Harley Finkelstein, COO of Shopify, discusses how COVID has dramatically sped up the timeline for commerce moving online and has also moved Shopify closer to its goal of becoming the world’s first retail operating system:

Shopify Evolving Into World’s First Retail Operating System

Most people assume that Shopify is an ecommerce provider. We have more than a million stores on Shopify. If you were to aggregate our stores in the US we’d be the second-largest online retailer in America. Of course, we’re not a retailer but we’re a platform. But we now have these great economies of scale that we’re using to level the playing field for entrepreneurs and small businesses. That being said, what really Shopify is evolving into is the world’s first retail operating system. 

What we’re trying to figure out is what do brands and entrepreneurs and retailers need, not just now but in the future? We think the future of retail is retail everywhere. A brand that’s going to be successful in 5, 10 or 15 years from now needs to sell across any platform and across any channel where they have customers. This idea of enabling Shopify merchants to very easily push their products to the Amazon Marketplace or the eBay marketplace or now the Walmart marketplace, that gives them access to a new set of consumers. The idea is that it all feeds back in one centralized back-office, the retail operating system, which is Shopify. 

Then we’ve gone ahead and asked what else can we do for these merchants? Can we do capital? We’ve now given out about a billion dollars worth of cash advances and loans to small businesses. We’re doing fulfillment and we’re doing shipping. We’re increasing the scope and the relationship that we have with the million stores on Shopify. This is allowing them to become category leaders.

COVID Speeds Up The Ecommerce Revolution

From our view, it seems like the commerce world that would have existed in the year 2030 has really been pulled into the year 2020 (as a result of the COVID crisis). We’ve seen ecommerce as a percent of total retail go from 15 percent to 25 percent in the last three months. That’s the same growth rate that we’ve seen over the last 10 years. What really has emerged here is sort of this tale of two retail worlds. On one side you have these resilient retailers that are doing great, they’re pivoting, and they’re expanding their businesses. On the other side, you have these resistant retailers who have not made it. In many ways, it’s probably the most exciting time for retail in a very long time. 

We talk a lot about these direct to consumer brands that are becoming category leaders. The Allbirds and the Gymsharks who started on Shopify when they were very small and have grown to become the incumbents in their industry. Every 25 seconds a brand new entrepreneur makes his or her (products) for sale on Shopify. We talk a lot about those new startups, those new DTC brands. But actually, what we’re also seeing on Shopify are companies like Lindt Chocolate or Heinz ketchup or Chipotle. They are signing up for Shopify and basically from like five days from contract to launch they are completely changing their businesses. 

This resiliency isn’t simply in the hands of just the smallest of brands. Big companies are also beginning to think a lot more about how to stay resilient in this time. They’re moving well beyond ecommerce or thinking about offline commerce now. They’re thinking about how do they sell across social media? How do they sell across different marketplaces? So no, I don’t think it’s too late (to enter ecommerce) but I do think they have to rethink their strategies.

Harley Finkelstein, COO of Shopify, discusses how COVID has dramatically sped up the timeline for commerce moving online and has also moved Shopify closer to its goal of becoming the world’s first retail operating system:

Shopify Evolving Into World’s First Retail Operating System

Most people assume that Shopify is an ecommerce provider. We have more than a million stores on Shopify. If you were to aggregate our stores in the US we’d be the second-largest online retailer in America. Of course, we’re not a retailer but we’re a platform. But we now have these great economies of scale that we’re using to level the playing field for entrepreneurs and small businesses. That being said, what really Shopify is evolving into is the world’s first retail operating system. 

What we’re trying to figure out is what do brands and entrepreneurs and retailers need, not just now but in the future? We think the future of retail is retail everywhere. A brand that’s going to be successful in 5, 10 or 15 years from now needs to sell across any platform and across any channel where they have customers. This idea of enabling Shopify merchants to very easily push their products to the Amazon Marketplace or the eBay marketplace or now the Walmart marketplace, that gives them access to a new set of consumers. The idea is that it all feeds back in one centralized back-office, the retail operating system, which is Shopify. 

Then we’ve gone ahead and asked what else can we do for these merchants? Can we do capital? We’ve now given out about a billion dollars worth of cash advances and loans to small businesses. We’re doing fulfillment and we’re doing shipping. We’re increasing the scope and the relationship that we have with the million stores on Shopify. This is allowing them to become category leaders.

