Latest / Talk Commerce / The Impact of AI and Machine Learning in E-commerce with Peter Van der Westhuizen
Transcript
- Brent Peterson (00:02.922) you Alright, welcome to this episode of Talk Commerce. Today we have Peter Wunderweshusen. Peter, go ahead. I tried. I know you gave me a chance to write it down phonetically. But first tell us your name, tell us your day -to -day role, and one of your passions in life. Peter (00:33.295) Absolutely happy to be here. So it's Peter Funder Vestasen, probably the longest last name you've had on the show, I'm guessing. Yeah, my role is I am on the partnerships team at Linwerks. I help lead some of our strategic partnerships in North America and really helping build that out from an ecosystem standpoint. One of my passions in life, I'm an avid runner. I love trail running. So any time I see sort of a path wandering off somewhere, my mind immediately wants to go and run that path. and have fun with it. I'm also a dad, so that's my other passion in life, just spending as much time as I can with my kids. Brent Peterson (01:09.002) Awesome. Yeah. So I've, I'm, I, you could be German. I've run in Heidelberg in the mountains there. and I know there's a 50 K in Heidelberg that you can do. it's not a hundred percent single path trail running, but, I'm a runner mostly right road running. So, hopefully we can still get along. Peter (01:30.113) Definitely get along. I'm a track runner by trade. So I ran track in college and after. And when you say 50K, I get scared because I was a miler. So I don't run that far. I'll probably max out at about 10, 12 miles. But road, trail, I love it all. So we can definitely be friends. Brent Peterson (01:48.362) All right, good, thank you. So tell us sort of your day -to -day role and tell us a little bit about LinWorks. Peter (01:58.64) Yeah, absolutely. So my day -to -day role is to really work with our work and expand our North American partnerships ecosystem. We're trying to find partnerships that help enhance our platform and bring sort of best in breed solutions to our customers just to help them then be successful. You know, Linworks is a e -commerce ops platform. We help brands manage the complexity from an ops standpoint, order management. warehouse management, inventory management, and ways to help them sell on hundreds of channels, right? Really be relevant where their customers are. Brent Peterson (02:36.202) Awesome, good. So before we get, we start talking about customer experience and Linworks and how that helps. You did volunteer to be part of the Free Joke project and it wasn't me trying to pronounce your name. So I'm gonna tell you a joke and all you have to do is should this joke be free or should it be behind a paywall? So here we go. I think it's a great idea to wear two different deodorants, one under each armpit, but that's just my two scents. Peter (03:07.728) I like that one. That one makes you think a little bit, definitely behind a paid wall. It adds an added value to it, I love it. Brent Peterson (03:12.874) All right, good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thinking is the added value. All right, good. So, so tell us a little bit about technology and how that plays into customer experience. Peter (03:18.641) Yeah. Peter (03:29.649) Your technology stack is really the backbone of what's going to determine what type of experience your customers are going to have. Brands face a monumental challenge today in the sense that their customers are engaging or want to engage with them in many different places, whether that be on social media or via marketplaces or through their earned and owned brand awareness campaigns, that type of thing. And really, building the tech stack that's gonna create, help them be available, present there. But then also once they've acquired that customer, they've made a purchase really forming a seamless experience throughout the shopping journey or the shoppers journey, the right tech stack is really, really crucial to that. So I kind of break that into four areas maybe, right? You have your omni -channel marketing sort of push where you wanna be relevant, where your shoppers are. And then it's the, you know, now they've made a purchase, it's the shipping and fulfillment piece. Do you have the right shipping and fulfillment strategy to almost be, you know, create an Amazon like experience for your customers? We all shop on Amazon today, we all expect that. So that's the other challenge that brands face. And then it moves down to your continuous engagement, your customer service and your post purchase, right? Like what happens after they've bought? Are you continuing to provide that best in class? you know, solution or sort of experience for them all the way through to maybe they don't want something. What is your returns experience look like? And there's, you know, multiple partners that can help or technologies that can help brands be successful in this, you know, throughout that journey today and having the right tech stack in place is kind of key. Brent Peterson (05:13.066) Yeah, talk a little bit about how that first list, you know, like I think that there's so many channels that customers can go down and maybe just speak to how some merchants have challenges in overcoming one of those four pillars. Tell us some of the differences in that. Peter (05:36.338) Yes, I'll kind of lean into where being relevant and being available where your customers are. Right, I think we recently did a e -commerce ops report where we surveyed over 2 ,000 customers, over 1 ,000 e -commerce retailers. And 51 % of consumers said marketplace websites like Amazon, eBay, and some of their favorites are really where they want to purchase from a brand. just given the convenience. And then 20 % said, they'll either go through social or directly on the brand's website. The challenge though is maintaining and managing all of your inventory, all of your ordering, all of your listings on all of these channels. It's very cumbersome. And so having, again, the right technology in place to help you do that is kind of key to you being able to succeed there and provide a good experience. Brent Peterson (06:35.338) And there's not just the outbound channels, but there's the return experience for the client as well, right? All right, not returning things, but like after the sale and even during the experience of shipping, all