Customer Shopping Behaviour Changes in the Retail Space [Shane Pounder]

Tune in with Andrei and Shane Pounder, our guest on today’s episode, as they will be discussing customer behaviour changes in the retail space, online and offline, as well as marketing strategy and processes when designing modern B2C customer journeys.

 

Shane Pounder is an experienced Operations, Strategy and Marketing professional with over 20 years of experience and a proven track record of driving successful results within organizations ranging from technology to healthcare. He is a dedicated team leader that is happiest when coaching his teams through a particularly difficult problem. 

 

Currently, he is the Vice President of Operations and Marketing at Flipp, a leading retail technology company that works with North America’s largest retailers and brands. In his Operations role, he has spent the last five years scaling out the team and processes that operate Flipp’s platforms. This work includes overseeing multiple operations teams as well as the Outsource and Content Design functions (a total staff of 100). More recently, Shane has assumed the role of Vice President of Marketing where he is tasked with overseeing the growth marketing, consumer insights and marketing communications functions. 

 

Prior to joining Flipp, Shane has had experience in many different industries. He started at University Health Network, Canada's largest research hospital, in a costing and process improvement role. A key accomplishment was a full costing of the transplant patient experience resulting in improved funding. From there, Shane completed an MBA before working as a consultant at Bain & Co. completing assignments in many different industries such as recreational vehicles, industrial goods, telecommunications and outplacement services. After Bain & Co., Shane moved to Maple Leaf Foods, Canada’s leading consumer-packaged protein company, progressing to a Director of Six Sigma through project leadership including a growth strategy for the bread division and a massive complexity reduction project in the protein business. After Maple Leaf Foods, Shane moved into a Director of Operational Excellence role at the non-profit organization, Heart & Stroke Foundation. In this role, he led multiple different initiatives including three restructuring projects, which drove significant savings for the organization. 

 

Shane holds a B.A.Sc in Systems Design Engineering from the University of Waterloo and an MBA from the Rotman School of Business.

 

Connect with Shane:

Website: http://flipp.com/

Shane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shanepounder/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/getflipp

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getflipp/

Connect with Andrei:

Marketiu: https://marketiu.com / https://marketiu.ro 

Andrei on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreitiu/

Marketiu on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketiu

Marketiu on Twitter: https://twitter.com/marketiuagency

Marketiu on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marketiuagency/

Email at hello@marketiu.ro

 

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Episode Transcript:

 

Andrei  

Hello everybody! This is Andrei and you are on the marketing innovation podcast show. Our special guest for today is Shane Pounder, who is the VP of Operations and Marketing at flipp.com. And if you don't know Flipp is a one-stop marketplace for digital savings and deals with over 5 million monthly active users. So you guys are pretty big in North America and Canada. Today we'll discuss customer behaviour changes in the retail space, online and offline, but mostly focusing on online as well as marketing strategy and processes when designing modern B2C customer journeys. So without further ado, hi, Shane, how are you? How's everything going?

 

Shane  

Doing great. Happy New Year to you and hope you're doing well. 

 

Andrei  

Happy New Year to you as well. How are things? How's the start of the year, what is fresh, what is different, how's business?

 

Shane  

Good. We ended last year pretty well. Now, where I am, we're in a bit of a lockdown right now due to the pandemic, and I think you guys are experiencing the same in the UK pretty recently. My area of Canada has actually just gone into lockdown as well, back in December. So although that's not ideal, and it's definitely having an impact. We're still moving along, and then the business is going well and looking forward to how 2021 plays out. There's definitely a reason for optimism looking forward, which is great.

 

Andrei  

Awesome, awesome. That's the spirit. So tell us a bit more about Flipp, because we have audiences that are from North America, Canada and this side of the world but we also have European listeners and Australian ones, as well. So just everybody is on the same page, they understand what you guys are doing and you bring into the world.

 

Shane  

Absolutely. So it's Flipped with two p-s, Flipp. And basically, our mission is to help shoppers provide for their families by making life more affordable. The way we look at it is that we're trying to reinvent the way people shop and help change the world of retail a bit here. And so what we are in particular is we are a shopping app, where we bring circular ads or flyers or coupons and deals right to your phone, or your computer so that you can plan your weekly shopping trip, and save time and money each week. Now a bit of that depends on your geography, but here in North America, there's a big business around what we would call in Canada flyers or in the United States circulars, is where stores will put together different deals on a weekly basis, bi-weekly, whatever. We take that and we make it digital, make it interactive, put it all together and make it a lot easier for our users to shop.