COVID Speeds Up The Ecommerce Revolution

From our view, it seems like the commerce world that would have existed in the year 2030 has really been pulled into the year 2020 (as a result of the COVID crisis). We’ve seen ecommerce as a percent of total retail go from 15 percent to 25 percent in the last three months. That’s the same growth rate that we’ve seen over the last 10 years. What really has emerged here is sort of this tale of two retail worlds. On one side you have these resilient retailers that are doing great, they’re pivoting, and they’re expanding their businesses. On the other side, you have these resistant retailers who have not made it. In many ways, it’s probably the most exciting time for retail in a very long time. 

We talk a lot about these direct to consumer brands that are becoming category leaders. The Allbirds and the Gymsharks who started on Shopify when they were very small and have grown to become the incumbents in their industry. Every 25 seconds a brand new entrepreneur makes his or her (products) for sale on Shopify. We talk a lot about those new startups, those new DTC brands. But actually, what we’re also seeing on Shopify are companies like Lindt Chocolate or Heinz ketchup or Chipotle. They are signing up for Shopify and basically from like five days from contract to launch they are completely changing their businesses. 

This resiliency isn’t simply in the hands of just the smallest of brands. Big companies are also beginning to think a lot more about how to stay resilient in this time. They’re moving well beyond ecommerce or thinking about offline commerce now. They’re thinking about how do they sell across social media? How do they sell across different marketplaces? So no, I don’t think it’s too late (to enter ecommerce) but I do think they have to rethink their strategies.

Brand growth expert Austin Brawner of Ecommerce Influence interviewed Justuno CEO Erik Christiansen about conversion optimization:

Retailers Should Focus On The Last Mile

Conversion optimization is the same as it’s been for a while. People still don’t want to focus on the last mile. Finally, in 2020, we saw that shift when advertising got so expensive. Everyone is like, okay, we have minimal budgets, how do we stretch them? Finally, with all the competition from COVID where everyone’s shifting online everyone, they are saying that we can’t keep just throwing money at this. We’ve got to come up with the real problem.

When we first launched we had to pivot immediately because when we mentioned the word coupon or the word pop-up people just ran the other way. It’s been ten years of education and we’ve kept to the same message of investing in your current website visitors. Our main job still is to educate the online retailer about the basics. We ask most businesses, as you know with email, are you doing a 30, 60, 90 day, the basics? Are you doing a cart abandonment email? You cover the basics and you get so much further ahead.

There’s always low-hanging fruit

Everyone thinks businesses are run perfectly but most businesses are just a mess. What I’ve been trying to do is challenge my team to look at the basics. There’s always low-hanging fruit to improve your business. When it comes to retail, where’s the low-hanging fruit? Let’s break out your business to the basics like new visitors versus repeat. With the new ones, how many are there? What percentage of emails are we capturing? Are we sending those emails to your ESP? Are we putting in the basic workflows? There’s so much low-hanging fruit.

Then, you’re sending these emails, are you reinforcing those campaigns on-site? You spend so much time designing the email, sending it. Then it comes to that shopping cart abandonment. Do you even know how many people come to your cart each day? Do you know how many carts get abandoned and the dollar value? What can we do? The basics are still very much there in terms of opportunity to help people increase their sales lead capture and sales. How do you take one marketing dollar and stretch it as far as you possibly can? How do you also get creative? It’s all about creativity. That’s what marketing is and that’s what retail is. Retail is retailing and getting your hands dirty.

Apple and Google have an undisputed duopoly in the mobile market. Blackberry, Palm, Nokia, Microsoft Windows, and others have all fallen by the wayside, unable to compete with Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android.

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating the companies’ duopoly following complaints from developers “that the status quo is harming their businesses, holding back innovation, and adding unnecessary costs.”

A market investigation is an in-depth investigation that will look at the state of the market and see if competition is being negatively impacted. The CMA has the authority to impose rules on how a business operates, or can even force a company to sell off some of its businesses if they are deemed anti-competitive.

“We want to make sure that UK consumers get the best new mobile data services, and that UK developers can invest in innovative new apps,” said Sarah Cardell, interim Chief Executive of the CMA.

