The Future of Retail Webinar 2025: What Consumers Really Want

Erica Maki:
Yeah, anything surprising there for you?

Matt Dieters: 
Not surprised with the push with technology and also with AI, just so much has changed in the last year with what you can do in your business, and so figuring out how to stay current with that and what you can do with Square and other tools, I think is not surprising. Definitely excited to talk about brand loyalty and building that with customers. I think we're going to cover a lot of those things today as well as some of the other topics too.

Erica Maki:
Great. We'll let everyone grab their mouse and vote on the poll, but so far it looks like the technology piece is leading the way.

Matt Dieters:
We can talk about today's findings. So what we're going to do is really focus on these findings from this report that Square ran, which is the future of retail. What we did is we surveyed about 4,000 consumers to identify emerging trends and growth opportunities. What was particularly insightful is that it didn't just tell us what consumers want— it also revealed some of the disconnects between their expectations and what retailers are currently delivering today. So we think that these gaps can really represent new opportunities for your business. 

And so at the end of the event, you'll have access to that full report by a downloadable link. But our panelists today are going to go through some of those findings with things that they're doing with real-world applications in their own businesses. 

So our first survey finding is about in-person experiences. We all know online shopping is here to stay, but we also crave those in-person tangible experiences as consumers. So unsurprisingly, eight in 10 consumers told us that they too enjoy physical store experiences and just as many retailers are telling us that those experiences are critical for their own future growth and keeping up with competitors. Elizabeth, I'd love to turn to you first. What are you experiencing at BlackLine?

Elisabeth Emory, Founder, BLACKLION:
Absolutely. Thank you so much for including us in the Future of Retail. We are Black Lion. We're a gift and home furnishing store located in Chicago, Illinois. And what we're finding is that consumers, although the internet is huge and online shopping is huge, consumers still really want to sit down on the furniture. They want to see things in person, they want to feel things and understand the scale of items and how they're going to fit into their homes. One of the things that we wanted to do when we opened our store here in Chicago because we are in an opportunity zone, so there's not a lot of retail around us, was to also look beyond it just being a retail store and to use our stores as a space where people in our community want to come and connect. So for example, we just hosted a Jack and Jill Girls of America annual meeting at our store, and that brought in 30 to 40 new customers that we might not have reached otherwise. And it also allows us to create some events to connect with groups of consumers that may not necessarily be able to see our ads or that our ads are not targeted to reach.

Matt Dieters: 
Yeah, it feels like running those events in a physical space is a real advantage there. It's such an authentic way to build that community while also kind of creating awareness for your products at the same time. 

Karl or Clark, what are you finding works well for you and the experiences that you're creating for your customers?

Clark Hudmon, Owner, Barn Owl Garden Center:
Yeah, just like everything Elizabeth hit on, it's always been a priority for us to focus on the community. I think when you look at your online competitors and your big box, that's one thing that us as small businesses can really take advantage of. We can show that time, let people know that we care, and with that, you just listen to what your community wants. 

So within the last couple years, we started a farm share with our local farmer's market. We work with a few farms in the area and kind of bring the staples that people have been getting every year and have them try it. And then within that, that creates a dialogue doing stuff like sharing recipes and doing stuff like that. 

We're about to open a cafe, a specialty coffee cafe within our store. We're really excited about that. We think that's just an extension of what we do, and that's just kind of taking the time and kind of creating that space where people want to come and just either catch up or have problems with their plants or just get a good cup of coffee.

Karl Ramsey, General Manager, Hi-Lo Liquor Market:
Yeah, just like Clark and Elizabeth said, people do like to go somewhere. You can get a lot of things online, but you do want to sit on a couch in person. Can't do that virtually. And yeah, you want to actually be able to see the plants. 

We're a beer, wine and spirit store and our products, yes, you could get them online, but we found that we're being part of a neighborhood. The neighborhood likes to come in and have a spot where they can get to know the associates that are experts in these products. So it's not so much about what we're offering, but it's more about this atmosphere that's come about. 

I mean, we employ locally, we feature local products and there's kind of some excitement about that. There's a camaraderie with our customers. We even see people that buy and wear our branded clothing, so that's kind of fun. So yeah, all stores are selling stuff, but there is an element of hospitality that goes beyond basic customer service and it creates a connection. And if customers really feel like that, they like your team and they're part of the community with you, then they're dedicated and they rely on you just as we rely on them and they keep coming back.

Matt Dieters: 
I love that. Karl, Ron, is this what you're seeing in the market being reflected as well?

Ron Thurston, NRF Retail Voice of 2025, NRF:
Yeah. Thanks, Matt. The interesting part, brick and mortar retail, and I love the stories that are already being shared. If you go back hundreds of years, it is about community. That's the intent around why businesses started, why retail has thrived and still contributes. Seventy to eighty percent of all brands, their revenue is generated in stores. 

And so it is about community and connection and storytelling and immersion and education. And so I think the best in class retail brands are those that are on this call today and those that really think about their community and what it needs. So if it's local events, it's ideas around storytelling and books and content creation and this idea of how do you not just become a place where you buy stuff, but it is about this idea of continuing to contribute in a meaningful way beyond just creating a sale. I think this is one of the most challenging and exciting times in the history of retail of how we actually do that today with technology.

