our focus in different directions, our own attention is increasingly becoming one of the scarcest resources. Howard Sullivan, co-founder and creative director of London-based experience design agency YourStudio, keeps this in mind when designing in-store retail experiences for retailers like Topshop, Pret A Manger, Birchbox and more that captivate, inspire and engage in an age of social media saturation and digital overload. In this interview with PSFK, Sullivan explains why retail is not retail anymore, and how the industry is moving into an era of valuing experiences over just selling products, prioritizing the creation of authentic interaction and spontaneity that appeals to human emotion, captures consumers’ attention and even taps into what can’t be shared on social media.

While the U.S. has seen the beginnings of cashier-less, digital-first stores like Amazon Go become more mainstream this year, many of the most innovative and cutting-edge retail models that are still largely trials or concepts elsewhere are already a part of daily life in China. The retail landscape in China is implementing digital-physical hybrid experiences at scale, incorporating the best aspects of online and offline retail. In this show, PSFK shares key insights from its latest report, The China Debrief, detailing how three major players—Alibaba, JD and Tencent— are innovating along the purchase path, from AI-powered stores that offer dynamic, personalized shopping experiences to streamlined payments powered by facial recognition to sophisticated logistics systems that meet consumer demand for speedy fulfillment. Listen as Senior Strategist Penn Whaling and Strategist Conner Dial explain the latest innovations from the world’s next-gen CX incubator.

As retailers look for innovative ways to reduce consumers’ choice overwhelm, recommendations are becoming a significant element that can hold sway in guiding customers down the path to purchase: In fact, 84% of consumers believe friends and family are the most trustworthy sources of information when it comes to opinions that influence their purchasing decisions. MASSE is a new retail platform that accordingly leverages the power of community recommendations to help consumers make educated and confident purchasing decisions. In this show, PSFK Senior Strategist Penn Whaling speaks to co-founder Elizabeth Shaffer about how MASSE works to drive commerce and how the platform hopes to evolve alongside existing social networks like Facebook and Instagram.

While gift-giving is practically inherent to weddings, the recipients of this generosity are shifting. Instead, the betrothed are increasingly using the celebration of their nuptials as a creative outlet, showing their guests who they are as a couple and what they stand for—including their charitable causes, says Beth Helmstetter, founder of digital gift registry The Good Beginning. In this show, PSFK founder Piers Fawkes speaks to Helmstetter about how weddings are becoming more multi-faceted, and how her business is helping couples link their philanthropic missions to their big day. For more about how the gift-giving industry is transforming to meet new consumer demands, see PSFK’s report The New Gifting Experience.

In this show, PSFK’s President of Research and Strategy, Scott Lachut, and Strategist Conner Dial share insights from PSFK’s Last-Mile Delivery Debrief, focusing on how companies from major retailers to startups are taking ownership over the operational side of their business, streamlining their supply chains to offer customers greater flexibility of shopping and delivery without sacrificing convenience, and ultimately enabling greater responsiveness to customer demand. The store is quickly becoming a core aspect of the distribution chain. Accordingly, retailers are finding innovative ways to help their products make the leap from a digital click to appearing at a customer’s door, encompassing click-to-buy, ship-from store, under-an-hour-delivery services and more. Listen to find out how brands are meeting consumer demand for immediate access, speed and convenience across all outposts, and for full details, download PSFK’s report, the Last-Mile Delivery Debrief now. Lead image: courier delivering parcel stock photo from New Africa/Shutterstock

Black Friday sales? Not at REI. As part of its #OptOutside campaign emphasizing disconnection from digital lives and a focus on healthy living, the outdoor apparel retailer is encouraging its employees and consumers alike to take the day off, and spend it in the great outdoors. In this show, PSFK speaks to REI EVP and chief customer officer, Ben Steele, about how his brand is maintaining its status as the “original lifestyle brand” by putting purpose before profit, and prioritizing customer wellness. REI

As the role of the physical store continues to transform, retailers are embracing new ways to use it as a complement to their business. Dirty Lemon, digitally native beverage brand, recently opened its fist storefront in New York City—but the space isn’t the average retail outpost. In this show, PSFK Strategist Avery McCaffrey speaks to Dirty Lemon’s founder and CEO Zak Normandin, who explains the innovative store model his business is debuting, including text-to-order service that allows customers to pick up their drinks in a staffless and cashless store, as well as how the space serves as complement to the brand’s strong online presence.