 

Andrei  

Super. So basically, this is pretty popular in the UK as well in Europe. I know, East Europe is big on this. So, you basically scan these booklets or these flyers, and then you put them on the app. And then how do customers interact or navigate with this, they just identify then shops, and then?

 

Shane  

So even going back into the process, it is less around scanning it, we actually work directly with most of our merchant partners, we bring in the files, and we'll work with them around what is the best way to tell their stories online, so so that we can actually add some value to it on the digital space versus just a print piece. And then we pull it all together and we surface it for our users. So they can come onto the app and they can click through picking their favourite merchants that they shop on a regular basis. Then there's a bunch of functionality on the app. So for example, there's a search feature. So if you know you're about to go to your grocery shopping, and this week you're looking for eggs, you put in eggs, and it will tell you where those savings and deals are at all the merchants in your specific area. What we also do is we work with our merchants in order to understand how to distribute those savings and deals. So with Canada and the US, a lot of our merchants will have variable deals depending on where it is in the country that the person lives. And so I can put in where I live here in Toronto, and it will surface the deals that are appropriate for me. So when I put eggs into the search piece, it will tell me for the 510 grocery stores in my neighbourhood. These are the ones that have it on the deal. Then there's another functionality around helping you build a shopping list. We've also got a watch list which will allow you to put in certain items that you want to track, so that it's easy to go in and find those things when you want to buy them. And then we've got other things we'll work with. We'll bring in coupons. So we can match coupons to certain things so you can get even more savings. So there's a lot of different ways that we try and make it easier for people to look at all their different options and do the better job of saving money on their shopping. 

 

Andrei  

Exciting, I have so many questions in my head, I can't wait to go through all of them. Let's see, I mean before anything, let's introduce you a bit more to the audience. So they understand your journey and you know how you are transforming the Flipp environment at the moment as well as contributing to their planning in terms of operations, in terms of marketing, in terms of comms. So tell us a bit about you, who is Shane?

 

Shane  

So I'll give you the quick bio, I am an engineer by education, started working in healthcare for a little while, actually doing finance and costing work before determining that I needed to go back to business school, get a better vocabulary, did my MBA, finish that off, and then I've worked in a few different areas. My first job out was in strategy consulting, working at Bain and company, did a bunch of really interesting stuff there, including a couple of really good marketing cases, one that kind of piqued my interest in the world of the shopper, and how they look at things and branding, did some really interesting stuff around recreational vehicles and customer segmentation that was kind of foundational to how I look at marketing today. After that, went and worked within the consumer packaged goods company here called Maple Leaf Foods, which is a large Canadian manufacturer, mainly on the protein side. But at the same time, we also had a bread company, where I was primarily focused, doing work around customer care, skew, rationalisation, formulation, stuff like that, so that we could do some big network consolidation work. So that was through six sigma. So I was a more pure operations type at that point. And then I did a year doing customer brand marketing within that, where we would work with major retailers, help them get their products out under their own labels. So that was a really good experience on the commercialization side. After that, I did a stint in the strategy world at the Heart and Stroke Foundation. And that was just looking for something different. That was an operational excellence role, it was about going in and helping people do things better. So I worked with a lot of different teams, including a couple of structure projects, and worked with the marketing team around how we can streamline some different aspects of their work. And then after a couple of years of that, I got a recruiter call for flip comm or flip, which was unexpected, I was about to start looking for something, and this was a kind of serendipitous call. So they wanted somebody to come in and run their operations team, they were scaling and growing quickly. And it was also a seven-minute drive from my house, which helped the commute excellent. And took a run at it and fortunately got the job. And so that would have been just over five years ago now came in starting on the operation side. So when we talk about working with the retailers and bringing in their content and manoeuvring it through that, that was my team that would do all the legwork around that. In my time here, I was able to take on some additional responsibilities, we do content production, where we'll work with different retailers, and instead of just giving us all this stuff, we will work with them and help them build. And we're looking at how we can automate and streamline and improve some of those processes there. But also get them the content they want. And then earlier this year, I was given the opportunity to start taking responsibility for the marketing team. So I've dabbled in and worked in marketing and very indifferent elements throughout my career. And so this is my first time kind of coming in and really leading the charge on it.  This is how I got here.

 

Andrei  

Nice. So five years, I think you managed to see many of the very fast-paced environments of, commerce changing and a lot of things that were very rapidly moving. So how was that from the app’s point of view, from the business? What do you feel has radically changed in the past, maybe not five, but maybe three years, as well as maybe focusing on last year because you know, it was an unprecedented one. But you know, a lot of things have changed and maybe accelerated as well in the e-commerce space. We saw that a lot while working with our clients, but I'm keen to hear your thoughts on it. How did you feel from the inside?

