>> Live, from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Magento Imagine 2019, brought to you Adobe. >> Welcome back to theCUBE, Lisa Martin with Jeff Frick. We have been covering Imagine 2019 in Vegas, all day today, talking all things eCommerce, innovation, technology, the customer experience. Jeff, one of the biggest themes, I think, that we've heard today, from all of our guests, is how strong this community is, how naturally it was developed in the last ten years, and how influential it is to delivering exceptional customer experience technology. >> In fact, Jason said without the community, there would be no Magento. So it's, it's ingrained in the culture. It's ingrained in the DNA. I think, you know, doing some of the research, you know, there was people talking about the dark days of Magento, as it went into eBay, and apparently whatever that plan was, that didn't work. And then out of eBay into private equity. Out of private equity into, now, Adobe. And it sounds like the community's kind of been following along, and maybe they were holding their breath a little bit, a year ago, but it sounds like they kind of got through that, that kind of concern knothole, if you will, and kind of popped out the other side, and realized there's a whole lot of opportunity that comes to Magento, via being part of Adobe now that they didn't have before. So I think, it sounds like they're good with it, and they're ready to go, and nothing but opportunity ahead. >> Yeah, you know, I think with any acquisition, and, you know, we cover so many technology shows, and we've been part of acquisitions before at different companies. They're challenging. There's always, I think, natural trepidation. I think it's just a natural response that anybody, probably, from an executive to an individual contributor level, is going to have. But one of the things that came up so resolutely, was how organic the Magento community has been developed over time. That, like you said, as Jason was saying, without it, there is no Magento. Not only are they influential. It's very much a symbiotic relationship, that pleasantly, surprisingly, sounds like it's been integrated very nicely, into Adobe. And to your point, they now are seeing, wow, there's a tremendous amount of technology and resources that we didn't have the opportunity to leverage before. Talking about the experience, the digital experience business of Adobe's, which is growing. Grew 20% year over year, 2017 to 2018. On a very strong trajectory this year. A lot of opportunity to enable merchants of any size to have this really 360 degree of the customer experience, and manage it with analytics, and advertising, and marketing, and add the commerce piece, so that they can take that marketing interaction and actually convert it to revenue. >> Right, right. I mean, look at Adobe. I mean, they brought in Magento, which we know, late last year. They also brought in Marketo at almost about the same time, $4.7 billion. So they're making huge moves. And I think it's a pretty unique situation, where, again, they come from the creative, and now, with the data, and a sophisticated platform, and you talk about the AB testing, again. It used to be just AB, now it's AB times literally millions and millions of customized experiences delivered to the client. And then now, again, I think really an interesting point of view is where then you bring the commerce to the point of engagement rather than trying to use the engagement as a way to drive people to commerce. I mean, they seem really well positioned, I think they're going to really enjoy people like Accenture, and some of the of the other big system integrators that now are going to be, you know, behind this platform. So it seems to be a fit, a marriage made in heaven. It almost makes you wonder why Adobe was so late to have an eCommerce platform, which is the thing that kind of surprises me, I think, the most. >> Yeah, well, it also gives them the opportunity to compete with Shopify and with Salesforce Commerce, and kind of harness this brand power. But you talked about something that we've talked about all day, and that's bringing the transaction and the commerce experience to me as a consumer wherever I am, whether it's in app shopping through Instagram. Rather than, you know, delivering me a personalized experience, leveraging the power of these technologies, to understand the right things about me as a consumer, to deliver me an experience that is frictionless. It's going to allow me to have a seamless experience. We talked about that with progressive web apps, and how that's going to enable next generation shopping for merchants of all sizes to enable. Don't just engage me on my mobile, if that's where I want to be. If you don't have the opportunity to convert me seamlessly to actually transact, there's a huge adjustable market or gap in converting that to revenue, which Jason Woolsey also talked about. Kind of thinking about next steps for Adobe and what they're going to be able to do to help those merchants capture in real time, leveraging the power of technology, emerging technologies like AI, in real-time to make that shoppable moment turn into dollars for the merchant. >> Right, lot of great things. I thought it was interesting having TJ Gamble on, and talked about coopetition. Right? Coopetition is such a fundamental part of Silicon Valley and the world in which we live in. And he said, you know, if you're making fat margin, as Jeff Bezos loves to say, your margin is my opportunity. You're going to compete with Amazon, but in the meantime, you got to compete with them. So to enable integration into the Amazon platform with your Magento store, the integration into Google Shopping, integration