those pieces, right? There's a difference in all those parts. Peter (06:43.763) Yeah, correct. Peter (06:55.379) difference in all those parts and you can really dive into that experience end to end even though somebody's purchased something, there's an opportunity to build your brand and really share more things that they can buy that are relevant to them just making you sort of more important to them, helping a consumer feel like you understand their needs and having the right partners to give you that data is key in you being able to deliver that kind of experience. Brent Peterson (07:24.01) What is the main challenge that you see, I guess, let's just say, you correct me if I'm wrong, but maybe the main challenge is first getting that network of different channels set up. But outside of that, what is the main challenge that you help to solve? Peter (07:42.772) Yeah, obviously first getting all those channels set up, but then it's having to manage the complexity of all of those orders going out to the different channels, the different requirements required for each of those channels to be relevant there, the risk of overselling on some of those channels if you don't have all your inventory managed in one place. We have a lot of customers that come to us really are doing this manually on a spreadsheet. Maybe they're on their e -commerce website and they're on another channel. But as they look to grow and expand, it just becomes really difficult for them to do all of that manually. So automating that process for them has really been key in helping them succeed. Brent Peterson (08:29.546) What are some of the, like, is there some main automations that you've seen that have really made an impact? Peter (08:38.677) Yeah, absolutely. Again, having all of your inventory, all your data in one place, managing it from an order management perspective helps you to sort of alleviate that. Like I said before, an overselling scenario where, you know, you know that you're going to have a peak, you're not going to oversell because, you know, the system has really identified that you're low in inventory here and you need to restock and just having those signals, you know, given to you well in advance in enough time to be able to react and prevent that scenario is an example of how we help consumers, sorry, retailers. Brent Peterson (09:18.57) I know that digital transformation has become a buzzword. Is there a missing piece now that maybe customers are focused too much online or focused too much at the POS? I know there's this term called client telling. Is there a way that you've seen the clients connect more at the POS and at the e -commerce? Like at their... at their website and also at a POS for to help connect a lot of those dots. Peter (09:54.133) That's a great question, not something that I have direct visibility into that much in my role, but you're right though, in retrospect, it's having the visibility of all of your inventory, all of your data in one place and being able to accurately manage that across all of the channels that you're selling on just really streamlines the operational efficiency. Streamlining it's a cost savings opportunity for merchants really, right? They're not spending as much time manually doing this and they're driving more operational efficiency from an order routing perspective, making sure that they're just really efficient with their fulfillment. When you think about the other piece of this, it's the shipping and fulfillment aspect, right? Where there's two things there. You want to create that great experience when you're delivering and sort of having those goods delivered, but also it's cost driving. cost down and optimizing as much as you can for cost really helps drive margins for retailers as well. Brent Peterson (10:56.906) I know that things are moving quickly from the merchant space, from your client space. How do you keep up with all those? How can you keep up with all the different changes that are happening and helping the clients adapt while you adapt at the same time? Peter (11:15.607) Yeah, for us, we're continuing to, we continue to integrate new emerging and sort of upcoming marketplaces, right? I think that that's really the key to helping our customers be where their consumers are as consumers shift their behavior towards newer marketplaces. Like one that I'll name, for example, is Sheen in the apparel and fashion category and then expanding, right? building integrations to those and sort of being first to market or one of the first partners to market there for our brands just helps give them that competitive advantage and being relevant where the consumers really want to buy. Brent Peterson (11:58.186) Are you seeing trends now that are exciting that you've helped your clients embrace? Are there certain things that others are adapting that you've helped your other clients adapt? Maybe they're not competing with each other, but there's always something new that's out there that helps every merchant, even if they're in a different vertical. Peter (12:06.23) I'm Peter (12:22.455) Yeah, I mean, again, it just comes back to making sure we have integrations to those great, you know, those new emerging marketplaces. I'll use TechTalk Shop as another example, which is just seeing sort of skyrocket growth on our end, where merchants are really, you know, on par with the trend that we're seeing with consumers and just driving that efficiency for them, right? Not only from a now you can, you know, have that direct integration and seamlessly list your products, but also, having a conversation about how to be successful on a platform like that, how it differs from other marketplaces and working with some of our partners that help merchants succeed. I think when you look at my role specifically, that's really what I do is try to bring partners in and technology companies in that help merchants be successful on all the various places that they want to sell. Brent Peterson (13:17.354) Yeah, I mean, that's a really good, you know, topic you brought up about partners. Do you help, you know, let's just move it up one wrong. You have an agency who has a, who has a client who's selling things online. Do you help some of those partners connect with each other to, to offer a partner solution that, you know, you're, you're kind of like the glue, right? Is that, would that, would that be