Commerce Outsights
March 25, 2024
What’s next for fashion, the latest in consumer loyalty, the power of brand, and a fancier approach to marketing measurement.
Hello, and welcome to Commerce Outsights—Nebulab’s bi-weekly collection of the best reads, listens, and tools from the world of retail, e-commerce, and DTC.
After a few somewhat monothematic editions, this week’s email is quite the grab bag: we’re talking about the future of fashion brands, what works in consumer loyalty (but mostly what doesn’t), Google’s open-source Marketing Mix Modeling tool, and the real-world Commerce Protocol I’ve been longing for.
Have fun!
Does your brand need help with strategy, design or development?
For over a decade, we’ve been shaping, launching, and scaling shopping experiences for category disruptors such as Cometeer, Framework, and Huckberry. No matter where you’re going, we can help you get there.
Thought provokers
The Problem With Loyalty Coalitions is the Word “Loyalty” (12 mins). Loyalty program coalitions are one of those ideas that make sense in theory but are close to impossible to execute in a way that resonates with the average brand. Brand ecosystems (what Aleksija calls “customer acquisition communities”) are an interesting alternative.
What Even is a Brand Universe? (9 mins). It always feels good when I make up a word for a concept and then find that someone else, somewhere else, has found the exact same word for the exact same concept. This is part 4/12 of a brilliant dissertation about what’s next for fashion brands. If you have time, read the whole thing—it’s brilliant.
Elite yet ubiquitous (3 mins). I happen to think that holding two contradictory beliefs is—not always, but often—a sign of intelligence. Which is why, after years of advocating for commerce as a form of art, I’m proud to present to you a very well-written argument in favor of the contrary. Tbh, I would still argue that all commerce is art: some experiences are just more accessible than others.
Goings-on
🔒 How Zara Is Beating Shein (8 mins). I wouldn’t exactly describe this as a David-vs.-Goliath situation, but this was still oddly satisfying to read, and it reinforces one very simple concept: brand matters. It always has, and it always will. The trick is in redefining what brand means. Bonus: Ana Andjelic also wrote about Zara’s operational, product, and brand strategy.
How to tackle measurement as Google rolls out open-source marketing mix modeling (5 mins). With marketing attribution becoming more complicated due to Apple’s ATP+ITP and Chrome’s deprecation of third-party cookies, brands are looking at alternatives. For most, it entails shifting from ROAS to MER; but for the more sophisticated operators, Google has released Meridian, their open-source Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) toolkit.
#280: Starbucks Sunsets Odyssey (6 mins). Odyssey was the poster child for the Web3 x commerce community, so it’s sad to see it go. With that said, Odyssey has always been an experiment—its shutdown says very little about the state of Web3 loyalty (it’s still immature and a long-term play) and much more about Starbucks' priorities. Dreamers, keep on dreaming.
Tool of the week
Editor’s note: We don’t accept sponsorships for this newsletter. All product recommendations come from our consulting team.
Boson Protocol. If you’ve been following my writing, you’ll know that I’ve been kind of obsessed lately with the idea of a Commerce Protocol—a standardized interface to represent the trading and ownership of digital and physical assets. Well, that’s exactly what Boson Protocol wants to be. I doubt this will have an immediate application for most of you, but it’s still, like, cool to learn about. Shoutout to our CTO for sending it my way.
You might have missed...
🎙️ We've been podcasting! Check out my interviews with Tim from Your Basket Is Empty about Web3 and ecommerce and the future of agencies.
❤️ I published a post on our blog about how to build loyalty programs from first principles, rather than just doing what everyone else is doing.
🎨 Davide, our Head of Design, published a post about how we do design audits, and when might be a good time to do one.
🌱 I shared my take about the Impossible Foods rebrand and the role of purpose in building a consumer brand.
🤓 Alberto, our CTO, has been writing about some of our favorite GDPR compliance and next-gen loyalty tools.
Does your brand need help with strategy, design or development?
For over a decade, we’ve been shaping, launching, and scaling shopping experiences for category disruptors such as Cometeer, Framework, and Huckberry. No matter where you’re going, we can help you get there.
That’s it for today!
If you’ve come across any interesting articles, podcasts, or tools we should check out, you can email us at [email protected].
See you in two weeks! 👋