Matt Dieters:
And when you're advising different retailers and they're trying to design an in-store experience, where do you see things go wrong or right?

Ron Thurston: 
Yeah, it's interesting, Matt, because as many of us probably do on this call, attend a lot of the big trade shows like NRF and Shop Talk and they're filled with hundreds and hundreds of incredible vendors from all over the world. And right now the kind of iteration on AI and new technology of how you can use it is probably at peak replication. 

And so often the misstep is around the excitement of how do I then choose these tools? What is the integration into my business? How will this create more efficiency? How will this create loyalty? And so sometimes it's just investing in tech because someone tells you that you should or that you think it could be fun or exciting or you get a free trial. 

But the real opportunity as we're talking about on this call is really about frontline teams because that human connection, the power of the frontline, the learning and development that's required, the pride and the power of the people who work in stores certainly far exceeds anything that technology can replace. So the continued growth of technology tools are really meant to enhance the experience for employees and the customer not to replace us.

Matt Dieters:
Yeah. So let's next go onto our next question where I found that increasingly more retailers are diversifying the revenue by adding non-core product offerings. That's like hosting a class or selling a subscription, maybe adding merchandise if you sell food or food that compliments some of your core products. And what we're finding in this trend is also quite popular with consumers. Eight in 10 surveyed consumers told us that they're interested in trying new things and new offerings at the businesses that they go to regularly. Karl, what's your experience at Hi-Lo Liquors? Are you seeing new opportunities to expand beyond your core offerings?

Karl Ramsey: 
Yes, and like you said, people do tell us, they tell us all the time what they'd like to see next. Everybody, if you invite people in to be a part of it, they're going to say, oh, what would be even better? I got another idea. And so we're listening to what our customers are saying. They're asking things like, is there going to be a food truck tonight? We have some pop-up sometimes with food collaborations. They asked us if we could start a wine club, which we did. So we do. We rely on them to help gauge what is the demand, what is it that we should next invest in? So we rolled out a loyalty program to reward customers for coming in multiple times and to get a small discount on certain purchases. Our wine club is now in its third month. We have pop-up events that support other businesses, and in doing so, we have partnerships. We had a comedy night recently with some local comics. So it's really about listening to customers and then seeing, well, how can we implement those ideas?

Matt Dieters:
Yeah, it sounds like you've really created this community and they really trust your taste and look to you for really new opportunities and experiences. Clark with Barn Owl, what are you exploring? What are you seeing?

Clark Hudmon: 
Yeah, I mean to roll off what Karl was saying, offering these non-core offerings for us is just our customers wanting a reason to come in and see what's going on. So by giving them these things, for Mother's Day, we created custom bouquets that they just can pop in and grab and catch up. Like I talked about, we have this subscription service with our farmer's market, and my coworker, Hector has worked really hard on the backend with Square and has put our entire plan inventory. So now that allowed us a capability to quickly and design landscape stuff where before in May, my hair would be on fire trying to figure this stuff out. Now last week we got a few quotes out in the middle of our busiest month. So it's just kind of always being top of mind with our customers is a super important thing. And yeah, exactly what Karl said is listening to what they want and just being that, and Ron touched on this too, and just being kind of a resource where they can kind of escape and get away is super important for us.

Matt Dieters: 
Yeah, it's also great how you use new technology there to make your business more efficient too. And when you're trying out these new tests and experiments, what we're seeing with other sellers on Square, they are using bundling and subscription strategies and they're using that to even look at ways to more stagnant inventory or kind of expose customers to products that maybe they hadn't considered before. Ron, what opportunities are you seeing for retail leaders and sharing with them?

Ron Thurston: 
Yeah, I think it's so interesting the stories because a lot of it is so emotion based, but the reality is there's also great data and financial reasons to create community. And I'll just share that about 10, 11 years ago, I was part of the team that helped launch and create the men's brand Bonobos. And the retail concept for Bonobos that is still alive and well today is the guide shop. You can't purchase anything in the guide shop. It's entirely rooted in experience teaching men how their clothes should fit. It is about building this kind of community around a retail brand that is also rooted in a great product. But the financials of why this is important is customers that shop in store typically spend twice as much as they do on a website. They shop more often, they're more loyal to brands. Some of this sounds really just more fun, but I would actually say financially there's a massive investment in doing this well to build loyalty and deliver success for your brand.

Matt Dieters:
Love it. As we think about the next set of findings, what we're finding is it confirms that what you're likely all seeing in your own businesses right now, people are becoming more and more cautious with their dollars and they're seeking out value, but at the same time, retailers are having to increase prices. And so it really requires getting creative and looking for new ways to convey value beyond pricing just alone. Elizabeth, what's your take on these dynamics?