into Instagram purchases, in app purchases, I mean, these really opening up the opportunities for these smaller retailers, mid-sized retailers, to compete in a really complicated and super hyper-competitive world. But now they can, again, focus on their brand, which we hear over and over and over, focus on their experience, focus on their community, and leverage some of this special breed technology under the covers across platform, across different modes of buying. Because the other thing we hear over and over and over is you got to give people choice. You can't say no. So if they want to buy it through Amazon, let 'em buy it through Amazon. If they want to buy it through Instagram, let 'em buy it through Instagram. If they want to come to you eCommerce site, let 'em come to your eCommerce site But, you know, in opening up all those channels for the merchant to be able to execute their transactions regardless of how the customer got to them, or how, more importantly, they got to the customer. >> And, you know, the SMB front is really key that you brought up, because, in the last year, since the acquisition was announced, about a year ago, and completed, I think in September of 2018, there was not just concern from the community, that we talked about at the beginning of this segment, but also the small and the medium business. Like, well, Adobe has a really big presence in enterprise. Is that going to be cannibalized with this acquisition of Magento, who had such a strong presence with those smaller merchants? And you mentioned some of thee things with Amazon and Google that we heard yesterday and today. I think really assuaging some of those concerns that the smaller businesses had, but also, allowing these smaller merchants to sort of level the playing field, and have access to the power of a branded Amazon storefront that allows a smaller business to get some differentiation, whereas before they didn't have that. So I think we heard a lot about that today, and how, I think, those smaller brands are probably, maybe breathing a sign of relief, that this acquisition is really going to enable them, with a lot more tools, but not at the, you know, cannibalizing what they have been doing with Magento for so long. >> Right, right. And some other fun discussions. I really enjoyed the time with Tina, talking about influencer marketing. It's amazing how that continues to evolve at a really fast pace. Right? A derivation of professional endorsement, which is something we've known ever since Joe Namath put on stockings many moons ago. But to see it go from big influencers, to micro-influencers, you know. How do you sponsor people, give them money, engage as a brand, and still maintain that they legitimately like your product, use your product. I think it's a really fascinating space to, again, to be able to purchase within that Instagram application, I think, is really interesting. And then a lot of conversations about the post transaction engagement. You know, send them not one email confirmation that your items are coming, but send them two. And really to think about lifetime value of the customer, and engaging the customer via content, and, oh, by the way, there'll be some transactions in commerce as well. I think it's really forward-looking, and really enjoyed that conversation as well. >> I did too. I didn't know the difference between an influencer and a micro-influencer, and you kind of infer based on just the name alone. But also how brands have the opportunity to leverage data, to evaluate maybe we should actually make more investments in somebody with a thousand followers, for example, than somebody with a hundred thousand. Because the revenue attribution, or the website traffic lift that they're going to get from a micro-influencer could far outweigh the benefits, financially, than going with somebody, a celebrity or what not, that, as you said, back to, you know, Joe Namath, many decades ago. So that was interesting, but it's also a good use of using data to build brand reputation, build, increase customer lifetime value, but also get so much more targeted, and really understand how to operationalize the commerce portion of your business, and through whom, through which channels you're going to see the biggest bang for your buck. >> Yeah, it's really interesting times, you know, this idea that the apps follow you. I mean, my favorite example is Spotify. Super sophisticated app. Right? I can be listening to my phone. I get into my car. It follows me. I go into my office. It follows me on my computer. I go out on my bike. It follows me. It stays the same state. And so, for the commerce and the community to be able to follow you around is a really interesting idea. And again, it was Hillary Mason, actually, that first came up with the term that, you know, AI, and good recommendations done well are magic, and done poorly, are creepy. I think it's always going to be this interesting fine line. Again, I think the whole concept of, you know, using old data and how fast do you update it, and that's kind of the example. I've been looking at tents. I bought a tent. I don't want to see ads for tents anymore. Right? It's time to see an ad for a sleeping bag, or a camp stove. And these are really happening in real-time. You know, we've heard about Omnichannel. We've heard about 360 view of the customer, ad nauseam. You've been in this business for a long time. But it sounds like it's finally coming together, and it's finally where we have the data, we have the access to the data, the speed of the analytics, and just the raw horsepower in modeling that we can now start to apply this real-time, ML, to data, in-flight, to be able to serve up the not creepy but correct