In this show, PSFK shares valuable insight from our annual flagship Future of Retail report, detailing the most important trends and innovation within the retail space as well as providing a framework for the coming year. Listen as PSFK President of Research and Strategy Scott Lachut and Senior Strategist Penn Whaling share a cut of the most exciting shifts occurring in the retail landscape. Building on PSFK’s report from last year, which detailed the importance for brands to establish complementary omnichannel strategies, this report explores how brands can best implement an integrated DTC model to provide a stronger, unified retail experience that allows for consumer fluidity between digital and physical touchpoints. For more, download the full Future of Retail 2019 report here. Lead image: technologies make shopping easier stock photo from g-stockstudio/Shutterstock

In the apparel space, consumers are increasingly valuing quality over quantity, expressing demand for personalization and tailored fits. Bonobos has taken notice, and is accordingly not only extending its sizes for many of its most popular items, but also implementing research and customer feedback to ensure optimal fits in the larger cuts. In an interview with PSFK, Bonobos co-president Brad Andrews details the lengths the brand has gone to in maintaining its standard of proper-fitting clothing for all men as well as delivering in-synch online and in-store shopping that reflects the retailer’s focus on one-on-one, tailored experiences.

Listen as PSFK President of Research and Strategy Scott Lachut and Senior Strategist Penn Whaling explain how retailers can capitalize on open opportunities in the retail health and wellness space, catering to unmet consumer needs that we have identified in our latest report, the Retail Health & Wellness Debrief. This webinar reveals the current health expectations of modern-day consumers, highlighting their interest in wellness-oriented and preventative treatments as opposed to sick-care, their tendencies toward holistic approaches to wellness, their demand for transparency from providers and their desire for more convenient access to care, as well as how brands can fulfill these needs with on-demand, personalized or a la carte services. For more information, download the full report. Lead image: pharmacist client stock photo from pikselstock/Shutterstock

While buying online is easy and convenient, the shopping experience can often leave customers less than impressed, unable to meet their needs for assistance and guidance. This is a challenge that Adam Levene, CEO and founder of HERO, hopes to address. In this show, PSFK founder Piers Fawkes interviews Adam to understand how his business dedicated to helping retailers integrate their physical and digital spaces aims to optimize the shopping experience by incorporating a live-chat, human element, synching in-store associates with customers shopping virtually to assist them with their purchases. For more examples of how innovators like Adam are combining the convenience of commerce that people of today expect with the personal assistance that they desire, see PSFK’s report the In-Home Retail debrief, or listen to the next podcast.

Jetblack is a digital concierge service that strives to make shopping enjoyable for busy consumers, leveraging text and voice-recognition technology to provide same-day, no-box courier delivery of anything customers need, from last-minute gifts to the exact pair of shoes a random passerby was sporting, and will pick up any unwanted items to return promptly. In this show, PSFK founder Piers Fawkes speaks to Jenny Fleiss, CEO of Jetblack, to learn more about her “Need it, text it, get it” service, and how it focuses on enabling highly personalized one-to-one shopping experiences. Jetblack’s focus on combining customization with convenience is a major way that brands are innovating to meet modern consumers’ demands. For more information, see PSFK’s report the Shopper Marketing Debrief, or listen to the next podcast. Jetblack

Listen as PSFK President of Research and Strategy Scott Lachut and Senior Strategist Penn Whaling share insights from PSFK’s Content And Commerce Debrief, which looks at how brands can take content and translate it into new retail opportunities. Retail today is a distributed process. Rather than going to the source, consumers are discovering branded content through new external avenues. This report explores the current ways consumers are shopping, their new media behaviors and their current expectations, as well as how retailers are turning to social media and other external routes to drive consumers to their sites, ultimately leading them down the path to purchase. Lead image: woman holding card and using tablet stock photo from aodaodaodaod/Shutterstock