a good way to look at it? You're kind of putting all these different facets together, be it shipping payments, logistics. CRM, whatever that thing is, do you see that as a good network of helping partners be successful as well as the merchants? Peter (13:58.264) Look, I think we're also a part of that e -commerce stack, if you will. And so, for example, if you're a digital growth agency, you can, you do an absolutely fantastic job on the ad placement side and sell through ton of inventory. But if you don't have the right ops, you know, e -commerce ops system in place, you're just going to oversell and create a really negative and poor experience. And so. It's really about working together with sort of the right partners to help a merchant be successful. But absolutely, I think, you know, we collaborate very closely with a number of our partners to ensure that they're successful, whether it be, you know, on the digital agency side or the fulfillment side specifically, or even the technology side. For example, if a merchant wants to not expand on multiple marketplaces, but expand internationally, like again, there's complexity that comes with that. And then sort of we are that backbone and operations arm that helps customers succeed, but we can't really do it without the right partner stack in place either. Brent Peterson (15:03.306) I want to give you a little bit of a challenge. I want you to tell us what you're excited for going into this next season and where we are rapidly approaching the holiday season. You should be thinking about what you're going to do this fall, right? So without saying machine learning or AI, what are you most excited about? And then if you could use the word AI and machine learning, what would you be excited about? Peter (15:35.225) Yes, I think from my standpoint, you kind of led into it from a peak perspective. This is the key time where having the conversation around, are you ready for peak from an off standpoint is crucial. We have some merchants who are still dealing with returns from last season and bad experiences. And so I think the thing that excites me most is, you know, getting set up for peak, but making sure you have the right strategy and you're going to be where your consumers want to engage with you. Us having the right technology integrations with the right marketplaces is again, another thing that excites me. We have a couple that are going to be launching just in time for that peak timeframe as well, which will be some of those emerging marketplaces as well that I mentioned before. But that's really what excites me from a Lendworks standpoint. you know, which is not AI related because really, you know, there are opportunities from an AI perspective that definitely gets you there, but from an EcomOps perspective, not as relevant, if that makes sense. Brent Peterson (16:46.186) And so now, so you've answered the non -AI. What do you think that's, what is AI putting, how is AI having the biggest impact on this logistical chain that you're seeing? Peter (17:05.722) I think AI is just going to help. And this is just a personal opinion, but it's just going to help generate more operational efficiencies, right? And it's from a machine learning standpoint, it's not new. It's been, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of tech companies have been doing it for a long time from a machine learning standpoint, but just really honing into what is required from a routing perspective. a cost saving standpoint to be as efficient as possible. Being predictive around weather patterns, for example, there's a massive storm in the Gulf of Mexico now, I need to reroute a lot of my inventory to make it to the consumer on time. Things like that, I think AI is just going to continue to enhance that and allow us hopefully all to really get close to. you know, the gold star of what Amazon is, you know, able to provide. So. Brent Peterson (18:05.066) That's awesome. So Peter, we have a few minutes left here as we close out the podcast. I give everybody a chance to do a shameless plug about anything they like. What would you like to plug today? Peter (18:15.931) Yeah, look, if you are a retailer who is running into some of the complexities that come with scale and growth, whether you're looking to expand into more marketplaces and or internationally, we'd be happy to have a conversation around how we can help you be successful. I think the three core things that we help you do is connect to multiple channels. We have hundreds of channels that we have integrations with. We help you. you know, save money, save time, drive operational efficiencies on the order management system standpoint. And then we also have a warehouse and inventory management system as you look for efficiencies from a pick and pack standpoint as well. So that's the shameless plug from me. Brent Peterson (19:01.738) And how do they get in touch with you? Peter (19:04.762) You can get in touch with us via our website, just go to leanworks .com. You can definitely get in touch with us there. And, you know, Brent, if you'll be so kind, I'm happy to share my email address in the show notes as well, if you have those. And they can just reach me directly as well if they want to have a conversation. Brent Peterson (19:23.018) Yep, that's awesome. I will put those in the show notes. Peter, it's been such a pleasure. I've been debating at the end here whether I want to try it again, but I think I'm going to give it a, I'm going to give you your last name a shot and I apologize in advance if I get it wrong. Wonder Vestusen. Peter (19:43.643) Close, close. But I'll give you brownie points if you can guess which country I'm from originally. Brent Peterson (19:48.778) I was going to say Germany, but I'll say either Germany or Austria. Peter (19:56.795) Wrong continent completely. So that's it. Brent Peterson (19:58.378) Really? OK, I know, South Africa. jeez. so you're Dutch. Okay. Gotcha. Nice. All right. Yeah, you got me all around. And I get berated all the time because I'm a good, I'm pretty good at accents. You don't have a, maybe it's off a conner accent, and I guess I didn't catch that at all. I appreciate it. Peter (20:23.835) It was really great speaking with you, really enjoyed it and yeah, I look forward to listening to it when it comes out. Bye, take care. Brent Peterson (20:29.322) Thanks, Peter. Have a great day.