recommendations, at the right time to the right person. It's getting closer and closer to reality. >> It is getting closer, and as you were talking about that, one of the things that popped into my head is going from the creepy to the magic that is, you think, wow, is really leveraging this data and using the power of machine learning and AI, a great facilitator. Or is the bottom foundation order management? If you don't have the, or inventory management. If you don't have the inventory, it's great to have all these capabilities to transact in real time, but if you can't fulfill it, you're going to sink. >> Yeah. >> So Magento, with, you know, some of their core technology enabling this. Really enabling, not just enabling the 360 degree customer view, but being able to fulfill it. Those are table stakes, and game changers. >> Right. >> For merchants of any size. >> Right, and I think they do have to engage. I mean, they have to be brands. Right? Because a commodity item I can go get anywhere. There's got to be a reason to come. Lot of conversations, not so much here, but at the Adobe summit, in terms of the content piece, and having an ongoing dialog and an ongoing content relationship, with your client. Now you can slice and dice and serve that up lots of different ways based on who they are and the context. But if you don't have that, you can't just compete on price. You just can't compete on inventory, 'cause Amazon is going to win. Right? You can't stock, my favorite thing is, is shirt, shirt little pins in here. How do you stock those? You can't. They don't cost any money, and you don't sell that many. Amazon can. So, find you niche, you know. Engage your customers. Engage your community, and there'll be some transactions that come along with this. And I think it's really reinforced that, I think, its probably really timely for Magento to be part of Adobe, because eCommerce, just purely by itself, is going to be tougher and tougher to do unless you've got this deeper relationship with your customers, beyond simply transacting something. >> Exactly. So I enjoyed hosting, as I always do with you, Jeff. Learned a lot today, and excited to hear about what's next for this event, now that Adobe is leveraging the power of Magento. >> Well, we heard the announcements, Gary's going to make the announcement tomorrow. So hang out for the keynote tomorrow to find out more about Imagine 2020. We'll be there. >> 2020, yes. >> 2020, because we'll know everything in 2020. >> We will know. That's right. I can't wait. >> 2020 hindsight. >> I'm waiting for that. Well, Jeff, as I said, always a pleasure hosting with you. >> You too, Lisa. >> I brought the sea urchin necklace out. >> I like it. I like it. >> This is just for Jeff. It's making it's appearance on theCUBE. We want to thank you for watching, for Jeff Frick, I'm Lisa Martin, and you've been watching theCUBE live from Imagine 19 at The Wynn Las Vegas. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

>> Live from Las Vegas, it's The Cube, covering Magento Imagine 2019. Brought to you by Adobe. >> Welcome to The Cube. Lisa Martin with Jeff Frick, live at The Wynn Las Vegas, for Magento Imagine 2019. This is a really buzzy event. All e-commerce innovation, tech talks, with about 3,500 folks, and we're excited to welcome to The Cube Tina Mulqueen, CEO of Kindred PR Marketing Agency as well as contribute with Forbes, Digital Trends, expert on e-commerce, I would say. Welcome to The Cube. >> Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here. >> So we were talking about influencer marketing before we went live. And you have been doing, been working in that kind of before it was even a concept. We were just saying how much marketing has changed in the last few years alone, and how brands have had to to survive and be profitable, evolve with that. Give us a bit of a perspective, first on kind of Kindred PR, what you're doing, how you got involved in influencer marketing. >> Sure, so I was really fortunate to have some great mentors early in my marketing career that kind of ushered me along in the right direction and said hey, I think we should really pay attention to this whole Twitter thing and what's happening with these real, everyday people that are amassing a following on Twitter, and that's really where it started was on that platform. So I ended up on a team for CBS that did some of the influencer marketing for Vanity Fair and for their coverage of The Insider and Entertainment Tonight, and we would work with them to get event coverage to trend online. And as you mentioned, that was before, really, we knew what influencer marketing was. It wasn't really, it didn't have to a name, so to speak, at that time. And so I learned a lot from then, and we have kind of come full circle with influencer marketing, where it, I was at first working with these sort of micro influencers, as we would call them now. And then it was a lot of brands working with more of the celebrity influencers, like the Kim Kardashians of the world, and now it's gone back to brands are really interested in these micro influencers again because of the concept of authenticity, which is a big one right now, that marketers are paying attention to. >> Exactly what I was going to say. >> So how do they dance around the authenticity? It's such an interesting and knife edge, right? Because you want people to promote your products because they like them, and that's the original celebrity endorsement back in the early days, right? People actually did use the product that they endorsed. But now you get paid endorsements, and people can see through that. At the same time, it obviously has some results, or people would not continue to invest, and now it's come full