 

Shane  

There's a couple of different things I would highlight. First off, we're working both with the merchants and with trying to build an app that is great for the shopper. So we're seeing different things on both sides. So if you come at it more from the merchant perspective, what we're seeing is basically an acceleration from what historically would have been print type publications that would go out, go through the mail and everything to the digital side. A lot of the retailers especially the brick and mortar guys have had to pivot very quickly, and it was something that was already happening, prior to the pandemic, but with the pandemic, we saw them move fast. Where before they would be hardcore brick and mortar, a little bit of delivery or pre-order on the side, but then that moved to buying online pick up in store was almost overnight. Watching some of our merchant partners very quickly turn on the infrastructure to be able to manage through some of that econ work was pretty, pretty extraordinary going from that brick and mortar to more of an Omni play. And at the same time, in terms of their marketing and advertising efforts, we've also seen that shift so before where they were heavily reliant on print, we would see things like: in a grocery store, here in Canada, in the United States, you'd walk into the grocery store, and they'd have the flyer sitting there for you to pick up so that you can browse and look at it. Well, people don't want to pick up paper right now, when they're out there. And so then they're moving faster to Okay, how can we get more of those deals online, get more of those deals into the hands of our shoppers, give them different options to purchase and ways of actually getting that. And then kind of streamline that end to end process. So that's been great for us, because this is an area that we're working towards, and the printed digital pieces exactly where we're situated. And so we're working closely with a bunch of those partners to help accelerate that. So that printed digital is one core thing on the merchant side and then in the shopper side, we've seen some really interesting stuff. So we've done a little bit of analysis. Black Friday's kind of huge shopping day, American Thanksgiving. So we've done some research around how things change there. And we've been seeing shifts to online pretty significantly in the past few years. But this year, it was a huge shift, because people didn't want to go anywhere near a physical store. And so whereas before, we would have seen kind of a slight increase in the amount of online, now it has shifted big. Then a lot of people didn't want to go in-store at all, and would change most of their holiday shopping Black Friday shopping online. So that was a big shift, that we've been trying to support our retailers through seeing how that played out for the major shopping experience.

 

Andrei  

In terms of the shopper themselves, because you guys are very much focused on bringing the deals and the best discounts to the end customers that use the app as an interface. What do you think about price sensitivity and loyalty towards retailers, when people actually have the chance to buy from anywhere and the distance is not an issue anymore, because they mostly buy online and get delivered to the door?

 

Shane  

We've definitely seen across the board that people are spending less than trying to save more right now. And you'll see that even more highlighted in kind of the millennial and the Gen Z or Gen Zed generations because they're already feeling strapped, you see it in the States, people are graduating with more and more debt. And they're struggling to get jobs that are going to pay that off. And so people are becoming a lot more cognizant of how their dollars are going out. They're using tools like ours, in order to find whatever savings they can do in order to put a little bit more in the bank and try and save up for something going forward. So we have definitely seen that shift where people are spending less. Even within Black Friday itself. Through some of our research, we saw that a lot fewer people were planning on shopping than before on Black Friday, and they were trying to spend less. Our target shopper is a savings and deals shopper. So you know if we're looking at what our wheelhouse is, it's those people who are already thinking about where can I find a coupon? Where can I get things cheaper? If I go to a grocery store x versus y, can I save 20 bucks? And this just exacerbated that. So a lot more people are concerned and worried about how the pandemic was going to impact them from a job perspective, so they are being a lot more diligent and spending more time and more effort. And frankly, they've got a bit more time to spend looking for the deals. That includes whether it's going online and finding an alternative through an online source versus going to a physical store.

 

Andrei  

Okay, so let's look a bit at your customer’s journey when they do online shopping. This is very interesting for us and I'm sure for many of our listeners as well because we do work a lot as well in the e-commerce space. So I think this is something that everybody's talking about these days. So if me, the user, wants to plan their grocery shopping for the weekend, I'm going on Flipp, I can find there the best deals from the grocery stores that are around me. And you mentioned you can actually make a basket and be aware the best yields are right?