Elisabeth Emory:
So we have about 180 brands that we represent under one roof in our store. And within those brands we have items that are priced from a dollar to $10,000. And one of the things that we really pride ourselves on is having these high low options similar to what Karl's got going on over there, but really having something for everyone, attainable price points for folks. And for us right now, tariffs are a huge question mark as they're for the rest of the world, but in the coming months, we're hoping to figure out how we can lean on different brands both domestically and internationally to make sure that we can get our consumers the most bang for their buck. And at the same time, we're still seeing that consumers are willing to spend, if they're investing in a new home and they're looking for new furniture, while they may not be buying as many things as they were purchasing before, depending on what's happening in the economy, they are still looking and interested in investing in quality pieces. So sometimes what we're seeing is less is more, or one great quality piece instead of 10 other things that they might be putting into their space.

Matt Dieters: 
Yeah. Karl, speaking of Hi-Lo, what are you finding?

Karl Ramsey:
Yeah, similar to what Elizabeth says, we have a lot of different products and our approach is similar. We have diversity in our pricing, diversity in the products, our dash in the logo. It's extra long and it's meant to highlight and to signify that we have both products high and low. I mean just very simple as that, but also to indicate our diversity and connection, trying to connect really all the community. So we accommodate a lot of budgets. Now, a lot of the products that we sell, they're luxuries. Obviously they're not absolute necessities, and we might have a hard time justifying that in the coming months. We'll just have to see. But at the same time, I agree with what Elizabeth said, the perception of value isn't just about the price, it's about the quality of their time that they're spending and who they're supporting. So people are still coming in and they're still buying. We're very fortunate that we built great relationships with our communities where we have our stores, and that's where we find our true value equation. We're just happy to keep coming into Hi-Lo.

Matt Dieters:
Yeah. Clark, how about with you?

Clark Hudmon: 
Yeah, I mean we've kind of carved a little niche out for ourselves, but with that, it puts a lot on my coworkers and myself to understand, educate ourselves, know everything, the different routes so people can come in and they understand what they need and can trust us and trust our expertise. And we tend to find that because we have that knowledge and they trust us with that, they're less likely to go price shopping for other things, and it's for them, maybe it's more justified that something may be five to 10 percent more. And moreover, when they see the same people on the same team, we keep kind of hitting this community aspect. But when they know those folks and they keep coming back to see those folks, there's more than just, did I save 25 cents on this organic herbicide? It's more like I caught up with Bobby, I trust her, glad she's doing well, and I'm going with the solution and that feeling that I really got a part of something.

And on the other end, we pride ourselves on having really quality products and we pride ourselves on educating ourselves on those products. And I think it's fair for us as retailers to demand and expect the same thing from those brands that we're selling. So kind of making sure they have our back and understanding that and they understand what we're trying to do to promote them. And I think we all have limited space on our shelves. So I always think it's important for us to make sure the product we're selling matches the brand we're also selling. And I think that's super important too.

Matt Dieters:
Yeah, this continuous theme of building this community and then building the trust within that community and that they trust that taste and the things, the value you bring to them. So really interesting. And Ron, how do you advise retailers right now to navigate this tension between these tighter wallets and higher prices?

Ron Thurston:
Yeah, I think that the model that's being described here is one that has existed for decades in the highest end of luxury. So you think about brands that are extraordinary at storytelling, and I've had the pleasure of leading a couple of those brands that've expanded into North and South America and the stories of store design, where is the marble sourced? What is the story of every product? Why is it the price that it is, the craftsmanship, the history behind every piece, every luxury brand you spend all of your time on product knowledge and then learning how to storytell that product knowledge in a way that converts into potential a sale. And that's exactly, now we've taken that model and said, how do we apply that into furniture businesses and into floral and into liquor? And every business can actually learn from what has worked in luxury for a long time. And I think that's when we all get better is when we're sharing best practices or go into those brands and say, how did I feel? What was my experience? What did I learn with no intention? I see in the chat luxury brands, I ran Saint Laurent. So I think that the idea here is what you can learn and then how do you apply that in the same idea?

Matt Dieters:
It's like we're trying to make customers feel like they're getting more, not just paying more. And so I think that was something you had said in the past, Ron. And so what are practical ways that retailers can do that?

Ron Thurston: 
Yeah, there's a few basics that I think apply to all the first one, which has come up: tiered value. So if you think luxury, it's the entrance often into small leather goods, key chains into more medium priced and then to the highest end of luxury or couture. And so there's this sense of entry into the brand through storytelling and you get pieces of it and when you're ready, you move forward. So I think every successful brand has a tiered price and product offering. What's really I think become more important is membership and loyalty, whether that's in credit card, whether that's in gaining access, early access, things that you can do to continue to get your customer to come back in. As I mentioned, that customer that's coming back into your store is likely to spend more money than they do on your website and shop more often and actually more likely to tell their friends and family about your brand if they're shopping in a store.

And then lastly, just some of this is perceived value. Why is it this price? And certainly what Elizabeth said around tariff and price resistance. It requires all of us then to be even better at doing this and saying, if we're honored to be able to be in business and you being a customer and here's why you are important to us and here's how we share the importance of this brand or what the value that you're purchasing, and maybe they've purchased fewer of the item yet how they remember the experience is going to be the number one reason why they come back.