circle, whereas you said because of the internet, I with some particular interest can reach a huge number of people around a really small interest set, because of the distribution of the internet. >> Right. So what's interesting is, influencer marketing, when we first really started talking about influencer marketing, we treated it as word-of-mouth marketing. And it had some incredible benefits over some more traditional kinds of marketing because it was word of mouth. And then because influencer marketing had a lot of investments, brands were investing heavily in influencer marketing, and we were dealing more with celebrity influencers, consumers became smarter as well during this time. And then they started looking at these celebrity endorsements and realizing that these are not real endorsements. And so I think that's where we're seeing this shift back to micro influencers, and people that are really using the products that these brands are touting. >> But how does a brand, how do they engage with the micro influencer? >> Actually, there's a really great case study that I always use as an example of this, and it's actually BECCA Cosmetics, which, BECCA's one of the, I think the number one, sales cosmetic line in Sephora. And they reached out, I think it was about a year ago, maybe a couple of years ago now. They reached out to an influencer because they realized that their website traffic was going up every time a certain influencer would go live on YouTube and was using their products. So BECCA reached out to this influencer that was organically using the products, and collaborated with the influencer to create a line of products of her own. And that really, I think they sold out within the first hour when they actually went live with the product line. So that's a great example of how to engage with an influencer that is organically using your brand, and making sure that you're also including their audience, in, like, the iteration of the product, because then the audience of the influencer is also invested. >> And what defines influencer versus a micro influencer? I imagine the sheer volume of followers, but there's got to be more to it than that, because there's this really cool example that you gave, what BECCA Cosmetics found was much more probably authenticity. So talk to us about not just the number drivers there, but some of the other, I mean, it's one thing to be able to blast something to 100,000 people. It's a whole other thing to actually be able to engage their followers and convert it to a transaction. >> Right. So I think that often when we hear brands talking about micro or macro influencers, they really are talking about the number of followers, but I think you bring up a really great point with respect to that level of engagement of that following and how to really tap into somebody that is engaging their following. So I think brands are going toward actual experts in their field, or actual experts in the product line in a bigger capacity now because they know that what they say is going to be more meaningful to their audience and more engaging to their audience, rather than based on number of followers alone. So there's a lot of different things that are going into play to create a better context for marketing. >> I'm curious how other metrics have evolved beyond just the transaction. So there's the followers, and then, you know, there's obviously transactions, as you said, there's website traffic. But as people, as brands are starting to realize that engagement, ongoing engagement, interaction with content is part of the relationship, separate from and a value to the actual transaction. How have their metrics changed? How are they reviewing these programs? I'm sure a lot of it at first was, "Well, we hope it works, we think it's working." But how has that matured over time? >> It definitely has matured, and there are some platforms out there that will try to quantify influencer marketing in different ways than we've seen in the past. It's gotten a lot more sophisticated. That said, marketers still have a real challenge ahead of them in terms of quantifying their efforts in a meaningful way, because it's still hard to put a number to brand sentiment. And that's a lot of what influencer marketing is. >> Right. And is it, from an investment point of view, I always think of people with a large bucket of money, right, they put a very small piece in their venture fund, which has a real low probability of a hit, but if it hits, it hits big. And when they're budgeting for the influencer program, is it kind of like that? You know, we've got this carve-out that we are not quite sure what the ROI is. We think it's important. We don't want to miss out. Versus, you know, what I'm spending on print or what I'm spending on TV, or what I'm spending on kind of traditional campaigns. How are marketers looking at that within their portfolio? >> It is a great questions, and I think that marketers know that they need to invest in influencer marketing, so we're seeing an influx of investment coming in through influencer marketing. That said, I've been in a lot of conversations with brands that are talking about, do we go the macro influencer route or do we go with the micro influencer route? And right now I think that brands are starting to realize that if you get a lot of voices or a number of voices that are sharing the same sentiment and that are able to feed off of each other with respect to the conversation and amplify each other because even if you have micro influencers with smaller following count, they're going to amplify each other's content, and that ends up in the long run, as we talked about, being more authentic. So that's where a lot of the conversations