 

Shane  

What you can do is you can build a shopping list. So we're not building current baskets that you could then transition to an online, we do work with some retailers around how we can surface some of their clicks and collect. But at this point, we're not doing e-commerce within the app, what is happening is, we set it up so that if you've got those five grocery stores, you can do your hunt, and say, you know, I'm trying to decide what I want to cook this week and I've got these three protein sources I'm interested in. Now I'll go to the grocery store and take a look. Okay, this one's the best deal. This one's not, I'm going to check this one, put this on my shopping list. And then I can go to the next one and do a bit of compare and contrast and try and understand where is the best place for me to do my shop for the week?

 

Andrei  

Okay, and I don't know if you have the insights at hand, but I think it'd be really interesting to look at the customer journey from the beginning: they enter on the app, they spend some time there. Which I have a question on a bit. And then when do they typically bounce on to the store? Do you know if they bounce off onto the store? And then they convert there right away through online? Or was there a method of checking out? Do they want to collect? Or do they actually want delivery, things like this?

 

Shane  

It varies here. And I also think there's a difference in terms of how the grocery markets themselves have evolved in the different countries. For us, the lion's share of groceries still done in person, online is still relatively new in the past few years, within Canada and the US. So the North American markets in terms of having delivery options, and in buy online, pick up in-store, that kind of thing. That stuff is relatively new for us. And so for the most part, the person would be kind of going in determining these are the things I want. And then you'll have different types of shoppers, you'll have the shopper that is willing and interested to go from store to store and maybe stop at two or three places. And what they're going to do is they're going to use the app to figure out, Okay, what am I getting at store A, B, and C. And then they will build their lists, and then go to those different places. There are others who will have a couple of specific things that they're looking for. So they'll have their standing list. And they'll go in, and then they'll decide, okay, this is the place where I'm probably going to get the most savings on my week. And I'm going to do it that way. What's happening now, though, to your point is we're starting to see delivery companies, we're starting to see stuff like instacart, here in North America is starting to grow where they will do the pickup and bring it to you. And we're starting to see a bunch of the different retailers do their own version of delivery, or their own version of the pick, where they'll pick it and then just do the pickup in-store. But that's still growing here versus kind of a standard way of doing things. So the customer journey is still very much hands-on grocery shopping, I would say it's different if we start looking at some of the other retailers we work with so obviously Home and Garden, any of the retailers we're dealing with on that side apparel, those different pieces, we are seeing a lot more movement online, where I think there is a bit more of that opportunity to play kind of the end to end game into the conversion side.

 

Andrei  

I see. Okay. And in terms of the time spent on the app, because that's actually where the research takes place, going back to the price sensitivity, and people having maybe more time to allocate and looking at every buck that they spend. Have you found a big increase since March last year compared to the previous period, or not so much?

 

Shane  

It's interesting because it's been a tale of two countries because we're both in the US and Canada. So in terms of the amount of time spent, I don't have the numbers at hand. But what I would say is the way that the pandemic impacted, the two sides of the border for us was very different and did have an impact on content. So in the US, for example, we saw a lot more supply chain instability in the grocery side, which meant that there was less content available because some of the retailers just stopped producing content because they were having trouble keeping stuff on shelves. And so we did see some impacts there in terms of the number of publications that people were looking at because that's more of our standard measure is in terms is how many things are people looking at as opposed to the specific amount of time whereas in Canada, the supply chain, where grocery, in particular, it has a few really big players and very national players. So on that part, it was pretty stable. We actually didn't lose a tonne of content, even though the lockdowns, a bunch of the merchants did a really good job of moving to updating the publications quickly and moving to online e comm type stuff so that we didn't have as big of a content impact. And what we have seen, though, to your point is, we are seeing increases in the number of publications that people have been looking at on the whole throughout the year. And eventually, we saw that in the states as well. Once the supply chain staff was able to recover. So we're seeing people spending looking at more content. So I would presume they're spending more time on the app as part of that.

 

Andrei  

Super interesting. And very interesting that the market response was different. I mean, so different from US and Canada, like you guys are more chill, right?

 

Shane  

Or I think you could answer that a few different ways. But yes, I think that's fair. We're a little quieter.

 

Andrei  

Okay. So now again, going to this mobile versus desktop, you guys are only mobile, right?

 

Shane  

We do have a desktop version as well. Most of our users are working through our app. But we do have a desktop. So Flipp.com, you go in there, and you put in your geography, and then you can still see all the deals on that side. They both are options. Yes. 

 

Andrei  

How do you see one compared to the other: any changes that are notable or inline or expected, as we saw a lot of people just abusing mobile, more and more.