“Many UK businesses and web developers tell us they feel that they are being held back by restrictions set by Apple and Google,” Cardell added. “When the new Digital Markets regime is in place, it’s likely to address these sorts of issues. In the meantime, we are using our existing powers to tackle problems where we can. We plan to investigate whether the concerns we have heard are justified and, if so, identify steps to improve competition and innovation in these sectors.”

Matt Maloney, CEO of Grubhub, discusses with Jim Cramer on CNBC how Grubhub is in the business of driving growth for restaurants and is not just a logistics company:

The American Public Has Just Adopted Digital Ordering

This is our fifth anniversary of our IPO. The market now is ten times what I thought it was five years ago. It’s because the American public has just adopted digital ordering as their preferred way to engage with their local restaurants. We are not just marketing to Millennials. We are marketing on national television across all channels, all time zones, and hitting all segments. We just see that people realize that digitally ordering on their app or on their desktop is just easier.

Of course, our ad campaign is working. I wouldn’t have it on TV if it wasn’t working. You think about it this way. You know your LTV, your lifetime value of your customer, once they start ordering we know that they’re lifers. They’re on forever. We can make that revenue model and then we know how much it cost to put the ad on there. So yes, over time, as people see the ad, more and more it becomes less and less effective. But we’re nowhere near our LTV.

I have always been willing to be extremely aggressive investing in the future. Historically, I was bound by the amount of money I could invest. The reception of these communications just weren’t hitting the public and they weren’t working as well. Then around the third quarter of last year, we saw that we could spend way more than we had historically. I’m just talking about effectiveness. Spending it effectively. We came to the street on our third quarter earnings call and said we see opportunity and we are going long in the fourth quarter.

Yum Made $200 million Investment – They Believe in Our Story

People are going to say where’s the beef, the old Wendy’s commercial. They’re like show me the money. (We don’t have Wendy’s) but everyone talks to everyone in this industry. I think over time exclusivity is just not going to happen. (We have Yum) and Yum is the biggest restaurateur in the world. YUM is an incredible brand which includes Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut. They are very forward-thinking. They invest in technology a lot and they wanted to make a fundamental partnership and we wanted to understand what the brands needed from a partner.

Yum made a $200 million investment because they believe in our story. We didn’t need the investment because we have a very healthy balance sheet. What it did it was really bringing the support of the young brand and the franchisees into Grub. As a tight partnership, we’re able to execute on technology and growth for them in a way that nobody else in the industry is doing right now. I totally disagree (that we aren’t making money from this partnership).

We Are a Marketplace That Sells Demand Generation

We are a marketplace that sells demand generation. We sell growth. That’s what our primary product is. We’re not a logistics company. We do logistics because we know that’s an end to get to restaurant growth and make money off our logistics. The gross margins on the logistics are not fabulous. The gross margins on the demand generation are fabulous which is why I differentiate between a logistics company and demand gen company.

If you’re selling consumers, you’re selling growth and you can charge a lot for that. That’s the profitable side. Everyone else in my industry is a logistics company which has razor thin margins. One of my competitors said they’re the next FedEx. Do you really want to be the next FedEx? There’s the multiple that we can get as marketplaces and there’s the multiple that logistics companies can get.

Everyone Would Prefer to Order Digitally

I think that everyone in the country would prefer to order digitally than order on the phone. That’s why we acquired Tapingo. It’s an incredible acquisition because it gives us further scale on campuses. Tapingo is a pickup focused product. So here’s what you need to think about. We sell growth, we sell orders. I don’t care if that’s a pickup order, a delivery order, a self-delivery order, or a catering order.

Everyone else in my industry only does delivery facilitated by that platform. Because we partner with the restaurants (which means) the restaurants are subsidizing part of our transaction fee, we are always cheaper. That’s what people don’t understand. There’s a lot of bait and switch pricing going on (from competitors).

While businesses have been required to report payments of $600 or more for years, this is the first time that online payment apps have been subject to that requirement. Previously, PayPal and others were required to report gross income exceeding $20,000 per year.

Under the new rule, bar is now lowered to $600. Fortunately, according to Fox News, this new rule only applies to payments classified as goods or services. Money sent to friends and family, gifts, reimbursements, and products sold at a loss will not be included.

For true income, however, users will need to be more careful when filing their taxes, as the IRS will now have a point of reference.

“For the 2022 tax year, you should consider the amounts shown on your Form 1099-K when calculating gross receipts for your income tax return,” PayPal’s Q&A section says. “The IRS will be able to cross-reference both our report and yours.”