are going right now in terms of how to spend that influencer marketing budget and weighing the pros and cons of those different options. >> Well, marketing is and should be a science these days. There is so much data about all of us from everything we do every day that brands need to be able to evaluate that, leveraging platforms from Adobe Magento for example, going back to the BECCA Cosmetics and thinking well, if they evaluate these micro influencers and the lift and the traffic that they get, if they're actually using that data appropriately then that should be able to inform how they're actually carving up their investment dollars into which influencers, macro or micro, they know that is going to make the biggest impact on revenue. So it behooves marketing organizations to become scientific and actually use all this consumer data that we are all putting out through our phones, on social devices, constantly. >> Absolutely. I think it's a great point. And I hear often from clients too that they have, they've invested in these platforms that will sort of try to analyze the data, but they're not doing anything with that data. So a lot of e-commerce merchants and retailers, if you don't have a strategy on how you're going to implement that what you're learning from your consumers, then it ends up falling flat. >> What's the biggest surprise you hear from marketers today in terms of this influencer marketing? Are they confused, they're getting it, are there any, I mean you had one really good success story, are there any other, you know, kind of success stories you can share that this is a very different way to get your message into the marketplace? >> You know, one thing that I think people should do more of, that it kind of surprises me that we aren't seeing more of is using media as a channel for e-commerce merchants to have an affiliate strategy. So basically utilizing influencers in collaboration with a media channel to be able to have a new revenue stream. I think that that's something that we haven't seen very often. It's something that when I was working as the CMO for a public trading company called Grey Cloak Technologies, we worked with Sherell's, which is a company that we were acquiring at the time to consult with Marie Claire on how to incorporate influencers into their e-commerce strategy as a publisher. And that's something that I think that people could take more advantage of. >> Even just with affiliate codes or coupon codes and those types of things? They're just not really executing on it that well. >> Right, right. And I think that part of it is a technological component, like the technology isn't quite there to be able to implement, well, to be able to implement that on a wide scale. Like Marie Claire, Sherell's ended up creating the technology for them to be able to incorporate influencers into their e-commerce strategy. But I think that we're going to see more of that. >> Right, because for the influencer, that's one of many sources of revenue that they need to execute on if they're actually going to build, you know, a lifestyle business around being, you know, quote-unquote influencer. They need that affiliate revenue on top of their advertising revenue and all these other little pieces, selling t-shirts, etc. >> Right, right. And we're seeing some companies that are coming to the table to try to provide solutions. One company that I've been watching for a while is called COSIGN, and their platform basically allows influencers to integrate on the platform and link things through social media so that people can buy through a picture, on Facebook for example. So I think we're going to see more of those types of technologies as well. >> Let's talk kind of on the spirit of trends and some of the things that you are seeing. There was this big trend in the last few years of everybody wanting to be able to, we can get anything through Amazon, right? And we can get in a matter of hours. But looking at, and seeing some big box stores that did not do a good job of being able to blend physical, digital, virtual, all these storefronts. What though are you seeing in terms of companies, maybe enterprises, needing to sort of still have or offer a brick and mortar experience? Like we were talking to HP Inc. this morning, he was on stage, and this click and collect program that they launched in APEC where depending on their region, people need to be able to start and actually transact online, but actually fulfill in store. In terms of like, maybe, either reverse engineering online to brick and mortar or hybridizing the two, what are some of the trends that you're seeing that businesses really need to start paying attention to? >> Sure, so I think that omnichannel has been a buzzword for some time, and the way that marketers are looking at omnichannel now, or the way that retailers are looking at omnichannel now is a little bit different. At first, when we started talking about the concept of create this sort of seamless interplay between brick and mortar and online storefronts, it was about taking the brick and mortar experience and putting it online. And now I think marketers are getting better at realizing that those are two completely different channels, and your customer's in a different place in both of those channels. So you need to give them an experience that is relevant for the channel, and it can be totally different than what we're used to in traditional retail stores. But brick and mortar obviously does have a place. We're seeing Amazon come out with their own brick and mortar locations, and we're seeing different e-commerce startups have brick and mortar locations and be very successful with them too as an e-commerce first storefront. So there's