 

Shane  

Not a ton. Like the experiences are very similar for us in terms of desktop versus mobile and how people can manoeuvre through them. The content is very similar, I think just based on what it is, and people wanting to have something in hand when they're in-store, and that a lot of the shopping especially in the grocery side is in person, the mobile app tends to be a little bit more intuitive, a little bit easier to work with. For a shopping journey. 

 

Andrei  

So basically, going back to the shopping, it's more like, this is Friday or Saturday morning, I'm planning my shopping, I'm looking on the app, see what's available, planning my trip, then going to the store, having the app with me, and then just coordinating my shopping experience that way.

 

Shane  

Exactly. And people do it differently. Like for, for me, for example, when I go into the store, I'm a little less planful. I know roughly what I want. And then I'll show up at the store. It's like, oh, what do I want? And then I'll actually spend some time on the app, right at the store. It's like, Okay, what else can I get? Or, actually, one of the things with a pandemic is because the stores are only letting so many people when I'm standing in line to get into the store. I'll be flipping through the app to try and figure out okay, what are some things that I might also want, and then I'll start adding that to my list. So that ability to be able to do it on the fly is actually super helpful.

 

Andrei  

Okay. Oh, super insightful. And now let's look at the other thing, the marketing element. This was more around the customer journey, and really keen to hear your thoughts on how you felt that changed a bit. And also in terms of the shopping experience. But about you guys, as a company, you basically have to market to two different groups of stakeholders, you have the retailers, and then you have the customers? So different processes, different strategies, different budgets, I would assume. So give us a bit into your world, how does marketing look in terms of both tactics and operations? For you? 

 

Shane  

Sure. So there are a few different pieces, I would say, we're probably a little bit more refined on the shopper side, versus the merchant side, I think with the merchant side, we came in, and we've developed really deep relationships with a lot of the merchants over the years. And given what we do, we're a little bit more effective at getting out there, having those discussions and managing those relationships. So what we've been focusing on a little bit more has been on the shopper side and how we are bringing more users on to the app so that our merchants can more effectively tell their stories. So we've got a few different pieces that we think through our funnel. But the main things are the main areas that we consider kind of the acquisition side and the retention, those are the two big focus areas that we've been working on. And obviously, with a pandemic, we've been kind of adjusting things in order to deal with that. So on the acquisition side, it's very much, you know, we're a bit of a utilitarian app. And given that, what are the different ways that we can bring people on? So I think we're pretty effective. When we're kind of mid-funnel, and we've got people who've already shown intent, we know that they're looking for stuff that wants to shop. So those are easier folks to bring online. One of the things that we are thinking through is how do we do a better job on kind of the pure brand side? How do we effectively and efficiently get ourselves out there, build some better awareness so that we can continue to grow people or grow users on the app, bring them in, because once they're in, and they can see all the stuff that they've got to work with we're pretty good at holding on to them? So that would be kind of the acquisition side. And then we've got a full retention kind of lifecycle piece where we're looking at different ways through push through email, different opportunities to kind of continue to highlight, you know, here are the deals that are on. Here are the ways that we can add value to your week and continue to push through on that. So a few different pieces to it. But the big thing for us kind of going forward is, you know, how do you continue to build that brand? How do you build Emotionally resonant messaging for a utilitarian product, how do you get it out there in a cost-effective way, because things like TV, relative to Facebook ads, Google ads, your actual cost of acquisition is going to be much higher? And you may not actually get better use out of that. And so we're still trying to balance what is the right messaging? What is effective messaging? And how do we manage that? One of the other things that we're also working through and thinking about is shopping as a local experience. You will see very variation, Market to Market, even Canada versus the US. In Canada, we've got something called price matching in some of our retailers, where if you go into the right retail, and you say, yes, but it's on the deal at this place, they will give you the price of the other place. So that's actually something that's reasonably prevalent in Canada, well, that makes how a customer or our consumer would use our app very different. Whereas in the US, it's a lot more coupon forward. And so you want to make sure you're providing coupons in a different experience there. And even in states, there's different regions and different pieces there. So it's how do you make sure that messaging that you are doing from a marketing and advertising perspective is resonant to the particular locality? So national marketing isn't as clean as what one would hope in some cases?

 

Andrei  

 And so you mentioned that the acquisition channels, you mentioned something that is very fair, and I'm happy that you brought it up, which is ensuring that you understand very well the customer persona that you're communicating towards, because people from New York might be very different from somebody in LA, or Seattle or another city and region. But what seems to be working best for you in terms of user acquisition, is it organic, and referral? Is it Facebook and Instagram ads? Is it Google ads? Is it something else?