Matt Dieters:
Those all feel really practical and ways that we could start experimenting now. So thanks for that. So maybe moving on to our next survey, finding a direct conversation is going to be the best way to build rapport with customers, but I know for many it feels like email and SMS are those few spaces that it's still a little too personal to use, but interestingly, consumers don't mind hearing from businesses or sharing their data if we're using that to improve their experience. At least the survey show that seven in 10 consumers told us that they wanted personalized experiences informed by their previous purchases. That means alerts, notifications, invitations to exclusive events. They were all seen positively. Are you all doing anything with personalization using email or texts? Elizabeth, have you tried things? What have you learned?

Elisabeth Emory: 
So at Black Lion, what we are experiencing is that people are craving human interaction. They want a great experience. And one of the things that we've gotten back to in terms of getting back to basics is just one-to-one texting, building relationships with our customers. And that's been a huge game changer for us. They often text us directly for guidance. They see the same face that they're interacting with on the phone or on email. And so when they come into the store, and so compared to our North Carolina store where we had much more foot traffic, texting our customers in this store where we are in this opportunity zone and where we're in an area that doesn't get as much of that, it's allowed us to really build these great one-to-one relationships, which has a huge impact for us.

Matt Dieters: 
Imagine. Karl, what have you seen with Hi-Lo Liquor?

Karl Ramsey:
Yeah, like Elizabeth, we have the best interaction is that personal interaction. Sometimes on the phone, we don't have texting, we've been talking about that. We have some one-on-one interaction via Square. Some customers directly go through Square and post questions or have comments. We send a weekly newsletter through Square, which is very convenient. It's curated to each store in each neighborhood about what's going on event wise. So that keeps people up to date and people look forward to that. They get flooded in their inboxes with things, but I find that that people will, they decide on what they really want to spend their time on, and so they look forward to seeing things like that. So yeah, feature in our newsletter, products, promotions, things that are happening in those areas. And I have to say, as it was brought up earlier, using this technology saves us some time and it does give us the opportunity. It gives the whole team an opportunity to rely on that for information, dispersing the information, and then they can spend their time one-on-one on the phone with somebody or in the store talking to them. So that's one area where we feel like the technology has helped freeze us up a little bit to have interactions then,

Matt Dieters:
And I subscribe to the newsletter next time I go down to Southern California. I can't wait to try a high level liquor. It's pretty enticing in how you use that. Clark, what are you doing at Barn Owl?

Clark Hudmon:
Yeah, I mean, we have our weekly email, which it's been pretty successful for us. We try and we have our sales in there, but what we try and do is bring something that'd be interesting to them. For example, every week I'll write up something about a plan of the week that I find interesting historical context where you find different things that, and that [have been successful]. So that's not necessarily a direct sales driver. The other piece that, and I want to drop Hector and give him credit again, he worked incredibly hard to put our entire plant inventory on the backend of our POS, which then we utilized our website for online sales. We didn't do this because we thought it would drive online sales. We did this because we believe people tend to search for things before they go in, so they get an idea of what our store is. And in our world, we're kind of a featherweight, so it allows us to look bigger and punch above our weight class and to show who we are and our loyalty program through Square has been phenomenal.

In the past, we would have to use sales or other drivers to get people to our Mother's Day weekend. We didn't utilize any sales at all, but just promoted our loyalty program and we saw people really respond to that. And where we do things like two times points, stuff like that, that really gets people excited and I think they enjoy that exclusivity. And we've done a couple text message campaigns. It's kind of like the fire extinguisher that we break the glass just to see, and I was super nervous about it, but Matt, everything he hit, we got a super positive reaction. But our farm subscription and as well, we did a Valentine's Day bouquet and the return on investment on that was crazy. I'm honestly a little nervous to use it too much. I know we all get, I got fatigued last fall with how many texts I got, so I don't want to be that person. But the times we have used it, it has been really successful.

Matt Dieters:
I think what's really interesting there too, it sounds like you're just trying to experiment in a lot of different ways, and it seems like it's working in a lot of different ways as well. So it's just more to that idea of trying something and experimenting with it. Ron, these are a lot of really interesting ideas, but what have you seen work at scale for personalized communication?

Ron Thurston:
Yeah, Matt, it's a hot topic. The whole customer data platforms that are continuing to evolve, continue to add new technology. Again, this is where AI has really taken off at scale at enterprise and said, what can we learn about customer's? Email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, shopping behaviors, and you're tracking your cookies and being able to learn more about the customer and then target them. So this kind of idea of segmentation and personalization actually has become one of the most important conversations about loyalty and because you do what's right for the customer at that time. The other shift that sounds like it's not happening for some of the other brands on the call is email open rates continue to decline overall as an industry. So if they're not opening your emails, you have to find other channels. Maybe it's through chat on your website, it could be between text messages and other avenues. There's so many ways to communicate, but you have to do what's right for your brand, that doesn't feel invasive, that feels authentic, that tells a story that continues to create loyalty. And this is where trade shows and things like NRF become so important because you can learn a lot about a lot of these different technology solutions all in a matter of one day. So I would encourage people to check those out when they can.

