Izabela Kaczmarek:

Hi everyone, I’m Izabela Kaczmarek. I’ve been with BISH for the past eight years and I am a sales and marketing manager out of Paris, France. And we have our manufacturing facilities in Poland and in Turkey, and I’m overseeing those.

BISH Europe services not only European customers to which we offer pan-European transportation, logistics, and warehousing, but we also service U.S. companies to which we are shipping goods by the sea. And currently the freight time takes between 21 to 35 days. That is door to door service. Currently shipping goods out of Europe to the United States gives many advantages to our U.S. clients. The transit times are much shorter as well as there are no tariffs and low congestion as we experience with China these days.

I’m Izabela and I’ll be very happy to give you more information about our manufacturing and transport from Europe to the United States. You can reach me anytime at the number and email address provided at the bottom of this video. For now, have a great day.

Izabela Kaczmarek | izabela@bishdisplay.eu | +33 625 23 64 78

Alisha Lin:
Hello. I’m Alisha Lin. I am the quality control of BISH Display Kwangju office

Ali Tabassi:
Hi, I’m Ali Tabassi Director of quality control and production and survey For BISH creative display Chicago United States of America. Our Company is the government registered company in outh of China in Kwangju. And I’m a proud member of BISH Creative display for over five Years now. And my job is as a director for Taiwan, Vietnam, and China. I control these three countries, and my job is to look over the products are done. Short finely, backed on time and dispatched. I’ve been to different parts of Vietnam and Taiwan, and I can assure you that we can assist you with best products and good quality. The facilities, which with whom we work are Cedric’s audited. And each facility follows the standard strict guidelines and BISH Creative display. China branch is a part of global team. We are here to serve an essence, our valuable clients you’re most welcome to reach us out and we are here to give you the best.

Nicole:
Hi, I’m Nicole. I’m in charge of logistics in this company in China.

Nikki:
Hi, I’m Nikki. In charge of quality control in South China.

Alisha Lin:
Hello. How are you? I’m Alisha Lin. I’m in charge of materials, selection of goods, assistant for making samples, approving the material and final production logistics. I’m very proud to be a member of BISH Creative Display. for the past eight years. Bye Bye ! Bye! Thank you so much ! Bye Bye !

Prakhar Bindal:

Hello, everyone. This is Prakhar. I’ve been working with Bish for, I think, six years now. It’s great, and different portfolios, and different things that I’ve been doing with Bish, starting from I was hired as a design engineer at Bish, doing all the designing, making sure that all the displays that are going out are actually done with several stress and strain analyses, making sure that the products have the longest life that they could possibly have, and the materials that are being used are up to the mark. I joined in as a design engineer with a Bachelors in mechanical engineering, and my Masters in robotics and design from the University of Texas.

I’m located right now in India, and look after the different manufacturing and logistics for Bish out of India. So, we’ve been manufacturing different projects, different displays for Bish for quite a while out of India, and I had those things of how and thoughts of it is being manufactured, and making sure that, in terms of logistics, it’s, not only easy to handle, but also the quickest possible and pocket-friendly for all our customers. We currently, Bish has two manufacturing facilities here, in India. One is located out in New Delhi, whereas the second one is in Mumbai, and both the facilities are Sedex audited. These facilities make sure that all the raw material across India is actually procured and transferred through the best means possible. There’s a separate MIS system that’s in place, making sure that the raw material is delivered to us in time and to the highest quality standards.

Making sure, talking of quality, we instill a lot of different practices to make sure that actually the quality is up to the mark and meeting international standards across the globe. There are certain things you would have heard of, like poka yoke or kaizen. That’s what we follow here, so that every time the things that have went out are up to the quality standards, and are the best that are there anywhere in the world. And, of course, there’s a separate quality team that’s in place, making sure that each and every product is, not only audited and checked when it’s about to ship, but also during the process. There’s surprise checks, there are in process checks, so that at every point we make sure that the products are in best in class, and delivered to our customers across the countries.

Now, if that is about the production, if we talk about the shipping, and why Bish actually selected India to be one of the hubs for manufacturing out of so many options, India has so many positives that are pretty well-known to everyone, but some major points that we actually made sure were the positives in our favor was, one, the language.