 

Shane  

There are a few different channels, obviously, organic. So again, it depends on where we are, I think we've done a really good job in Canada in particular on product-market fit. And organic growth has actually been a big strength of ours and word of mouth. We started the Canadian app and I think that has helped us a bit here in terms of getting good critical mass specifically in Ontario. And so we are seeing good organic growth that is actually getting out there. So that's been helpful. What we're looking to do is build better on that in the US and try and figure out how to kind of get that flywheel going a bit more effectively. But generally speaking from a pure acquisition perspective, it is a lot more of a couple of channels, you mentioned, Facebook, Google, they tend to be the main areas that we are looking at, in terms of doing kind of more general acquisition spend, and then kind of tinkering with the messaging that we're using through those channels.

Andrei  

And you have a pretty big community, as well. Did you find them shouting about anything specifically lately? Because I assume that there's some dialogue there as well from them wanting stuff or inquiring about stuff?

 

Shane  

There are, definitely a couple of things that one of the ones and we've actually just launched a feature in response to it is the watch list. And one of the things people have been asking about is, how do they track to certain high ticket items, or different items. So they know they want to get a certain laptop so that they put the laptop in the watch list, and they can track the price. So that's something that we've added to the functionality using a couple of different pieces just to ensure that they're able to track things. So that would be an example of something that they wanted. Because before, you know, you'd have to go to search every single time and look for something. And so building that feature, and kind of we're iterating on that right now, another thing that's come out recently, and it goes to your comment on organic growth, is we've just added deal sharing, or item sharing or publication sharing. So as people go into their account, they can say, Oh, I found this great deal on this TV at the electronic store. I know these other three people want it? Well, now it's a pretty simple process to share that deal with somebody and it is great for us because you basically got a referral that says: Hey, we just found this here, come on to the app, and we'll look at it. So those are a couple of features that we've done that have been very much in response to feedback that we've gotten from our users.

 

Andrei  

Super cool. And yeah, it's very good for the retailer as well because you know, three customers that have one so, good move. Awesome. And now looking at 2021 Let's see what you guys are planning, what you guys are foreseeing, what you foresee as a professional in this field and think maybe it's worth sharing with some of our marketing people here on the show as well.

 

Shane  

I think the big thing for 2021 is looking forward is around being nimble, honestly, from a marketing perspective, but an overall company perspective, we are still waiting a bit to see what plays next, relative to the pandemic, how quickly things go back to, quote-unquote, normal, and what does normal look like? So we're tracking very much to our users. We've seen a lot of studies coming in saying that people don't plan on going back to the same behaviour as things were pre-pandemic. So are they going to be spending less? So what does that gonna do for their spending habits? So a big thing for us is making sure we're continuing to do some of that research, continuing to do some of that secondary research in order to pull that in and get an understanding of those users. One another big thing we talked a bit about earlier is continuing to work with our partners to accelerate that transition from print to digital and doing what we can to make it easier for them. The nice thing about some of the digital channels is you can do things a lot more quickly and as things change. So for example, if your inventory changes, well, you want to be able to respond to that by changing some of the stuff you've got on deal. And so one of the things we see happening is that the need for responsiveness is going to become less of a nice to have and more of a need to have from the merchant side, as they continue to move forward. And so we're working on ways with some of our merchants to help accelerate that process. And help guide them through that because we're in a good position, we work with them both on the stuff that goes on the app, but we also work with a lot of merchants on their own sites, and how they surface the deals because they'll put their flyer on their own piece on their website. So we work with them on that. And so we're going to help partner with some of these guys to help them get from point A to point B on that printed digital transition. And that's going to be a huge focus of us for 2021. Because I think there's this huge opportunity here. And frankly, it will help the retailers weather the storm a lot more effectively.

 

Andrei  

Okay. I tend to go back to this e-commerce aspect a lot. But from the retailer side, what proportion of the retailers because we talked a lot about groceries, but then you brought up the laptops and tech accessories as well. What is a split on Flipp at the moment, just so I can ask, so I can identify if it's the right question to ask or not? So you have the grocery stores, and then you have the other ones, what could be a proportion.