Matt Dieters: 
Yeah, lots of things that we could try. If you had to pick or prioritize one or two experiments or use cases, where would you focus from?

Ron Thurston:
Yeah, I would certainly lean into any kind of text. SMS, I know it's come up here, Clark said SMS fatigue for sure, and we will reach a drop off point of where emails stopped being open. Text will also stop being [opened], but it's today, it's still a hot communication channel. The emails around post-purchase I think are really important because you also have the ability to capture customer survey experience. And so you start to build NPS scores where you have a real deep understanding and things that then trigger events, special occasions. I love that Clark said that it was a non-promotional Mother's day. Marketing doesn't have to be price conscious. It can be about events and special occasions. I would say those three SMS, anything around post-purchase in order to trigger a potential survey, which can be a very simple way to respond. And then just anything related to special events.

Matt Dieters: 
Yeah, there's so many seasonal opportunities. Mother's Day, going back to school. And I think all these ideas boil down to really recognizing that the buying behaviors of our customers are really fluid. Their expectations are constantly changing and shifting. And so to really stay relevant here, retailers have to be profitable, you really have to think about how to quickly adapt and change to those behaviors of customers. Looking ahead, how do we translate all these insights into gains or ideas for our audience today? It'd be great to hear from each of you, one big takeaway you have for our audience to plan their next move. Maybe Clark, we could start with you.

Clark Hudmon:
Yeah, I mean, something that I always echo in my head is that my goal isn't to be the biggest, it's to be the best product or the best. So I'm not going to sacrifice what I believe in and what we're all busting our asses to do is to create a great thing and what got us into this. So what are those core principles? And just always hold yourself accountable to that. We always have to make, we always have to wear a lot of hats. There's always different fires in the kitchen that we have to put out. I would always recommend sticking by your core principles. You kind of put yourself in this position and you bet on yourself for a reason. So just kind of remind yourself why you've made that bet and to kind always hold yourself accountable. I think when we do hit success and we do find that it's way more rewarding to kind of know that you took that path, and I think we kind of keep hitting on it. We have a lot of super cool unique businesses that I'm kind of seeing in the chat, and I would love to know that origin story and all that stuff and just kind of be proud of what you're doing and kind of stick to your guns.

Matt Dieters: 
Love that, Karl.

Karl Ramsey:
Yeah, yeah, I agree with Clark. Biggest is not always the best. I mean, sometimes just in striving to be successful in business, sometimes you just overshoot it and you just start thinking about the money and the notoriety, the success, and that ends poorly most of the time. So I have to agree. Yeah, look back at the core principles. Why did you get into business? That's what we always ask. That's what we always remind our team about too, about being part of the community and having a hospitality, like a spirit of hospitality, like you're inviting someone into your own home and being honest because yeah, we will even point people out. You might, yes, of course you will find this one a little cheaper down the way, and they appreciate that honesty. So yeah, we always examine why we are in business and we just remind ourselves of that so that we can grow in a natural way without pushing it. We rely on word of mouth, we rely on our community seeing us and seeing us as a trusted merchant, a trusted friend. So sticking to these principles really does pay the dividends in the end, and so that's what we focus on in our marketing messages, in our social media presence. And so far that's worked out.

Matt Dieters:
Yeah. Elizabeth, what do you think about a big takeaway that you'd suggest for the audience?

Elisabeth Emory:
Well, for us, data backed experimentation's been really transformational for our business. And the one thing that we love about Square is that it really gives us real time data so that we can measure the impact of everything that we're doing in real time. And an example of that is in our North Carolina store, before we moved it here to Chicago, we had a seven day a week model. And with technology like Square, we've been able to take our seven day a week store and do the same volume of business in a three day work week. So our stores only open on the weekends. We really wanted to break the rules and figure out how do we do the same kind of volume, but in a shorter period of time so that it does free us up as small business owners to be able to either spend more time with our customers and help them find those things that they need and help them make their homes beautiful sanctuaries, but also it gives us some time to find that balance in this kind of crazy entrepreneurial world that we're living in. So we have a super lean team and things like being able to connect everything directly into QuickBooks or being able to use Square Marketing allows us to automate some of those day-to-day functions that we would normally need a much larger team to manage all in one platform. So that has really been just groundbreaking for us and freed us up to be able to do the best things that we are the best at.

Matt Dieters: 
I think everyone would love a three day work week. Ron, how do you think about staying ahead of this curve?

Ron Thurston:
Yeah, I love what Elizabeth said around data, using data, and I think this is where you think about small businesses using data doesn't have to be an expensive investment. So any retail brand should be thinking about traffic counters, conversion rates, conversion rates by day, conversion rates by hour so that you can understand operating hours of business. Or maybe we don't need to be open seven days a week. You use data on units per transaction or average dollar sale versus your e-commerce business or dwell times in stores and then use data on your teams and understand their employee experience. You have the ability to then make smart decisions about your business using data and balance that against your gut of ask, spend time speaking to your customers, spend time, even maybe more time speaking to your team, what do they need? So there's always this balance in my experience of what does the data tell us what's the smart decision because the wrong decision can be really expensive. And then what's our heart tell us? What are our emotions bringing up that we need to balance? And it's never one or the other, it's both. It's always both. And brands that lean too heavily into emotional decisions sometimes suffer financially. On the other side, brands that use too much data and don't ask enough questions also suffer. So every business, no matter your size, I think has the opportunity to do that even better.

