hello so I was 12 years old and my mom
said we are going to New York to go
shopping so we get to New York and it
wasn't your usual shopping trip we drive
up to this huge building and I later
come to learn it's the Jacob Javits
Center and it's the New York
International Gift Show and so we're
walking aisle after aisle and the reason
we were there was to buy Bat Mitzvah
favors wholesale of course and so after
each aisle there's all this stuff right
and I look at my mom I said you can shop
for a living so I was 12 I knew what I
wanted to do when I grew up and so I'm
going to tell you about how I created my
dream job so I could shop for a living
so fast-forward a couple years and I
moved to New York and I get an apartment
in Chelsea on 10th Avenue and I walk up
and down 10th Avenue over the years and
say someday I'm going to have a store
and that day came about 14 months ago
it's 2,000 square feet it's on tenth
Avenue and 19th and it's a physical
store so imagine this imagine a space
that has the point of view of a magazine
it changes every four to eight weeks
like a gallery and it sells things like
a store very easy and low maintenance
right so if you're going to have a brand
that changes all the time now we need to
know what it's going to be called so we
called in Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica
Walsh and we needed a brand that was
engaging in versatile so of course it
should be called story but if you're
going to change all the time how do you
have an identity so they're masters at
that and there was our identity so love
story was our first story we've had
wellness story we've had making things
story we've had home for the holidays
story all in all we've had eight stories
so far in 14 months so today's talk is
about this idea this idea that I
stumbled upon that I'm calling retail
media so we know media that's the cover
of in styles color issue last year and
this is the cover
our issue which is our store so what do
I mean about retail and media well you
have editorial so our version of
editorial is the merchandise that we
sell and we curate around a story or
subject matter and then the events that
we have to bring those to life and then
our version of publishing is we sell
sponsorship brands pay us money to have
their name in our store and be part of
the conversation what do I mean I mean
when we had a color story we brought in
Benjamin Moore and here's the thing
right if people are buying billboards TV
ads there's media everywhere why are we
not buying media in retail and why can't
it be cool and relevant in part of the
story Benjamin Moore knows a lot more
about color than I do so in the magazine
you have your letter from the editor you
have your merchandise that they tell you
you need to go by you have ads in our
store you have editorial ads on the wall
this is a company that does sells
t-shirts and then adjacent to that we
use other products to help tell that
story and really what this is a
conversation about is content Commerce
and community not because they're the
sexy hot buzzwords of the moment but
because I feel very strongly that both
in media and in retail these three core
values and content elements need to need
to exist so just out of curiosity how
many people have heard of quirky just by
show hands and just curious okay so I'll
tell you what it is so it's an amazing
company it's all about making adventure
and accessible you have an idea for that
product you can never find but you're
never going to make it and then you
submit your idea and if enough people
like it then they make it so when we
sold our product in our store we made
sure that we did it in a way that was
relevant to a physical space but true to
the brand so we told the story of the
inventor behind the product and we took
it out of its packaging and you could
touch it and play with it and see what
it did content this is something that's
actually in our art story right now it's
a crossover case that goes on top of
your iPhone and there's 13 different
colors and over a hundred and fifty
variations so our designers created a
table to show most a bunch of different
variations and then you could make your
own and then to go full circle
quirky comes with a video camera
captures people playing with it and then
brings that story back online and then
the third piece is community in this
this is near and dear to my heart and
something I don't know that I would have
seen as being as important as it as it
has come to mean for me
so in our store we did an invention day
and so instead of just putting a
computer there for someone to submit
their ideas in the same way they could
do at home
we had illustrators there and so you
tell them their idea and they'd sketch
it live and then they'd scan it into the
system and it would meet all those other
online submissions in community for us
takes many different forms and it's
really it's this isn't about online vers
offline but they're both part of our
lives and we've spent so much time
focusing on online community and online
business models but we still live in
real life so MX is in beta with this
community and platform for entrepreneurs
to share ideas and what not and so to
that point right we shop online we shop
offline well tech companies get beta in
a test period to work out the kinks why
can't we so I had the lease but I didn't
have the trademark and I didn't have
inventory but I couldn't let the Real
Estate sit there so we launched in beta
and we called ourselves a startup store
and we sold stuff from startups and then
what did we do we took that same idea of
MX's online community and created an
offline community with 50 different new
york tech entrepreneurs other examples
of community events that we've had in
the store this was our New York story a
hella bitter mixology class one of my
favorites this is Nona she's an Italian
grandma from Staten Island who came and
taught people how to make fresh pasta
and so at the end of the day there's
only so many people you can fit in a
space so uh what we do is we have
different online partners who help us
get the word out but also continues the
conversation in other forums and also
engages people who aren't in New York so
this was skill share and the message
went so far is to Texas into this email
from Teresa who asked she come to New
York for 24 hours to a book event at a
store because she liked Chicano
and she was following our store and she
did and if someone ever told me that
someone was going to get on a plane from
Texas for 24 hours to go to a store I
wouldn't have believed them but it's not
about the store it's about the
conversation and it's about the
community and our community looks very
different it depends on the day and it
depends on the story
this was another New York story in our
neighbors who came and set up a lemonade
stand for $0.25 lemonade very profitable
none of us know this couple personally
but they felt very tied to our brand and
after they got married they came to our
store so they could have their picture
taken so this is stuff that I'm
passionate about and I got to thinking
right like when something works why is
it working and what are people
responding to and if you think about
retail and the metrics in physical
retail right sales per square foot
that's all you hear that's all you've
ever heard but we have all these