Fiserv, a major fintech player worldwide, had a strong earnings report in the second quarter with 129 percent growth in revenue.

Frank Bisignano, CEO of Fiserv, discusses how their Clover acquisition will help the company power their growth going forward. Fiserv announced that they completed their $22 billion purchase First Data which included Clover on July 29:

From Large To Small There’s a Comeback In Payments

Clover is an unbelievable platform. It continues to grow. It serves small businesses. We think it’s integral. Our bank partners love it since we announced the deal. We have 160 new banks that want to be Clover partners with us. It is growing. We talked about a 32 percent growth rate in July in the heat of a pandemic. It’s a tool that we help businesses manage their business through. It’s a great asset to help small businesses. We see it as an integrated solution for our company.

We’ve seen growth with Clover. We talked about seeing what we call internal revenue growth which is driven by transaction volume. We see transaction volume up and there is obviously a large move to e-com. If you look at our Clover platform which has order ahead capabilities and virtual terminal that’s driving that growth. From large to small there’s a comeback in payments and we see growth going forward. There are still businesses coming back in the recovery. Lots of businesses are still working their way back. We’re here to help small businesses grow.

John Copeland of Adobe, predicts that ecommerce spending could be $930 billion, or just under $1 trillion, in 2021:

COVID was a catalyst to the ecommerce channel last year. What we saw when you look at the full calendar year of 2020 was $813 billion dollars in ecommerce spending, 42 percent growth over 2019. That’s like combining two years’ worth of growth into a single year. Consumers have really embraced the online channel to meet their needs during these challenging times.

We’re all kind of wondering what (the vaccine rollout) is going to do in terms of ecommerce. We’re forecasting this year somewhere between $850 billion, only a 5 percent over last year, and up to $930 billion, which would be a 14 percent increase over last year. The 5 percent increase would be if everybody gets vaccinated and rushes out and we see kind of a slowdown. The $930 billion, 14 percent increase, would be more typical of what we see year over year in the ecommerce channel.

Buy Now Pay Later Up 215 Percent Over Last Year

Buy Now Pay Later is very much good for retailers. In fact, what we’ve seen in February this year relative to February 2020, which is kind of on the cusp of the pandemic, is a 215 percent increase year over year in buy now pay later orders. In terms of retailers, it comes along with larger average order values. What we’re seeing is 18 percent larger orders when customers are using that service. Unlike layaway, with buy now pay later you actually get the goods upfront, you don’t have to wait until the payment’s done.

Another trend is Buy Online, Pick Up In-Store, also known as BOPUS. In February of this year, we’re already seeing it growing 67 percent year on year. It’s always been huge and growing during the holiday season but now people are clearly working it in as part of their fulfillment options. Picking up in the store gives consumers the ability to schedule it according to their availability and knowing that stock will be there for them when they want to pick it up.

5G stands poised to revolutionize numerous industries, not the least of which is the financial sector. Like most carriers, Verizon has been moving ahead at full-speed in its efforts to deploy its 5G network.

The two companies plan to use 5G to help “drive transformational solutions for the global payments and commerce ecosystem.” The next-gen wireless technology will help revolutionize new areas of the commerce industry, including contactless payments and autonomous checkout.

In particular, the two companies’ efforts will help advance the use of smartphones for making and accepting payments, providing touchless retail experiences, VR/AR shopping and creating new ways to consume digital content.

“Business needs and consumer demands constantly fluctuate. Critical components of long-term success are the ability to remain agile and align with strategic financial and payments partners that have the tools and capabilities to drive industries forward,” said Sampath Sowmyanarayan, CRO, Verizon Business. “Coupling Verizon’s leading global IP network and transformative 5G technology with Mastercard’s deep industry expertise, leading services and solutions, and a strong commitment to innovate, is a partnership that aligns perfectly with what we are striving to achieve at Verizon and one that can create game-changing solutions.”

Britain’s Competition and Market Authority is investigating whether Amazon and Google are doing enough to combat fake reviews.

Fake reviews have become an increasing problem for online platforms and shoppers alike. As online shopping has displaced brick and mortar stores, users rely on reviews more than ever. Not surprisingly, an entire industry has grown up around providing fake reviews to dupe customers into purchasing products they otherwise may not have.