Matt Dieters: 
Yeah, those are all great insights. What's clear and strikes me is how you all have found success by staying true to really core values that are coming through your stories here, and also just being nimble enough to experiment and try new approaches constantly. Really, that's kind of the end of our discussion for now. I'd love to turn it over to some of the audience questions. Erica, let me toss it back to you for the Q and A.

Erica Maki:
Sounds great. Well, you know what question is coming up first, Elizabeth from Augie, can you share more about your three day week model? How did you make that possible?

Elisabeth Emory:
Absolutely. So we have only been in our Chicago location for a little about two and a half years now. But what we recognize is that our business is very seasonally driven in terms of when we're doing volume. The holidays are a huge time for us. That's where a majority of our volume comes throughout the year. And then there's other times where you're doing spring transitions and people are redecorating and refreshing their homes. And so we have a lot of history there in terms of our business being nearly 30 years old now. And so we just started tracking from the minute we opened our Chicago store, what were those key days that we were selling? What were the critical times throughout the day? Then we also tried three days a week being open by appointment that allows us to control our time. And what we found from studying the data was that really we could drive our traffic with the right advertising and the right messaging to the times that we wanted people to come to the store.

And so we've been fine tuning that. So we started at four days to begin with being open to the public, and then we take January off. That allows us time to reset our store to go to the markets to find fabulous new products for our consumers, and to also take a little bit of rest time after the holidays because it is our busy season, as I mentioned. And then after looking at our numbers and everything and realizing that we were able to shorten that this past year, we moved it down to three days a week. We now have Sundays off as a family and we have several other businesses going. So those days that it freed up being open 10 to six, most of the work week has really been game changing for us. It's given us a lot of time back to be able to focus in some other areas that we want to focus on. So I'm happy to, if people want to connect with me afterwards and talk more about it, happy to work with you on that.

Erica Maki:
Awesome. Yes. And Ron, I think this one is probably in your court. Can you elaborate on how retail leaders should evaluate potential investments or changes in their business?

Ron Thurston:
Again, very data driven. So any kind of private equity investment or friends and family rounds. Where is the business, where did it start? Where is it today? Where do we see certain trend lines? What are the opportunities? Do as much homework as you can in advance before you feel the need to get that investment. But often the investments that are generally asked for in my experience, are with the goal in mind of opening more stores. And before you do that, use all of your customer data. Here's another way to use it and say, well, where are they shopping on e-commerce? Or if I reference back to when we started Bonobos and built that, it was an e-com early D to C model first. And so by the time we decided to recreate a business model and actually get investment, it was because we had all this information about ‘where's the customer’, ‘where are they ordering from’, ‘how much do they spend by city’, ‘by style?’ So you have all this insight and then you're ready to go and say, now I know exactly what I want to do, where I want to grow and how to get there. And often that financial investment is the way to do that. But when you're very clear on your goals, that's when it's time to make that happen.

Erica Maki:
While we're on the subject of data, I'll share this question here, Matt. I think this one will be for you wanting to hear more ways about how to use Square specifically to capture more customer data and personalized offers.

Matt Dieters:
Yeah, there's a couple different capabilities that we have. We have the Square Directory to where we capture customer information at checkout. You can segment customers based on purchase history and visits and spend. You can take customer notes and preferences. You can use all that. And if you've recently seen our Square AI, now you can go in and you can just ask questions around who are your top 10 customers or what are your top customers buying right now? And try to just play with the AI built inside of Square that we've just recently launched, and you might find new ways to kind of identify potential customers and how to create segmentation lists, which I think we've talked a lot about when it comes to using data to figure out who to reach out to and with, what it kind of offers. We also have Square Marketing where you can create the targeted emails and tax campaigns. And then with Loyalty, Square loyalty, there's ways to track customer purchases and reward repeat buyers.

Erica Maki:
I am going to tag onto that question. It kind of goes together here, Matt. Rachel's asking, which reports would you look at first in Square? And we may be showing this in our quick Live Demo a little bit too. So hey, stay on for that, Rachel.

Matt Dieters:
Yeah, I'd probably lean on that unless Karl or Clark and if you have ones that you go to. But I mean, I think that there's lots of different reports in there that you could kind of leverage, and I think maybe the video might be the best way to show what those all are.

Karl Ramsey:
Snapshot labor versus sales, easy to glance at right away. And then product item history, also easy to just look at right away. Just if you want a quick idea of what's going on with labor versus sales or an item's transfer history or sales history, one thought. Love it. Karl.

Erica Maki:
Karl had those reports right on the top of his tongue. I love it. 

Karl Ramsey:
I look at 'em maybe too much, but sometimes obsessively.

