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Big Commerce Unleashes Next-Gen E-Commerce Dynamics · The Retail Podcast

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  Hello and welcome back to the Retail podcast live from NRF
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  with Big Commerce. I'm lucky enough to be joined by
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  Senior Vice President Meghan Stabler.
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  Yeah, that alright. High five on now.
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  Yeah, it's been a long. Day take number six, just in
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  case you Why are we Live 5 live at the beginning of the show?
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  But anyway, as you can say, we're already having fun with
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  Big Commerce. So Megan, Yeah, if you don't
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  mind, just take us through about what Big Commerce does for those
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  who don't know what the focus is.
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  And what I'd love to know is what's been top of mind for a
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  retailer's coming to you? During this show, all right.
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  So Big Commerce is an enterprise e-commerce platform.
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  So you know our our ability to provide the world's leading
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  brands and retailers with world class ecommerce experience,
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  right, a modern tech stack. So people have probably heard
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  about composability and things, right.
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  So we're composable e-commerce platform.
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  You probably got brands and retailers that are both B to C
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  and maybe B to B. So we, we provide both
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  capabilities and that sort of modern tech stack to really take
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  advantage of you know what is needed in today's business that
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  connect to shoppers wherever they are.
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  And then we have a subsidiary called Phenomics, which is all
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  about optimising your data feed and feed management to make sure
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  you're connecting to the channels that you care about
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  where shoppers are out. So the Instagrams are tik toks,
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  right? And so optimising data feeds is
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  also one of the core things that we do.
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  And and you build that as in like you help retailers with the
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  whole stack in terms of from or is there one specific element of
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  that is that? Such no, the whole stack, I mean
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  you know our focus is making sure that brands and retailers
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  can build online unique experiences or offline unique
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  experiences too and combine it together.
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  So as a modern ecommerce platform, we're not a monolith
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  where a composable platform, you can just do pure either be you
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  can have direct to consumer if you want to as well, yeah, or
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  you can just be pure B to C So we enable you to combine all of
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  those in in a tech stack with a high performing checkout, create
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  unique, compelling experiences, integrate advanced functionality
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  from many of our partners like Bloom Reach or Algolia,
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  integrate content management systems like Content Stack or
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  Contentful into it and really build this wonderful experience.
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  So we find brands and retailers literally a changing the way
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  that they want to engage with their shoppers and their
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  consumers online and they have to find those right.
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  Tech stacks, Yeah, they make you work to connect to them.
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  And as I said, they've also got to connect to the channels where
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  I may be shopping their Instagrams that Tik Toks, right
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  and all those other platforms. So we enable that from within
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  the platform and within our ecosystem of of providers to
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  him. What's been in terms of when you
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  think about your experience here at NRF and the the?
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  The. Volume of retailers trying to
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  solve their different problems What What's your sense?
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  What do you feel? Everyone's all focused.
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  On look, you know it's 2024, beginning of 2024, people have
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  people and businesses have spent that sort of fast, rapid couple
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  of years through the COVID era, right.
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  You know they had to rapidly accelerated into you know, buy
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  online, pick up curbside, right. They had to think about buy now,
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  pay later for shifting economic conditions.
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  So we know that brands and retailers had to rapidly adopt
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  tech. You know, we're a couple of
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  years past the pandemic and now the beginning to say, well hold
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  on, is our tech stack that we have around us really the right
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  one? We've been on Salesforce for a
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  long time. We're Adobe for a long time.
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  Yeah. And yeah, those are great
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  platforms, but are they really delivering what we need for the
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  future of where retail needs to be or the future of our brand?
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  Are we able to rapidly innovate and build into the platform and
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  connect to shoppers on whatever surface they are, the mobile,
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  the tablets or, you know, live stream shopping, all these other
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  things? So there's the ecom, digital
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  marketers. CDOs are really looking at
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  what's next in retail. Yeah, they're beginning to think
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  about what do we need to have in terms of tech stack?
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  Do we buy one from everybody? Yeah.
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  Or can we think about things like Lego, right, and start to
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  see we just need a advanced search and merge or we need to
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  have a really good integrated CMS or we're going to have a
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  really solid ERP or OMS or IMS, right?
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  Yeah. It doesn't have to be all one
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  platform, but we can integrate all these things, make it to
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  what you want, right. So, you know, in the UK, right,
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  where you're from, you know, the white stuff, Yeah, right.
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  Or Ted Baker. Yeah, right.
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  Other brands, look, Hurler, right, high end fashion, right.
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  They're really looking at what they can do.
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  Or again, I talked about B2B, think about MKM building
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  supplies in the UK, right. So traditional building
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  supplies, but they need to have a modern tech stack because we
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  as consumers are buying things from them.
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  But they also have that sort of wholesale distributors outside
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  due to it that they need to provide that modern tech saying
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  too, yeah, so we're seeing a lot of adjustment and people coming
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  by the booth and saying, so tell me what you do and how you do it
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  differently because we all say e-commerce and we all say
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  online, right. What do you do differently?
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  Checkout is strong for us. Building that composable
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  platform, the integrations to get you live sooner is, is key
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  as well. So those are the really rigid
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  conversations we're having with people saying tell me more.
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  How do you just out of curiosity the ecommerce like is there a
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  post element? Do you connect to the post?
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  Yep. Or is there is there a post
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  version of what you do online? You know we we do have a point
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  of sale integrations across many of the different point of sales.