In India, there is no trouble when you wanna speak, when you wanna converse, when you wanna write. English is pretty much the secondary language, which makes it easier for Bish, as well as our customers, to actually get directly in contact and ask any questions. Have any queries, they can always get in touch with me or Bish, and we’re always out there to help you out. Secondly, India is pretty much at the dead center of the world, so it just makes it easier to ship it out to, be it UAE or Africa or Europe or America, it’s just because of being a peninsula, it gives Bish an advantage that we can ship out the projects pretty quickly and cost effectively. And that’s why one of our facilities is actually located in Mumbai, which is pretty much at the coast of the country; to make sure that’s actually the turn around period is the least possible.

Anything and everything that we’re doing here, we make sure that every step, me personally is in touch with the customer if they have any updates, any questions, or concerns. And, of course, the cost benefits and the time benefits that India offers are for everyone to see, and for everyone to gain benefits out of.

Lori Taylor:

Hi, my name is Lori Taylor and I am a senior solutions manager here at Bish Creative Display. I have had the pleasure of working with Kurt at Kellogg’s for the last couple of years. Hello, Kurt. Thank you so much for joining us today. We’re excited to have you be a part of this month’s Bish Retail Insight video. So thanks for being here.

Kurt Deck:

Yeah Lori, Kurt Deck from Kellogg’s Merchandising Services. Great to be here today. Just a little bit about myself. I’ve been with Kellogg’s for about 34 years. And within that 34 years, I’ve been basically on the sales side, but also, too, on the marketing side. So the nice thing about having the pedigree that I have is I have a lot of exposure how retail works and operates. And then on the marketing side, I can usually really utilize the creativity that is the fun part of the business to come up with solutions and designs when it comes to merchandising. I kind of oversee the merchandising group here at Kellogg. So we work in corrugated displays, metal displays, and plastic. So we cover the whole gamut when it comes to merchandising.

Lori Taylor:

So Kurt, my very first question is, how do you make a Snap, Crackle, POP display?

Kurt Deck:

Great question. And really, it’s not as easy as you think it is. It takes a lot of people with a lot of passion and a lot of dedication to come together to create that display. So really it starts out with an initiative, and a focus, and where we want to drive the business at retail and with certain brands. So really kind of starts with a great brief from our brand teams and what they want to achieve when it comes to moving the brand to the consumer. And that’s kind of where it starts. And then you work with really, really amazing agencies, creative agencies. And also, too, as we call them display agencies like Bish to help us navigate creativity and try to grab that passion that the brand team has in a brief and make it come to life when it comes to display at retail. And that’s how the Snap, Crackle, POP happens at retail displays.

Lori Taylor:

So Kurt, how would you describe the current retail environment?

Kurt Deck:

Current retail environment, Lori, is getting much better than 2020. We’ve learned a lot of crazy lessons from 2020, and it put us in a different direction than we are now. The current environment definitely is getting better, but probably is not going as fast as we’d like it in some markets, but it is changed when it comes to how we present our product at retail. It’s going in a good direction. We’re very happy where it’s gone and we’re looking forward to the future.

Lori Taylor:

So what do you believe are two of the most important reflections on retail from 2020?

Kurt Deck:

Yeah, 2020, it was crazy as we all know. There’s a lot of great lessons that came out in 2020. One was basically the shelf and how important the shelf was when it came to merchandising, and keeping, obviously, product on the shelf when it was really kind of crazy times in the beginning of 2020. And then maintaining it and keeping it to the place where consumers can actually find our product and actually shop it in a crazy environment. The next one would be being nimble and trying to understand the landscape and adjusting our merchandising strategies, and to accommodate to what we receive, and how we had to position our product at retail to the consumers.

Because as you know, there’s a lot of clean store policies out there in 2020 that limited the floor space that displays used to take. So we had to basically look at the landscape, the blueprint of the store, and rethink it, and rethink how the shopper shopped. So it actually opened up a couple opportunities for us to think smaller at some locations, to go bigger in others. So it’s actually a good learning process, but I’m sure glad we’re through it this year.

Lori Taylor:

So how influential is POP retail in the impulse buying world?