Erica Maki:
Okay. Let's see. I'm not sure who wants to take this one, but what loyalty programs are you, do you currently have in place any lessons learned or best practices that you could share with the audience? Clark, did you have a loyalty program in place?

Clark Hudmon:
Yeah, yeah, we do. We kind of go with the point system. We've changed the name to ‘Their Feathers’, Barn Owl, which is kind of cool. And then the only other little thing we've done, which we've noticed is the more points you save, we make it so the math is more advantageous for you to save more points, which then, they could get up to $80 off at our store. But to be honest, we took the lottery strategy where it makes more sense for you to take that money right away, but more people like to stack that stuff and they tend to come back more when they do it. And then it is kind of fun where this is with all these stores, it's like their happy place. So then you have $80 to buy something you've been saving up for. So it kind of feels like when I was a kid at the bowling alley and you were saving up the tickets for that one toy, and that's basically it.

And then running the reports, like Matt said, then identifying our good customers and maybe sending them an email and just letting them know Square has the loyalty app, and I've noticed a lot of customers use it and we've been able to customize it, so it kind of looks like that. So folks track it as well, but we don't overcomplicate it too much. We've tried with other platforms to make a really complicated gamification loyalty program, but we found that it's just confusing for the customer and to kind of almost keep it simple and make sure those rewards are easily understandable. And then the only other thing we do to try and get more information as we offer bonus points, how Squares works is just a phone number. So if you give us the rest of your information, we'll give you pretty much that $5 off. So now we have your email, your name, and we can kind of help tag that and then kind of curate a better experience so it's not too crazy. And it's kind of just keeping it simple for your customer sanity, but more so for you and your team's sanity. But yeah,

Erica Maki:
I love points and love to spend the free money, so I'm a sucker for that. Let's see. We're coming close on time. We're going to share a couple of demos. Matt, any questions that you see that you want to grab that we didn't get to yet?

Matt Dieters: 
I don't have the list in front. I'm sorry. Okay, gotcha. Perfect. But maybe we can follow up afterwards on a few of the top questions. 

Erica Maki: 
Sounds good. There was a one question about, I think we have time for this, and I am not sure if this is a good one for you, Elizabeth, but what is your approach to inventory management given supply chain and uncertainties? And you mentioned tariffs. Have you changed your buying patterns or stock levels or anyone else who wants to chime in on that one?

Elisabeth Emory:
We haven't necessarily changed our stock levels, but we are looking closely at what we're buying and specifically, I mean, I'll give you an example. We got an invoice the other day for 54% tariffs on, which was more than basically the cost of the goods. So we are just taking it day by day from that perspective and trying to figure out what brands we can lean on so we can help consumers, like I mentioned before, get the most bang for their buck. In terms of inventory management though, we do have 180 brands in the store. And so without Square, it would require a massive team of people to help us manage all of the different items and all of the different categories that we offer. So we are huge fans of [Square’s] Inventory Management and being able to have a visual inventory as well when tags get misplaced or whatnot. 

Erica Maki:
Awesome. Well, we are, I don't know how this time went by so quickly, but we are almost at the end of our time for today. But if you're able to stick around, please do. We'll play a few quick demo videos to show you and we can walk you through The Square platform. If I can talk. We'll show you how to use Square Analytics, which we mentioned to make informed business decisions and how Square Directory helps capture customer data so you can personalize customer experiences and run tailored marketing campaigns and more advanced inventory management features like what Elizabeth referred to. And if you do need to hop off, we want to thank you for joining today. We will share all of this in the recording, so keep an eye out for that. And we'll share The Future of Retail Report where you can see all of this data and more.

And then we do request, if you'd like to request a demo, there's a little button at the top of your screen. Just wanted to point that out. And then one more thing, I will launch the survey before we wrap up today. We'd love to get your feedback on topics that would be helpful for all of you in the future and feedback on today's session as well. But with that, let me jump in and let's have a look at Reports Directory Marketing and Inventory Management. So we will take a look at that and speakers, we'll just jump off the stage. I am going to start a quick little demo video.

Demo:

We have a number of sales and inventory reports available directly on the Square dashboard. All these reports are trackable in real time and as well as exportable and printable going to specific inventory reports. Our first report here is our cost of good sold report. In the case where you do have variable unit costs, this report is calculated based on first in First out method, and we'll give you total cost of good sold revenue, profit and profit margin. So the projected profit report here will show unsold inventory that you have on hand and give you your total inventory value, retail value, projected profit and profit margin. Inventory by category is a spinoff of the projected profit report. Potential profit on categories is displayed here, and this is a great place for sellers to make comparison of stock items vendor sales report here. So this will break down your gross sales and net sales per vendor.

The inventory sell-through report will help sellers to keep tabs on how quickly they're selling through items. This report will show their sell through percentage sales velocity, what they have on hand, what they sold last sold, last received into stock, out of stock on order inventory. And you also get some action buttons. So if you want to order more, view the purchase orders, apply discounts, create a marketing campaign, reprice the item, or edit any low stock alerts. The aging inventory report will help sellers keep tabs on products that have been sitting in the store for an extended period of time, tying up valuable capital, occupying precious shelf space, and incurring any additional carrying costs.