The Competition and Market Authority is investing Amazon and Google to see if they’re doing enough to protect customers by combatting fake reviews, according to The Washington Post.

Both companies have said they will continue to work with the CMA and its inquiries.

Brian Cornell, CEO of Target, discusses their massive Q1 results in an interview on CNBC:

Digital Performance Up 50 Percent

We’ve had a string of really solid results going back to 2017 but this quarter may be one of the highlights. Our team executed throughout the quarter. We had a great performance from our store teams with a store comp of 18%. Our digital performance was up 50%. It was really a team effort. We had great supply chain support with our merchants and marketers all coming together to support the results which speak for themselves.

We are benefitting from investments we’ve been making for years now. Our investment in our store experience, our curated Home Brand and national brand mix, and then the fulfillment services that we offer. That combined with the investment in our team, I think we are seeing continued strength. We feel really good sitting here right now about our outlook, not just for the second quarter but for the full year.

We’ve Connected With The Consumer

As we gain greater clarity around the consumer, the economy, the state of the vaccine, we feel that the consumer continues to respond to our in-store experience and the ease and convenience of shopping with some of our same-day services like pickup, drive-up, and ship. They really connect with our curation of Great Home Brand, national brands, and the service our team provides each and every day.

We are feeling very confident about our position today. I look at the proof point from Q1, we picked up another billion dollars in market share on top of the $9 billion of share last year. That’s just a sign that we’ve connected with the consumer, we’re building relevance, and we’re providing what they need and what they want throughout the year.

Newness Is A Huge Trend In Our Business

When you see the combination of stores comping up at 18%, which to me is just a highlight number, and categories like apparel growing again by over 60%, that combination of store traffic and category mix really benefited us throughout the quarter. We are seeing a resilient consumer. They’re clearly shopping our stores and when they’re there they are attracted to anything that’s new.

Newness has certainly been a trend throughout our business in the first quarter and I think that’s going to continue. That great combination of store traffic and store comps and the continued movement of same-day fulfillment services which now represent over half of our digital channel. We really like that transaction. It looks and feels more like a store transaction which from a profitability standpoint certainly is beneficial for us.

Shopify President Harley Finkelstein says the rebels―the entrepreneurs and the small business owners―are the heroes of the Shopify story… and the rebels are winning:

We Are Arming The Rebels

There’s a lot to be optimistic about even in the second half of 2021. It feels like the retail world that would have existed in 2030 was pulled back to 2020. We certainly have seen this massive catalyst to an acceleration in digitalization in commerce and retail. But actually, we are writing the future of commerce and entrepreneurs are really the heroes of the Shopify story. We are arming the rebels… the entrepreneurs, the small business owners, the independent brands, and the rebels are winning.

Consumers have been voting with their wallets for the last ten months or so to buy from independent brands wherever possible. In 2020, 47 million consumers purchased from a Shopify merchant. That’s up 52 from 2019. Our merchant’s performance helped expand Shopify’s lead on an aggregated basis to be the second-largest e-commerce retailer in the U.S. Shopify is now about nine percent of all US ecom. If you think about it, Shopify is a proxy for independent retail and for direct-to-consumer retail.

Shop Pay Launches Accelerated Checkout

We only succeed when our merchants do. This has led to us having more than 1.7 million merchants on Shopify. This includes people from first-time entrepreneurs making their first sale every 28 seconds to the likes of O’Neill and Hallmark and Herman Miller and Purina. Diageo, who also just launched in Shopify and in Q4 alone revenue nearly doubled year over year to $978 million. There’s a lot to be optimistic about. Actually, the future of retail and commerce we think is going to look a lot more like these independent brands than these sort of department stores that existed in the past.

Shop Pay is our accelerated checkout. We just announced it last week. We know that it not only helps merchants get more sales, it helps buyers convert better and much faster. Now we think that providing it to the Instagram and Facebook platforms means that our merchants can not only access new customers on those platforms, and frankly anywhere where customers are, but now can transact in a more efficient way. Shopify is becoming far more than an e-commerce provider.

Future of Retail Is Wherever Consumers Are

We are trying to build the world’s first retail operating system, which makes it as easy as possible and where the cost of failure is as low as possible, so more people can participate in entrepreneurship. We think the future retail is not online or offline or anywhere, in particular, it’s wherever consumers are. That’s what we’re trying to build. Seeing Shop Pay move into Facebook and Instagram is a really great way to demonstrate where the future of retail is happening.