disruptive innovative amazing business
models online so why can't we do that
offline and why can it be about
experience per square foot and who's to
say we can't get revenue in dollars
elsewhere so perfect example is we did a
making things story with General
Electric so 25% of our store this little
moment you see here is merchandise in
seventy five percent was non saleable
experience it was injection molding
machines laser cutters CNC mill very
sexy stuff and people could make things
all day every day and so when you stop
and you think about about this model and
a lot of people say well who's your
target market so it's really really
narrow it's men and it's women and it's
children and they're between five years
old and they're between 80 years old and
how can that exist it's really because
we're a dating service and we're just
using storytelling as the matchmaker
between brands and consumers how does
this apply to CNC mills and
five-year-old children well the internal
name I call this event was pimp your
pumpkin and we laser-cut like mr. Potato
Head type figures so kids could make
pumpkins and then how do you get women
excited about this stuff well one word
is handbags
so we had Rebecca Minkoff come and
laser-cut a handbag we ran a social
media contest and someone came and want
it and then the guys we had lots of
stuff for the guys too so that's kind of
who comes in and out of our our store on
a daily basis and and we look at how we
can tell stories not just through
community and these experiences but with
these different partners how we can
integrate content so you're reading it
and laughing because this is one of my
favorites nerve was our sponsor for love
story they had just relaunched their
dating site and for those who can't see
it it's more or less I hope the whole
cougar thing is in vogue when I'm old
enough to be one and then we took their
online dating profiles and put it in our
boudoir so people could stumble upon
them and then depending on the story we
write we find the right format to
communicate it so we have a partnership
with a company called perch which
projects on surfaces and makes it
interactive like a website we also have
old-school editorial where this is our
letter to the editor for our holiday
issue our holiday as she was a gift
guide that came to life in a store so
instead of going to 40 stores you could
go to one in like a website we had
navigation in the form of lampshades
this was our men's study we had
subcategories for the mixologist and
that was our holiday store and then this
is our wellness story that we just ended
not too long ago and we brought in
contributors to help us tell a story
because at the end of the day we don't
want it to just be our point of view but
people who bring value and experience to
the table and other categories so we
have all this fun pretty stuff in all
these people but really how can you get
a sense of what's happening right we
look at stuff like this all day long
who's clicking where when why so in the
store we have different partnerships
that help us on this side of the
business as well so this is from prism
sky labs we have cameras all over our
store and what it really ends up doing
is it looks at the paths and and how a
customer moves within the store and then
it tracks it based on heat so not only
can i reemerge entice the store more or
less instantly but then what I can do is
see who's going what way when
and even better I know what's hot and
what's not hot and so I can tell that
brand partner you know what we can a be
test something before you roll it out
for a launch so that's the analytic side
and it's also leveraging these tools for
other purposes as well in providing
analytics for our partners during
wellness story this is a product that's
not even on the market and the objective
of this partner was research and
development so it's a product that's
coming out in October and they wanted to
sample it and get feedback and also see
what attributes of the brand resonated
with people so this is this is the the
second part that I stumbled upon that I
can honestly say I didn't anticipate
happening and it's probably this thing
along with community that gets me most
excited so similar to online communities
everything that we're doing online
there's discovery platforms everywhere
we go on Etsy we find great product we
see new things we do that in-store
having different makers come on-site
then there's Kickstarter which we're all
pretty familiar with and what we did is
we launched pitch nights because what
was happening is just like a magazine
people were pitching product so we had
pitch night people showed up to show
their product and this is my favorite
one so she walks in the store she goes
up to one of our sales associates this
is Beth Macri she's an industrial
structural engineer and she had never
made jewelry before and she wanted us to
see her product so you're probably
thinking okay nice necklace Rachel not
so I'm what's so special well it's
hidden messages so there are letters
underneath here so we all flipped and
we're like we love it we love it you're
now in every story and then we got her
on this small site called the view and
now we're incubating her and she's our
first designer and resident so we're
going to help her launch her career and
she quit her day job so in addition to
kind of looking at community around
products and selling things it's also
how can we support other businesses and
continue to learn ourselves so that
we're getting better as storytellers and
communicators and so we did a project
with the city of New York and Mayor
Bloomberg to find innovative fashion and
Technology retail companies and then
winners got a slot in the store and a
year worth of business services and
support
other ways that we've done that is we
worked on line with archit Iser which is
the largest community of architects
online and we had an open call design
our windows for making things only using
the materials and the technology that
would be in the store so clay short all
from Austin Texas design shadow-puppet
and what happened is when you're in
front of the store and you moved it
moved with you and last but not least is
our current story and this is art story
and this is Kelly who's a Pratt student
she's in the graduate program and we'll
be out of school in three weeks and
what's exciting about this is she now
has a living resume none of those kids
have jobs yet and here's a portfolio
they did the entire thing so it's kind
of like what do all these things have in
common kids yoga and book readings and
cashmere and pasta making it's that they
all have a story and the story that I'm
really excited about telling is this one
of retail media and is this one about
content and community in commerce and
editorial and experience in metrics so
there's probably been a couple times in
this speech where you're thinking to
yourself how does she make money is she
making money so in our industry and by
industry I mean the retail part of our
industry it's on average three years you
might break even you might be profitable
but that's where it is so we were
profitable in our first year so what's
our next story thank you what's our next
story well you don't know it's on the
cover of a magazine so I hope you'll
come visit us and find out thank you
you