The sales summary here shows how you can apply a range of filters to your reporting. You can search by certain date frames, timeframes, locations, and export to Excel as well as additional filters. The data provided in this report include gross sales, net sales payments collected, as well as your net total sales trends. The report also allows sellers to compare sales to previous time periods. So if you want to compare day over day, week over week and year over year item sales report shows the sellers your top and underperforming items, as well as in category sales. It shows your top and underperforming categories.

Payment methods will break down the payment methods that you are accepting. Team sales can also break down your gross sales and net sales per team member, as well as if you're looking at sales per hour. Tips and commissions. Taxes will break down your tax names and your taxable item. Sales versus non-taxable item sales and your discount report here will break down anytime a discount was applied, manual or automatic, how much was discounted, and you'll also be able to see the items that were discounted. Managing customers is easy with the customer directory. Sellers can make the customer directory as hands-on or as hands-off as they would like it to be. Each time a payment is collected, it'll be attributed to a customer profile or creating a new customer profile if it does not already exist. So within the customer directory, we're able to view top spenders, see most frequent visits, see who last visited.

So let's go into Martin. Here. Under Martin's customer profile, we can see we have a name, email. You could also keep a phone number and address. And you can see Martin is also part of customer groups, so he's an email subscriber part of our regulars. We can see if he is subscribed to marketing. He can also keep a payment card on file. He can enroll in Loyalty via his phone number. If we need to send messages to Martin via Square, you can add any notes on the customer. So any notes on Martin, any preferences, any favorite items. And we can also keep any files. So any images, PDFs, we get is a buyer's summary. So frequency visits, average spend, total spend, frequent items that Martin purchases and an activity log. So we're able to pull up all past purchases, Marketing, Loyalty, activity that Martin has with our business. You are also able to filter the customer directory for free. So if you want to filter by certain attributes for when they last purchased, categories they purchased, items they purchased, total spend, purchase count. You can also use those filters to create customer groups. And those customer groups then can be used to create email or marketing campaigns within the customer profile. You can also create customer groups. Smart groups will automatically add or remove customers to groups based on filter criteria, and sellers can also create groups that require members to be manually added.

Demo:

Today I'm going to walk you through how to create a one-time email blast campaign or set up email automations. You can use Square Marketing to connect with your customers across many different objectives, such as welcoming them, sending them a newsletter, or bringing back laps to customers. If you want to set up a one-time blast campaign via email, you would go to the Square Dashboard, tap on Square Marketing, tap on Create campaign, select the email channel, and then follow all of the different steps in the email build flow. The first step is choosing an objective. We have various predetermined objectives here for you to choose from. Let's say today we want to reward top spenders. Next you would go to the design and use all of the different elements that we provide. You would design your email and then move on to the next step, which is selecting the audience.

There's many different ways to select an audience. You can import your entire customer list. You can use the smart groups that we provide or create your own groups. Finally, you would review the campaign schedule for later or send. Now, similarly, if you want to set up an automation, you would go to the marketing homepage, tap on automation, tap on the email channel. We provide many different objectives for automations such as welcoming your new customers, rewarding regulars, and bringing back lapsed customers, which is our most popular one. So here, for example, every time a customer purchases a month and a half after, if they haven't come back yet, we send them an email on your behalf with a coupon encouraging them to come back. That's it with Square Marketing. It's that simple to stay connected with your customers. So try today and start driving more sales.

Now we're moving to the Square dashboard, which can be accessed from any browser. We'll walk through how to create items and manage your inventory from your dashboard. Sellers can perform all item management functions on the dashboard. To add new items, you can either upload them via CSV file or create using the tools on the dashboard. In this create item view, you're able to add items using existing barcodes, build item bundles, price, and assign vendor information to your items. The actions button here also does allow you to use our import export tool, generate SKU numbers, print barcode labels, and transfer stock between locations.

Going to inventory management, you do get an inventory history report, so anytime something happens to any stock, it is recorded here. Sellers can always return here to see what happened when it happened, and who did what action. Stock counts are available to view on the dashboard that are in progress or in review, as well as completed in the review. You're able to see the variances in count and variances in cost. Once that count is confirmed, your inventory will automatically update. Purchase orders can be created on the retail point of sale, as well as the dashboard. You can use them for ordering inventory from your vendors. Once those purchase orders are marked as received, your inventory will automatically update transfer orders. If you are transferring inventory between locations, you are able to put in your source location and destination location. Once that transfer order is received, inventory will be deducted from both locations. Vendors here will have your vendor catalog, and as you assign your vendors to your items, you are able to pull up an item library per vendor.

Erica Maki:
All right. Thanks so much for sticking on with us. We still have quite a few people here, over a hundred of you. So hope you found some interesting tidbits in the demos. I know Karl is even backstage still watching the videos. And Elizabeth, thank you for joining our panel today and Clark, Ron, Matt. Thanks all. Hope you have a great rest of your week. Thanks for joining us.