We are trying to get to a point where we completely democratize entrepreneurship. We use a 100-year perspective and we want to build a 100-year company. We’re about 15 years into our journey right now and we have 85 years left to go. In the long run, we’re happy where Shopify is but frankly, on the topic of more participation in the equity markets, we think that is also entrepreneurial and we think that’s also democratizing.

“We’re loving the enthusiasm from customers so far—from the photos we see online to the car fans who stop our drivers for a first-hand look at the vehicle,” said Ross Rachey, Director of Amazon’s Global Fleet and Products. “From what we’ve seen, this is one of the fastest modern commercial electrification programs, and we’re incredibly proud of that.”

Ross Rachey, Director of Amazon’s Global Fleet, outlines the company’s electric delivery plans:

“We are reimagining sustainable delivery,” says Ross Rachey, Director of Amazon’s Global Fleet. “Climate change doesn’t allow us to sit back and be passive. We can’t wait. This vehicle went from sketch, to design, to on-road testing with customer deliveries in just over a year. And we’ll build on that momentum heading into full-scale production.”

“Amazon made a commitment to be net-zero carbon by 2040,” notes Rachey. “Electrifying our fleet is going to help us get there. We’ve relied on Rivian’s automotive expertise. We’ve listened to our drivers. We’ve created something that’s at the leading edge of safety technology, that’s better for our drivers, better for the planet, and unlike anything that’s out on the road today. We’ve reset expectations for electric delivery vehicles. And we’re just getting started.”

Amazon partnered with Rivian, leveraging its customizable skateboard platform to create a first-of-its-kind all-electric delivery vehicle. “Rivian’s purpose is to deliver products that the world didn’t already have, to redefine expectations through the application of technology and innovation,” said RJ Scaringe, Rivian Founder and CEO. “This milestone is one example of how Rivian and Amazon are working toward the world of 2040, and we hope it inspires other companies to fundamentally change the way that they operate.”

The current fleet of vehicles was built at Rivian’s studio in Plymouth, Michigan, and can drive up to 150 miles on a single charge according to the company. Amazon has installed thousands of electric vehicle charging stations at its delivery stations across North America and Europe.

Amazon explains it’s ambitious goals:

Along with custom electric delivery vehicles, Amazon is exploring new technologies, alternative fuels, and delivery methods that deliver packages to customers in a more sustainable way. Amazon currently operates thousands of electric vehicles worldwide and is redesigning its delivery stations to service electric vehicles—ranging from the electrical design to the physical layout. Last year, Amazon delivered more than 20 million packages to customers in electric delivery vehicles across North America and Europe and will continue building on that momentum in 2021.

Visa announced in January 2020 its plans to purchase Plaid. While the smaller company is primarily known for a service that allows users to connect their bank accounts to various finance apps, the company was working on a service that would directly compete with Visa’s core business.

As a result, Visa’s move to purchase Plaid, to the tune of $5.3 billion, was widely seen as an attempt to stamp out a competitive threat from a smaller rival. The DOJ was concerned by that, especially given Visa’s dominance in its market, prompting it to file a lawsuit.

According to CNBC, Visa has ended its takeover attempt, a decision the DOJ has hailed as “a victory for American consumers and small businesses.”

Consumer purchasing has underwent major transformation as a result of the pandemic. Record numbers of individuals turned to online shopping to avoid crowds and practice social distancing.

Amazon was one of the biggest beneficiaries of this transformation, as customers turned in droves to the online giant. The company delivered some 1.5 billion electronics, toys, home products, beauty and personal care products during the holidays.

In addition, third-party sellers saw a 50% growth in sales, compared to 2019. Small and medium-sized businesses sold almost 1 billion products via Amazon.

The company’s growth also resulted in hundreds of thousands of new jobs, with the company adding some 400,000 full and part-time jobs in 2020. The company also spent over “$2.5 billion in bonus pay to front-line workers,” as well as donated millions of items during the holiday season.