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  We have integrations to like you know all different PPS.
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  You know whether you're using PayPal, Braintree or using Agen
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  or you want to use Stripe or you only use advanced checkout
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  Stripe link right one page checkout.
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  Our role is to make e-commerce as seamless as possible.
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  Not just for you as the administrator and the builder of
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  your your site and the experience and embedding AR and
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  virtual reality and all those other new things that are coming
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  are using AI to to to really streamline things.
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  Yeah. But also to make sure that
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  you're connecting to the fastest checkout the the sort of Google
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  pays and the apples and the wallets right Or getting into
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  stripe link one page pass useless checkout and those are
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  the punishes we have. And why is that important?
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  Because if I'm a purchaser on a site, we're always, always
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  getting interrupted and doing different things right.
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  I wanna make sure that I'm giving you, as the brand or the
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  retailer, the ability to check somebody out immediately without
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  going to multiple pages. Yep, I want to give you the
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  ability. If you are saying you know what,
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  we see a lot of the demographics that we want to sell products to
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  on Instagram or are on TikTok, we want to give you that ability
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  to check out on into Instagram or shop on Instagram, right, and
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  make it seamless, right. So having the integrations with
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  our partnerships and our ecosystem is core to enable the
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  brand and retailer really to grow and to acquire the shoppers
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  wherever they are. In that instance, right.
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  I my view is biassed by because of two things, emotional or
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  neat, right? The emotion is, Oh my gosh, I
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  love that blouse or I love those sneakers.
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  I'm gonna have the same thing. So instead of an emotional, in
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  the moment purchase, if you're doing the right retargeting or
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  advertising, yeah, I want to be able to convert them right now.
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  Or it's a. Need so looking forward, I mean
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  interacting in one of the talks I was out there was talking
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  about how every retailer will have its own AI, right As us as
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  consumers will have our own AI retailers will have their
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  version of AI and I guess that led itself to what you're
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  saying. Do you build that yourself or do
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  you buy into somebody else's vision of what you what you can
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  have? So let me be a little bit
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  controversial. AIAI is nothing new, right?
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  We've used a I for a very long time in our lives.
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  Retailers and brands have been using a, it's an algorithm,
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  right? The algorithms have got smarter.
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  They got speed and scale to them now and now we're infusing it
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  with data, right. So that's the generative AI,
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  that's the other things we got. So AI is nothing brand new, it's
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  just speed, scale and then the incorporation of data right to
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  it. We've been using AI in product
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  data feeds to normalise data to optimise, give you a stronger
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  return on ad spend, improve your ROI and essentially get your
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  product described the right way for the different schemas.
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  Sure. Instagram's requirement for how
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  you describe a product is very different to TikTok is very
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  different to Amazon. So, right.
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  So we've been using AI to help really make sure that we remove
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  that manual effort and streamline it.
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  We've got a in the product, right.
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  So if you're doing search recommendations, right, you've
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  you've got inside it. I think AI as a whole including
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  for B to B by the way is like in improving the the order
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  management, right, or the invoice creation through AI
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  because we know from history and from data what you're trying to
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  do. So let's add those things in
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  check mark instead of you manually putting the things into
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  your your, your, your baskets and doing it.
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  So we are embedding AI into the product, right.
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  We're infusing it to help you make predictive analytics to
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  show you what's going on into the data, into combining data
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  leaks through, you know, Google Data Cloud and other things.
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  So AI is big, right? I mean, I I can't walk around so
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  many boos without seeing AI AI. AI, AI is the next step.
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  But you've got to be cautious on AI as well.
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  How are you going to use it, right.
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  I I don't think chat bots are there right now when it comes to
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  it. There's a booth opposite iOS
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  that has a generator that has an AI, hey, I'm a AI person here to
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  help you and you know it's AI, right.
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  So I think we got to, we used to go, but for today's retailers
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  and brands, look for the Econ platforms that are helping
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  streamline and optimise what you've got today, help you
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  generate your product listings and your descriptions, right.
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  We've got things that are different variants during a blue
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  sweater, right? You want to describe the
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  material, you may have different colours, different sizes,
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  different options. AI can help normalise that so
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  you don't manually have to do it.
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  And obviously wishing you, if we do things manually, we tend to
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  err, yeah. So I think a I is is very
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  beneficial in a lot of different things.
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  Final thoughts in terms of where next NRF, yeah, we're coming
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  back, Yep. What do you think you would have
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  achieved, helped retailers achieve in 2024?
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  What should they be doing in 20? 20 I'll tell you a couple of
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  quick things. Optimising, normalising your
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  product data feeds and speeds into as many channels as you can
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  do. And that's one thing we can do
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  real quick. Provide an ROI in about a month
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  and show you the value of doing that and why.
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  Return on ad spend improved average order value rate.
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  All of the things that we wanted to wanted to do 2 would be speed
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  of checkout, right? Making sure you got one page
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  password. Let's check out on key PSP's and
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  wallets. Apple, Google Pay, PayPal,
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  Stripe, Adrian, maybe others in top of it too because they have
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  to check the people out. And probably the third thing is
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  showing that, you know, we have one of the fastest if not the
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  fastest checkouts in the world on our platform for brands and
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  retailers to use. Right.
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  Perfect. Mayor, it's been.
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  I don't need to check your surname again because that's
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  good. That's good.
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  Thank you. Cheers Alex.
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  Good.