Kurt Deck:

When it comes to a POP influence at the retail world, it’s incredibly important, and it’s changing every day. And if you’re not rethinking it, or redesigning it, you’re going to miss the boat. It’s kind of a lifeline of the business. As you know, landscapes changing with retail, people shopping more online, getting delivered to the homes. So when the consumer goes to retail and goes to buy product, it needs to stand out, it needs to be clean and to be clear at retail so the consumer can purchase it. So no longer are the days of just throwing displays out there and hoping that the consumers bump into them. There’s more of a more strategic and more of a sound strategy behind how we design displays and how they’re executed that retail.

Lori Taylor:

So how do brands like Pringles and Cheez-Its continue to be market leaders in such a competitive category?

Kurt Deck:

Yeah, Cheez-Its and Pringles are monster brands when you work here at Kellogg’s. So we’ve got a lot of things that we’re doing to obviously grow the brand, not only in its base, but also to when it comes to innovation. So you’ll see, like in the Cheez-It world product lines, like Snap’d coming out, so competing more when it comes to like the potato chip occasion with like Frito-Lay. So you’ll see things like that coming from Cheez-It.

Pringles is a fun brand. So besides crazy, crazy flavors, you’ll see a different type of advertising coming out for Pringles. We have a real core consumer when it comes to Pringles that we can’t neglect. We’ve got to make sure that we stay current and we have to stay current with the consumer because we know they’re obviously changing all the time. We need to keep up with them. So those two monster brands, there’s a lot of effort here at Kellogg’s to keep those monster brands continuing to grow and be profitable for us. And there is some great, great work in the future for those brands.

Lori Taylor:

So how do you tackle display solutions per category, for instance, mass, grocery, convenience?

Kurt Deck:

Another great question here. And as you called out there, got three different unique categories when it comes to retail. Mass is much different than convenient and general grocery, or retail is different than the mass. So your merchandising solutions have to be different in each one of them. So mass is constantly changing in the direction they’re going. So you need to be able to stick out, and be easy to go through their network, and get out to sales floor. When it comes to general retail, general retail is obviously competing just like everybody else when it comes to online shopping. Also, they’re being a little more craftier when it comes to merchandising. So you’ll see things like smart displays and technology being utilized when it comes to general retail.

And then when you go to convenience, one of the challenges that we’re seeing with convenience, a lot of times convenience stores are tied into gas stations. So everybody has a smartphone nowadays, you can actually go to the pump, put your smartphone in front of the pump and basically start pumping gas. But how do you drive that consumer back into the store to make a purchase? So you really have to work really closely with those retailers to push that opportunity. So when they get into the store, you have to make sure that you’re on a display that really kind of puts your brand in the best position to have that consumer see it so they can make that purchase because they’re not spending a whole lot of time within the store, especially at convenience.

Lori Taylor:

So Kurt, what is a recent display success story that you can share with us? And why was it successful?

Kurt Deck:

Yeah, one of the most successful displays that we’ve been doing recently is kind of what we call the micro displaying. We’ve been working with Bish on this. What we found in 2020 is again, the environment had changed quite a bit, a lot of clean store policy. But there was also, too, a lot of different spaces throughout the store that we still had an opportunity to merchandise. And so what we’ve always looked at here at Kellogg’s is points of interruption. So how can we create points of interruption throughout the store so the consumer can to see our product or tie it in with … Or see it as a tie-in with another brand.

So some of the micro displays that we work closely with the Bish team to develop when it comes to like Pringles displays and the RKT treatment displays. These are small micro displays that can be placed throughout the store. So if the consumer is over by the beer section, they see a small strip of Pringles. There’s an opportunity to sell a can Pringles. Or if they’re upfront wanting to check out and they grab a quick snack, there could be an RKT bar up there. Or you go to another part of the section of the store that they could be buying something for the weekend. We just you in a position that can basically tie your product in with not a whole of real estate.

So the nice thing about these small micro displays is they’re not display that, “Hey, it’s always going to be in the store and it’s always going to push our sales.” It’s kind of a graduation point. So we start with a micro display. We tried to build upon it to get to a larger display while hopefully keeping the micro displays throughout the store also. So I would say that has probably been our most successful thing in the past year and a half, is really kind of really evaluating the market and then coming to the market with a solution that worked best for Kellogg’s.