“Amazonians around the world have truly shown what it means to be customer-centric and support our communities this year,” said Jeff Wilke, CEO Worldwide Consumer at Amazon. “When our customers—including healthcare workers on the front lines—most needed essential supplies, our teams and partners went above and beyond to stock and deliver those items. When it became clear that COVID-19 testing was going to be important, Amazonians across the company moved quickly to build our own testing capacity so we could help protect employees and deliver products to customers. And when customers needed a little extra holiday cheer, millions of employees and partners worked together to deliver more savings and holiday gifts than ever before. We couldn’t be prouder of, or more thankful for, our teams around the world.”

Given the success of online shopping this year, and especially this holiday season, it’s a safe bet shopping is forever changed.

Rodney McMullen, CEO of Kroger, says that customers who engage digitally come in more often and spend twice as much on average as non-digital customers:

Seamless Experience of Digital, Fresh, and Friendly

Every day our associates are taking care of our customers. We’re continuing to make progress on the things that matter on a seamless experience… digital, fresh, and friendly. When you look at the things behind the numbers continuing strong trends. If you look at the things that we’re doing it sets us up well for the fourth quarter and sets us to continue to gain share in 2021 as well.

One of the things that our customers are telling us is they’ve learned how to cook, they enjoy cooking, and they enjoy the time together as a family. Also, I think the economy continually will continue to be a little bit soft which will cause people to eat at home more as well. Both of those things will continue to provide support (for increased sales).

Customers That Engage Digitally Spend Twice As Much

Obviously, we’re anxious for the vaccine to get here and to get widespread use of it just like everyone else is. We were making great progress in gaining share even before COVID 19 started and we expect once things get back to normal we’ll be able to continue to gain share as well. We can’t wait until a vaccine gets out there and it gets widespread usage.

I really believe our teams will continue to take care of our customers and the seamless experience will tie it all together. What we find are customers that engage with us from a digital standpoint also continue to enjoy coming into the store. They also spend about twice as much with us. When you look at those things together I really feel optimistic about the future.

Joe Erlinger, President of McDonald’s USA, says that the Travis Scott Meal promotion is helping but their latest earnings results are actually powered by improvements in digital, drive-through, and delivery:

Digital, Drive-Through and Delivery Powering McDonald’s

I know everyone wants to focus on the Travis Scott Meal and Spicy Chicken McNuggets which definitely contributed to the fantastic September that we had. But the setup for this great quarter actually started much earlier in the year. Our drive-throughs have been getting faster at McDonald’s. We’ve made a lot of investments in digital and drive-through and delivery as well.

Then really we made a lot of changes to our business model as the pandemic set upon us including over 50 changes in operations. We limited our menu and we’ve made our restaurants easier to run. At the same time, we conserved some of our marketing funds. We began to unleash those marketing funds in the third quarter. That’s what set up this great result of 4.6% double-digit comps in September.

Breakfast Is BACK At McDonalds

When we entered the pandemic we had reversed what was a long-term trend of negative guest counts. It’s been lost in the results of what happened in the epidemic. But in January and February, we actually had positive comps at breakfast and positive guest counts. It goes without saying that we don’t sell the Spicy McNuggets or the Travis Scott orders at breakfast and we’ve obviously seen positive comps across all dayparts.

So we are actually very optimistic about the daypart. We’re excited about the bakery launch that’ll take place later this month. We’ve got a real built-in advantage on this because of our drive-throughs and just because of our overall convenience factor. I like the characterization that yes, breakfast is back at McDonald’s.

Mood Amongst Franchisees Is Strong

Franchisees did come into this in a position of absolute strength. In fact, 2019 was the highest cash flow year ever for our franchisees. Some of the steps that we took through the pandemic both to support them in terms of their liquidity but also to make the operations of the restaurant easier (helped significantly). We actually improved margins at the restaurant level as well.

They’re actually coming out of the worst of the pandemic in a very good position and in a very strong financial position. The mood amongst our franchisees is strong. I was in restaurants uh in Washington state a few weeks ago. Last week I was actually in Washington DC. There’s a lot of optimism confidence as we enter the fourth quarter.

Mark Tritton, CEO of Bed Bath & Beyond, after releasing their earnings report discusses how the company is driving success by leveraging digital with frictionless brick and mortar stores:

Doubling Down On Digital

Our (6 million) new customers coming on board are about six years younger which is great news for us as we expand our customer profile. The key to that is our omni-always strategy. We talk about understanding our customer, how they shop today, and this was pre-COVID. Even more important, we know that 80% of our customers pre-shop online and either purchase there or go to store.