definitely a place for brick and mortar. I think people will always have to shop in brick and mortar storefronts, although we obviously are going to get more sophisticated delivery options, and that's coming as well. But I think that it's really an interplay and it's understanding what the channels are and where your consumers are at in that space. >> And then the whole next generation of that, which we're hearing about here, like shopping inside of Instagram. So now as opposed to a destination or I'm going to some place to buy something, whether it's online or a store, now it's actually just part of experiencing the media, as you said, and oh by the way, while I'm here, that looks interesting, I'll take one of those as well. Whole different level of experience that the retailers now have to support. >> Right, absolutely. There are other technology platforms too that, like one of them is basically producing video content that you can scroll over, or let's say you were just watching a commercial on your television, or maybe it's not even a commercial. Maybe it's like real long form content, and if you scroll over a product in the image, you can purchase it out of that video. And so these things are coming as well. It's really an exciting time. But it's an exciting time to be creative as well, because you have to have some creativity behind these strategies in order to make an impression on the consumer. >> It's exciting and creepy at the same time. (Jeff laughing) I don't know if my wallet can handle that. But we'll see. But one of the things I was wondering, when you were talking about, for example, Amazon going, starting as this online mega store and now having brick and mortar stores, the acquisition of Whole Foods. I can't go in there and shop without being asked if I'm a Prime member. But what are some of the sort of foundational customer experience expectations that, because I would think personalization would be kind of a common foundation that whether I'm shopping online with whatever, I want whoever I'm buying from, especially if I have a history, I want them to know what I've bought before, maybe my average order value, to be able to kind of incentivize loyalty. But I probably want the same thing if I'm in a brick and mortar. Are you seeing some sort of key foundations that businesses, whether they do one, the other, or both, need to put in place that can span both? >> Absolutely. So I think it's a great point. I think personalization and the experience. Obviously we're hearing so much about experience in terms of e-commerce, but in brick and mortar stores in particular. But I think that the personalization piece is such an important one. But I also think that it's now getting to where we need to personalize more on the marketing for no matter what channel it is. So you need to bring that physical experience with the customer to your e-commerce efforts as well so that you can, for example, if you're going to email market to me, I want it to be relevant. I want to know that you have been paying attention to my shopping habits, and it's kind of a fine line with respect to data, but if you're going to be using my data, I want to make sure that it's useful to me and it saves me time. >> And it kind of goes back to a point Jeff and I have heard a number of times today, and that's validating me as a consumer that you understand that what I'm interested in that you have to offer, you understand it, it's important to both of us. Well Tina, I wish we had more time to keep talking with you, but we thank you so much for joining us on The Cube this afternoon and talking with us about some of the things that you're seeing, your experiences. And now I know the difference between an influencer, macro and micro, and why they can be so important to brands of any size. So thank you for your time. >> Thank you so much for having me. >> Our pleasure >> Thank you. >> For Jeff Frick, I'm Lisa Martin, you're watching us on The Cube live from Las Vegas at Magento Imagine 2019. Thanks for watching. (upbeat digital music)

>> Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE covering Magento Imagine 2019, brought to you by Adobe. >> Welcome back to theCUBE Lisa Martin with Jeff Frick and we are here live at Magento Imagine 2019, our second time being back here with theCUBE and we're very excited to welcome Brittany Hodak to theCUBE, entrepreneur, customer engagement speaker, writer, co-founder of the Superfan Company. Brittany it's so exciting to have you on theCUBE. >> Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here. >> So, you have an incredibly impressive background and I'm like where do we start? >> Thank you. >> So, here we are talking about customer experiences and how Magento and Adobe empower a lot of customer experiences. But you've written a ton of articles, over 350, you've been published in the Huff Post, Wall Street Journal, talk to us about your experiences with customer engagement, some of the things that you as a co-founder of the Superfan have discovered working with a variety of brands from Walmart to Katy Perry? >> Well, thank you so much for saying that. I always say that the biggest problem brands and entertainers have is often one that's not even on their radar at all. I talked to a lot of small and medium sized business owners and they say, You know, my big problem is people don't know who I am. I've got an awareness problem. I'm struggling to let people know who I am. And I really think my business would change if more people knew. And I said, You know, that's not the problem. You can always fix awareness. You can always spend money to get your message out there. Your big problem is apathy. Your problem is there are people who know and don't care. And