Lori Taylor:

So what opportunities do you foresee in the ever-changing retail environment for in-store?

Kurt Deck:

As I spoke to some of the questions earlier in our conversation here, the environment is constantly changing. We have to stay on top of that with the consumer, again, doing a lot of shopping online and shopping differently. We really have to have displays that work harder for us. So not just a pretty display is going to cut it anymore. It’s got to be a display that’s thoughtfully designed and well engineered. So when the consumer goes in that store, or when they’re busy, it doesn’t take them a while to find that display. It’s really easy, it’s clean, it stands out. And that can actually be some smart technology involved too, so you can possibly communicate with the consumer too.

So gone are the days, again, as I called out earlier of just tossing out a pretty display out there and saying, “Hey, it’s going to sell product.” We have to be smarter. We have to actually look forward when it comes to technology and design and trying to make sure when the consumer are in the retail market, and they are in the shopping mode, that is easy for them and it makes sense.

Lori Taylor:

So how does merchandising effect the recent trend of people in-store acting as buyers versus shoppers?

Kurt Deck:

Lori, yeah, a continuous theme here, we really have to be smarter. And again, gone are the days when a shopper is just going to be moseying around the store, looking for a deal or looking for a possible meal solution, or they have the time. People are constantly going forward. They’re quite busy, but with technology, it’s also to a lot of people that had the time to do other things. So shopping could be far, far, far lower on their list of priorities.

So when they do shop, they’re coming into the stores as purchasers. They’re looking for something to buy, they’ve done their homework. They know they have a deal in a particular store. They know what they want. They’ve got to find it. So you need to develop displays that can draw them in quickly, either with a neat design from a graphic standpoint, or maybe possibly work with like a beacon technology that draws them in from their phone and tells them, “Hey, the display’s over here that you’re looking for that has the brand that you’re looking for.” So again, the future’s constantly changing, we have to evolve with that and we also have to design and develop displays that accommodate that.

Lori Taylor:

Well, in closing, Kurt, I wanted to thank you for joining us. It’s been a pleasure working with you over the years. It’s been fun. We’ve worked on a lot of amazing projects. And as you spoke on earlier, all of the Pringles and Rice Krispie Treat, and the cereal in a cup and Cheez-It strips, those have been really exciting. It’s fun to see those in the stores. And I look forward to creating more amazing displays with you.

Kurt Deck:

Thank you, Lori, it’s been really great working with Bish. You can see how the team has evolved and has changed. And the displays and concepts and designs that the Bish team is bringing to the table is definitely first-class, and definitely is forward thinking. So that’s why we look to Bish as one of our premium suppliers that we go to to find solutions that help us get to the market and drive our sales. So couldn’t find a better group to work with. So, thank you.

Jerry Fox:

Hello again, my name is Jerry Fox, president and CEO of Bish Creative Display. We’re halfway through 2021. We all know what 2020 brought us and 2021 has an amazing and bright future ahead of us. Today I’d like to share with you the story of the OMA, Outstanding Merchandising Awards. This is the awards for the best creative displays in the industry throughout our entire world.

This award dates back to the early 1960s and is based off the Olympics. There’s a gold, silver and bronze. There’s also various segments, hardware, cosmetics, wine and spirits. They also are judged by some of the most prestigious members in our industry, where they are critiquing the uniqueness of each piece and where they succeed in the marketplace.

It is very difficult to win a gold and we won seven this year. There are also three different categories temporary, semi-permanent, and permanent. This year, we won an amazing 22 awards. We won a global award which means we had the best of the best in the entire world. We won the creative award. This is the fifth time Bish Creative has won this award. We won the budget award. This is the third time we won that. Both of those stand for being the most creative in their category and industry and in throughout the entire show as well as the most cost-effective piece in the show. So to win one of each is very impressive, but what’s most impressive to me is winning display of the year. It’s our equivalent to winning the best picture Oscar for our industry.

This year, there are only three options to win in temporary, semi-permanent, and permanent. We won two of them. We won for the Aviation Gin stair-step display in semi-permanent and of course this beautiful Jefferson’s Ocean piece in the temporary category. No company our industry has ever won two in the same year. So we’re incredibly proud of that.