We had a really broken paradigm. We had a fantastic digital business that was very large. We did about $1.8 billion last year. We already beat that by this time this year. We’re large, but we are growing. We really doubled down on that digital aspect. But we weren’t easy and we weren’t convenient. Life’s tough at the moment and you really want to make it simple, easy, and frictionless for our customers.

Stores Are Key To Profitability

So we looked at our website and our integration with our stores which is an ability to leverage our store asset and connect those strongly to an omni environment. It’s really worked out. The introduction of BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store), curbside, and now same-day to really facilitate ease and frictionless shopping starting with digital or in-store, wherever the customer wants to go.

We know that if we have a digital side that is BOPIS, curbside, or same-day, our margin is actually equivalent to a store. We are driving behaviour, driving engagement, and driving those three assets. That’s helping to leverage out our gross margin. As we rapidly expand our digital business the stores are a key to this profitability.

Nigel Vaz, CEO of Publicis Sapient, discusses how the current pandemic has forced organizations to reimagine their businesses digitally. Nigel works closely with clients such as McDonald’s, Nationwide, and Unilever to deliver transformative experiences and business models:

Digitization Has Become Existential For Business

I think Digital has always been important for business. Now more than ever what’s becoming very clear is this has gone from being something that’s important to something that’s existential. How do you support customers to make orders entirely online when your stores are closed? How do you create mashups with other partners to be able to facilitate deliveries when your own deliveries don’t suffice? How do you try to create experiences online through self-service that minimize the impact of people calling your call centers? 

All of these things are things clients are facing on a regular basis. Most CEOs I’m in conversation with are acknowledging the fact that this has now got to be a priority, that they have to be ready more so than they’ve ever thought before.

3 Key Things Happening With the Transformation

There are three things happening here in terms of transformation. The first is the change in human behavior where I think there’s a recognizable shift now. We’re seeing significant accounts of over-70s, for example, ordering from retail and ramping that up. We’re seeing a big shift in institutions like schools and educational institutions, which historically had not thought about transformation as particularly applicable to them. 

We’re also seeing a shift in industries like leisure looking at creating virtual experiences since physical experiences are essentially restricted and people can’t use them. The human behavior shift is translating to big investments in technology and technology platforms that enable this. 

Businesses Being Reimagined In A World That Is Now Entirely Digital

Then lastly, new business models. There’s a real recognition that digitization and transformation are not doing what you used to do in the physical world. Digitizing that and translating that is essentially the journey of going from being a caterpillar to a butterfly. Real transformation. How do you reimagine yourself in the context of a world that now is entirely digital?

Customers are thinking very actively about how they actually create products and services that essentially create value for customers entirely digitally. There are plenty of examples in this from telemedicine and from the educational space with new courses coming online which can scale faster than traditional courses limited by a classroom and a professor.

Oliver Chen, Retail and Luxury Analyst at Cohen, and Michael Baker, Managing Director & Senior Retail Analyst at D.A. Davidson Companies discuss how ecommerce and physical stores are integrating:

What We’re Seeing Is the Integration of Bricks and Clicks

What we’re really seeing here is the integration of bricks and clicks. Target really hit the bull’s eye on their numbers. What stood out really was 195 percent ecommerce growth and using stores as hubs or fulfillment centers, particularly drive-up curbside pickup and reinventing the purpose of the store to integrate the whole shopping journey. What’s happening is that America really values convenience and Target’s done a great job being America’s easiest place to shop.

Thinking about physical, mix with digital and instant gratification, same-day fulfillment has been a big deal. Customers want it all. They want physical, they want digital, they want groceries and hard lines. We’re also seeing this at-home revolution with home electronics doing really well too. These are all key themes. As retail continues to evolve this whole fulfillment and stores plus digital will continue to be a huge theme.

Ecommerce Is No Longer a Bad Word

The key is that ecommerce is no longer a bad word. If you think back a couple of years ago if you mentioned ecommerce the idea was to short all retail. It took some of these retailers a while to understand the investments in technology that needed to be made. But they’ve done it using the stores as assets instead of liabilities.

Again, if you go back maybe five years ago the idea was if you had a store you’re in trouble. These companies through their technology investments have really proven that’s not the case. I do believe that investing in technology to drive your sales and your earnings is certainly the right thing to do for these companies.