 

Shane  

I don't have the proportion right off the top of my head. But what I can say, across all. So I would say a good portion of our users is going to be grocery focused. However, we've got really great content coming in. So we work with all of your major Home and Garden, both sides of the border. So Home and Garden electronics, General merchandising. So across the board, we've got their content, and we're surfacing it. So it depends on the specific user that's in there. So we'll have users that are going to come in and be very focused on just that weekly grocery shop. But we've also got a lot of users who are coming in and trying to figure out what new fridge they would like to buy. And so you're going to get that into your electronics or Home and Garden. So we've got the content from across the board. And we'll continue to do so. So I  think we originated very much on the weekly shop. But it's definitely seeing the utility and you bring somebody in, they're interested in groceries, but then they find out Oh, I can get all this too. And we give them access to everything.

 

Andrei  

Okay, so this question be more looking at that side of the business, you know, like stores that are not so geographically sensitive? And the question is something like it is a more complex question. But yeah, they surely run their marketing and advertising. They have them, digitally, probably have remarketing campaigns and things like this running online on, social media, maybe Google as well. In which way, is there an opportunity for them to integrate with a platform so that they can facilitate the sale for something that they know, a user of the app manifest interest towards? Is there currently connectivity here? Or are you guys planning to do something like this? Is there a demand from the retailers?

 

Shane  

There's definitely a demand for better like closed-loop testing generally so that they can do better sales attribution, and that's kind of across the board. So when we work directly with a merchant, we will depend on the specific elements of that relationship with them. We do have analytics, that kind of thing in behind, where we will work with them to set up how we can do proper reporting, how can we help them with attribution in order to provide that additional value so that they can understand conversion. How many people are going to store our geographically focused apps. So we do understand a little bit of the geography of the people moving around, so we can close the loop in a few different cases. So that is definitely something that is of interest. There are Other ways that we can do that. So for example, if you click on an item, and there is a spot that says shop now, where you can go straight to the website, build a cart, and then we can see that they've converted on a specific item. So we do have opportunities that we can use. And we work with some of our retailer partners so that they do get that measurement and are able to show utility in that. So we definitely have some of those integrations in play.

 

Andrei  

Super. Okay, this was an insightful marketing rep, let's go to operations. So I know that you work a lot with millennials, and you've been in contact a lot with this sort of demographic, let's say. One thing that I would be keen to hear your thoughts on, would be not only working with millennials, and actually implementing processes in this environment, but also, more specifically, have you worked with many millennial marketing teams before?

 

Shane  

So first off, in the interest of full disclosure, I am not a millennial, I miss it by just a couple years. And I'll be honest, coming into Flipp, this is the first time that I have not been one of the younger people in an organisation. Most of my other stuff, I was either starting out, or I was in a fairly established organisation where I was probably one of the younger people at the table. So to your question around have I worked with a lot of millennial teams, in marketing, in particular, I would say no, when I worked in marketing, for example, it Maplelea Foods, I would say there were a few people who are a couple of years younger than me, but early, early millennial and a lot of the tropes that come along with millennialism, probably hadn't landed at that point. So I would say this would be the first time what I would say, though, about working with them, on the whole, and this isn't just from marketing, this should also be from my ops folk, one of the things I love about the generation is the drive for impact. And I think that's really true of the marketing folks, too, as things have changed, like when I first started out, you were happy to have a job. And you did what you were told, and you were excited that they gave you money for it. Whereas now I think there's more of an expectation that, yeah, I'm going to work. But from your side, I'm expecting you to come to the table and invest in my growth and development, I need you to make me better. And I want to do something that's meaningful to me, I want to do something that drives my own passions. I'm not just here to check the time clock. And one of the great things about this generation as a whole is if you can really tap into that, all that extra discretionary effort that, you know, I'm going to go above and beyond and do these things. They're so interested in that because they're so driven. And if you meet them, and I look at employment as a handshake, it's two sides, you know, you've got the employee, and you've got the leader coming together, and you both have to meet in the middle. And if you come to the table and you do your part, those people are going to put in the effort, they're going to do the work, they're going to find that extra insight, they're going to do that extra drive because they're excited about the work. And they're excited about their opportunity to have an impact. So that's been big learning around trying to figure out how to really engage that. I would also say a couple of other things that have been interesting here would be the concept of authenticity, both from the purpose of the people you work with, but also from the brand. I think it's important for the millennial group to feel like the people are talking to them, are being open and transparent. They're not used to that command and control. Like when I started out it was again, here's what you're going to do. Why? Because I told you and now you've got to tell them and that's great because that authenticity gives them a chance to push back and say, Well, what about this? What about this? And they don't have time, the EQ is much higher. They don't have time for bullcrap. And so you've got to come to the table and sometimes be vulnerable, and say, I don't know the answer, what do you think and whatnot. So that has been another change in terms of working relationship, but then also from the brand. So everything is played out over the last year, because obviously we've seen some big changes on the social side around diversity and inclusion, and some bad things have happened. And it is brought to light some very important discussions that need to be happening. Well, working in an organisation like this with that demographic of that age group. They want to have those conversations. They need to have those conversations. And they need to know that you as an organisation are authentically coming to the table and trying to address that and that you as a brand represent certain things. So, for example, coming out of some of the work or some of the stuff last year, we've got an outreach team internally, and they wanted to do some work to highlight areas around mental health due to the pandemic, or to highlight some of the workaround Black Lives Matter. And so we helped to give them a forum to that. But that's because that's something that's important. And so you as a brand need to stand for, and this was our way as a brand to try and stand for that.