So I’d like to take a moment to thank the Shop! organization for putting together an amazing virtual show, I’d like to thank and congratulate all of our other contestants for they are the ones that keep upping our game. I’d also like to thank my Bish team. They’re the best in the industry. I tell them that every day and they know it. They are passionate and drive each and every day to be the best of the best.

And finally, I’d like to congratulate and thank our clients for the trust and confidence in Bish Creative. We wouldn’t be here without you and we consider yourself true partners. So that is the story of the OMAs. Til next time.

Jacquelyn:
Thank you Mark, for joining us at Bish on one of our insights videos here. While we wish we could do this in person and visit you in lovely Fort Lauderdale, it’s still a fantastic to see you, and thank you so much.

Mark:
Thank you, Jacque and everyone at Bish for inviting me. My name is Mark D’Avirro. I’m the vice president of sales for Coty Luxury, and I lead the field team for department store and luxury department stores. I’ve been at Coty for the past four years now, but I’ve been in the beauty and fragrance industry now 34 years. It truly is the only career that I know, and it’s one that I love, deeply, and I’m super passionate about, and it’s been good to me.

Jacquelyn:
Given your large experience and everything, the greatest change, in the last 12-18 months, what do you believe are some of the most important reflections from that time?

Mark:
There’s two things that really stand out to me from 2020, especially. Don’t ever underestimate the power of fragrance. Scent is the new touch in many ways, and when so many people felt confined or isolated, they were in quarantine, or lockdown and really in a very closed environment of their home or their apartment. Fragrance offered them the opportunity to feel comfort, to escape to the beach, or to the mountains. If people weren’t able to be in touch with their moms, or dads, or close family members, one spritz could take you and transport you to that moment that you treasured or remembered with a family member or on a vacation that you were. So, it’s no surprise that fragrance has really been the shining star of the pandemic in many ways when you look at retail.

Mark:
So, it’s been exciting to see that happen. What’s also been amazing to see, is the digital experience that consumers now are able to engage in and that they have. In 2020, I got hooked on TikTok, and what I found was, it wasn’t just a place to go and record dance videos. It’s now become a major platform for so many companies to engage with the most desired consumer, which is the gen Z and the millennials. They have such an amazing influence on products, and what they desire, and what they want. And on TikTok, 50% of those that are on the TikTok platform are 34 and under. It has been a incredible platform for companies to advertise, engage with consumer, and it really rose to center stage, over the past year, as one of the most desired platforms for advertising and engagement.

Jacquelyn:
I agree it really has totally expanded. And one of the only ways to really reach some of those younger generations as well, that only know how to shop that way, and are completely immersed in that. Going back to your comment around the scent memories and the things that are brought up when you just realize, you’re like, “Oh, I’ve totally forgotten about that. And that was such a great experience” or, “Oh, that sounds like my grandmother and I miss her.”

Mark:
Yep. Fragrance is all about feelings, and emotions, and moods. With just a spritz or a spray of something that you enjoy wearing, it can really change your mood. It can lighten up the mood, you can wear something lighter, something a little richer, depending on how you’re feeling. It really is amazing how fragrance can really transport you and really change a feeling or enhance a feeling that you already have.

Jacquelyn:
Going back to this social, digital, one of the new buzz words, phygital, omni-channel types of marketing. How do you see this continuing to change, now, as we’re coming out of that pandemic?

Mark:
I think what I’ve seen with the pandemic, I think what we’ve all seen, is the customers looking for alternative ways to shop. They want to be able to choose how they shop, and what we’ve seen happened last year is so many different options were offered to the consumer almost forced. We saw the e-comm business and the dot com business really advance due to COVID. It was headed in that direction over the next few years, you would have seen the increased penetration of shoppers that go to those e-commerce sites, but COVID forced a fast track, in a sense. Now you’ve got a lot of people that maybe had not been familiar with shopping online that had no other choice, because stores were closed. Now they’ve engaged in that experience. Now they add that to their menu of how they shop.

Mark:
Also, curbside, right? Curbside shopping. It’s been out there for some time, in some retailers, not everyone had engaged in that kind of shopping experience, but now every retailer is offering curbside shopping. Same day delivery! With just one click, you can have the product that you’re looking for in just a few hours.

Mark:
I think it’s all going to be about options, and a menu of options, and being able to kind of curate for yourself, how you shop. For me, I like a combination. I like them all. I shop online. I love shopping in store because I still believe, and we still see, that there is a need for a human connection, and that only an in store experience can offer that. That consumer, who still wants to go in store and experience a human connection and touch and feel, that’s still going to be part of our shopping experience going forward. But you’re going to see a lot of different things come up on digital. I even read somewhere recently, artificial intelligence, like an AI experience. I think that there’s so many options that so many companies are looking into, that you’re going to start to see come forward over the next three to five years.

Jacquelyn:
Yes. It is exciting and wonderful to see how adaptive the market has been. I went shopping this weekend and absolutely it was like, “Oh, I totally missed this.” You can’t get the full experience. You can’t smell something over the internet. You don’t have the expertise with all the options. You need somebody sometimes to just help you narrow down some details.

Mark:
What we found is once stores have started to reopen, they were welcoming, they were safe environments, and the consumer went on buying trips. It was different. He or she didn’t go to the mall or go to a store in a sense to go shopping. They went to go buying. That’s really a lot of what we’re seeing right now is that consumer who is there, their intent is to buy. They walk in with lists, and they walk in with products in mind, and they want to be able to go in, have that experience, and leave with those products. So, it’s been really exciting to see, and the business has been robust, especially in fragrance, also in home, and you’re also seeing it in fine jewelry as well.

Jacquelyn:
How do you think merchandising in-store will now change and be effected by how these buyers are now in the stores versus shoppers?

Mark:
I think that it’s all about surprising and delighting the consumer. Any way that you can merchandise, especially when I think about beauty, because that’s where my expertise is. It’s in the beauty and fragrance arena, and it’s really all about getting the customer’s attention and luring them over toward your counter, or towards your product. You want to do things that are surprising, that are delightful, that are engaging. And it’s all about basics and fragrance. The tester needs to be there, but it’s also about new innovation. We’ve seen some, some different ways where the customer now can experience the scent, maybe from a sticker that we hand to them, or from a diffuser that is disguised in the way of a tester unit of some sort.

Mark:
There’s been a number of different innovations that we’re starting to see, but it’s all about grabbing their attention when they walk in that door and luring them over with something that is really engaging, and bright, and playful. That’s what I think. That is really things that we’re starting to see, and that we’ve always wanted to do. So, no surprise, nothing different in a sense, but just how do you do it bigger, better, faster.

Jacquelyn:
Yeah. I definitely have seen the experience has changed a lot now out in the world shopping, and I think that’ll continue to grow and just be even more exciting and inviting for those buyers versus those shoppers. What do you personally want to see as some of these next level opportunities in store?

Mark:
The next level opportunity is how do we up our game on the client experience? How do you entertain, in a sense. I like to think of ourselves in the beauty and fragrance industry as entertainers. In many ways the customer, when they come in, they want a bit of a show, and they want to be entertained, and they want to have that feeling, and they also want expertise, right? So, we’ve got to up our game on our knowledge of everything that’s going on in the world and in the industry that might impact that conversation that takes place between a sales associate and a consumer. Knowledge and education is still powerful. I’m seeing a lot of investment out there happening on education. I think the customer also is going to be looking again for a virtual experience, as well as an in-store experience.

Mark:
When you start to come out of COVID, I don’t see the virtual experience going away. That’s now been introduced to the customer. So, how do we up our game on what that looks like, so that when a customer doesn’t want to go to a store and they want to engage in a virtual event or a virtual education experience, whether it be on a retailers platform or whether it be via Instagram or Facebook live, whatever. How does that get leveled up? Because that has now been introduced, and there’s no way, once you introduce something, no one wants you to take your toys away, right? So, now we’re playing with that toy along with all of our other toys and we can’t take it away, we’ve got to improve it.

Jacquelyn:
Can you share with us a retail experience that you really enjoyed? Why and how you take that back to your own every day.