Andrei  

Okay, what works well for you, or if you have any processes or things that you're doing internally, that maybe you implemented or you together with the team that made this millennial ecosystem that they work well and stay motivated and stay on track and stay curious in marketing but also in other departments.

 

Shane  

I would say one of the big things that and I'd love to say we've landed the plane, but we are still trying to land the plane on this is we're trying to do a much better job of the cross-functional communication and being a lot more deliberate and intentional about it. We've definitely run into situations in the past where even within the marketing team, you get so caught in the day to day that you can get a bit siloed. And so you'll have a team that's working on some really cool brand, comm stuff, that's not really talking as much with the team that's doing an acquisition, like there's a little bit but not as much as it should be. And so we're not getting kind of an end to end experience. And so I think one of the things we're working on right now is doing a much better job of kind of thinking through how all of those pieces come together. And it's little tactical things. Like, we've instituted some different weekly meetings and giving people more of a forum to talk about this is what we did this week, this is we're going to do not a full Scrum methodology, but kind of that takeoff of making sure that we're having those discussions. Another thing that we're working on is, we want to make sure we're providing better opportunities for things like shopper empathy across the broader organisation. So when we understand things about our shopper, our user, making sure we're getting that stuff out, we're communicating more broadly. And so people understand the strategy and the way that we're doing things. And a final thing that's worked for us because we've grown a lot like we're, we're a few 100 people right now. So we're a big enough organisation, and especially with people working from home, right now, it's a lot easier to not know what the person in the next room is doing. So we've started trying to within the marketing team, bring in other teams to kind of present. And so for example, we did a pitch, we brought in a couple of our external-facing teams, and they came in to show us, here's how we pitch flip to a merchant. And these are the things that they're looking for. And so from a merchant empathy perspective, it was fantastic. Because all of a sudden, you're sitting there and saying, Oh, well, this bit of research that I've already done like six months ago, would really help that slide. And so it does a really good job of helping make sure that you understand that there are things outside of your own walls that you can contribute to you can add to, and you have empathy. This is why these salespeople look like they're so tired. They've been dealing with this. And, and it's fantastic because it's allowing us to be better marketers because we have a better understanding of kind of the end to end value chain here. So a lot of little things like that, and just ensuring that the communication is clean and cascaded. And we're giving people the benefit of knowledge.

 

Andrei  

Awesome. Cool. Shane was awesome catching up today. I was just looking at the time now. And it just flew by. It was really insightful and really fun as well. Now tell us, where can people connect with you? Maybe I mean, if there is an opportunity for people in other geographies, if you guys plan an expansion anytime, you know, this year or next year. And also for the people that are in your geographies, how can you help them how they can help you, you know, just to facilitate communication further beyond this episode.

 

Shane  

Best way to find me as a LinkedIn is actually really the only social media that I do. Welcome to not being a millennial, I spend more time on LinkedIn and pretty much anything else. So that's where you can find me in terms of kind of interest in the app if there are retailers who are interested in coming on board. We've got some inbound opportunities through flipp.com. And so you can go on there, we've got some corporate information there. And people who are interested, there's a lot of information there. And for those in North America, download the app play around. It's a really cool app and gets you lots of access.

 

Andrei  

Super cool, Shane, a pleasure having you today on the show. Thanks a lot. For all the insights for being here. Have an amazing year ahead. I'm sure you guys are gonna are going to keep doing great. And let's think that you guys if you have any questions for myself or Shane, as always feel free to reach out either to Shane directly or to me, and we'll make sure to, you know, transfer everything and see if there's anything that we can help you beyond the inside here would be happy to right chain. Perfect.

 

Shane  

Sounds good.

 

Andrei  

Okay, and until then, everybody has an amazing year ahead. As always, keep up the good work and positive vibes on and Happy Shopping.

 

Shane  

Cheers. Thank you.