Mark:
There’s one that comes top of mind and it was recent over the past few years. I am always been a big box shopper. I love department store. I love shopping in those specialty department stores, but over the past few years, I’ve discovered the smaller footprint. These more boutique shops, and there’s one that’s close to where I live, it’s called State and Liberty. It’s a men’s, I think they only do men’s right now, men’s clothing store, and they specialize in a certain fit. I’ve been shopping with them now, really religiously in a sense, because of the experience I had when I walked into their store here in Fort Lauderdale. First of all they put a… In Florida you can do this because the weather is warm, they have a mannequin out front dressed with one of their shirts that says, “Touch me, feel me.”

Mark:
It’s all about touching that product before you even walk in the store. Once you walk in, the knowledge that the sales person had in explaining why that product feels that way, why it’s constructed that way, immediately helped me understand what their products were all about. And then taking it to the next level of, I can create something that is custom fit for you. What you see there, if you try it on and you want it tweaked, we can do that for you. This is all about you getting what you want, not us telling you what you should have. That just blew me away. That was the game changer for me. Like, “Wow, I can come here. I can shop. And I can almost tweak the product to feel right for me.”

Mark:
So, that was amazing, and it just was an experience of let me show you, but let me stand back while you also experience it yourself. For me that as the best shopping experience. The shopping experience for me, that is ultimate is: I get a ‘hello’ when I walk in the door, I get some knowledge upfront. I’m allowed to then on my own shop, and experience, and ask questions, and at the end, I get a ‘thank you’ as I leave. Then how about an email or a phone call that comes three or four days later, that’s just checking in with me? I love all that. And that to me, I think is the ultimate shopping experience. Large businesses, the department stores, they do an amazing job as well. I’m not discounting that, the experience I get there is incredible, but sometimes I want more of an intimate one-on-one experience and a lot these smaller boutique shops are able to offer that. And I’ve had some really great experiences out there.

Jacquelyn:
The market was kind of very stagnant up until COVID and then rapidly changed and advanced. How do you think they’re going to keep that momentum of being able to adapt more easily and continue this as they see these things changing without such a massive requirement for it to change?

Mark:
Right. I think first of all, the consumer is going to guide us. They’re going to tell us what they want and start to show that. And as a trend starts, it’s going to be important that retailers and companies that produce products and distribute, are keen on those early signs of what a consumer is looking for. Whether it’s in a product or whether it’s an experience, and then be able to be ready for when that really takes hold. I think what we’ve all learned is we’ve got to be able to pivot quickly. So COVID, which was such a, to your point, it put us up against the wall and advanced things. But I think now, what I think we’ve learned is, we’ve got to be ready for even those smaller moments of change that can really turn into monumental change.

Mark:
I think that what’s going to be interesting to see, also, is as things open up and consumers go back to experiences; dining out, vacations, which could now change where people spend their money. It’s so important that the experience that the consumer has gotten now during COVID, that that evolves and continues. It’s got to be welcoming, it’s got to be comfortable, it’s got to still be safe, and it’s got to be able to again, be surprising and delightful. There’s no reason why experience shopping, which was always geared towards trips, and vacations, and dining. Experience shopping also applies to what happens in department store. It’s all about making sure that that experience continues, and stays there, and also evolves based on what the customer’s telling us that he or she wants.

Jacquelyn:
Yes. I’m excited to continue to see these changes as I’m shopping, because I feel like it’s opened a whole new door for retail and merchandising. Before, where there were limitations, now it’s completely open. I think it’s a very exciting time for retail. So-

Mark:
Well, what started out as a retail apocalypse when COVID happened, has now turned into, I think, a very exciting time for retail. It was an opportunity for so many companies to kind of reset and almost rethink, what does the experience look like, and have the customer tell us what experience they want. I’m so optimistic about the future of retail and all that it has to offer, and couldn’t be more thrilled with how things are evolving and how COVID fast tracked that. Let’s continue to move forward and see how the experience is going to be surprising for us.

Jacquelyn:
If there was any other closing remarks or anything else you wanted to end with, let us know.

Mark:
My closing remarks are, “Go shopping! Get out there and have the experience! Get what you want from your retailers and just have fun doing it!”