you've got to figure out how to make people care. You've got to figure out how to connect your story with their story in a way that's meaningful, and in a way that's going to mean something in their lives because that's how you really start the fan engagement process. That's how you lay the groundwork for creating a culture of super fandom amongst your customers, that's really going to help you grow not just the business but a brand. >> Is it about having a more relevant messages or is it just finding those people that have a propensity to be a fan to the services that you provide? >> Well, it's understanding your uniqueness in a way that really makes your value proposition different from anybody else is. Once you understand your uniqueness and you're able to turn it into service of others, that's when you really you position yourself to be able to make the kind of difference that makes somebody want to be a super fan. And I always say, we've had the fortune of working with tons of celebrities, some of the biggest recording artists and superstars on the planet, and a lot of times people say to me, Oh, you know, it's easy when you're talking about being a super fan of Taylor Swift or being a super fan of Katy Perry, but, you know, I'm a plumber or I'm an electrician, how can I have super fans? And I say, By providing people the kindness service that changes their lives. I have an exterminator who I am a super fan of. His name is Scott and the reason I am a super fan of him is because he makes sure there are no brown recluse spiders in my house and I am absolutely terrified about recluse spiders. They are super evil creatures if you're not familiar with them, I encourage you not to google it. They're like nastiest little bug in the world. But you know to me that's super important because he's not just killing bugs, he's helping me feel safe in my home. So that's absolutely a vital service and finding the right guy to do that and the right guy to put my mind at ease and let me know there aren't going to be brown recluse spiders in my house is invaluable and because of that, like there's no way I would ever switch exterminators because Scott's my guy. And I know you know, I can text him 50 different pictures of critters and say, Is this okay, Is this okay? And he's going to get back to me and let me know. So, it's all about points of connection and finding ways to make your audience feel really valued, and connecting your story with their story. >> So, if you look at an exterminator versus a Taylor Swift or Katy Perry or Walmart, are there similarities and what they need to do to deliver this service that's impacting lives? Or are there fundamental differences? >> There are some fundamental differences, but there's more overlap than you would think. And I always say, if you think about it like a Venn diagram, you've got your brand or your business, your service, your product, whatever it is that you're providing, and you've got your customers over here. Where the magic happens is that point of intersection, where your story overlaps with their story, that intersection, that's where super fandom happens. And I like to talk about something I call the four A's of super fandom. So, you can, I see a lot of people make the mistake of trying to talk to everybody the same way. So, whether somebody is encountering your brand for the very first time or has been your customer for a long time, using the same messaging for those people and that doesn't work. So, I talk a lot about the four A's. So, the first day is awareness. That's when somebody is first uncovering your brand, first interacting with your brand. The second a is action, that's when somebody is actually interacting with your brand for the first time. The third a is affinity. Those are the people who are fans of your brand. They've sort of bought into your why, these are the satisfied customers, I would say. And a lot of businesses stop there. They say, These are the people who are satisfied. These are the people who liked what I'm doing, they're buying from me. And that's a mistake that a lot of especially small and medium sized businesses make they sort of feel like, I've got these customers, I don't have to do anything else. They're not over delivering or over serving them which is a huge missed opportunity because if you do, you're able to convert people from that third A to the fourth a which is advocacy. And advocacy is where you want to get the majority of the people because those are your superfans so to speak, those are the ones who are out there sharing your story and your why with other people, helping refer new customers and new clients to you. So, I always say if you can get past the affinity, the people who are happy with you but not really talking about it and really make them feel valued. That's how you create advocates and advocacy is really the super secret sauce when you're talking about super fandom. >> So where should people get started to try to build super fandom within their client base? Is that really with the good customers that they already have, they try to get them to be advocates or I think most people spend so much time focusing on the fat end of the funnel as opposed to on the narrow end of the funnel and converting that transaction into a fan which is what it sounds like you're suggesting? >> Yeah, well, it's important to to focus on all parts of the funnel man, like I said that that awareness, that that fat of the top, you certainly need to be dealing with those people to get them further down. But the skinny part of the funnel is really where you want to make sure that people are continuing to drip out to the other side to make those referrals for you. So, absolutely focusing on everybody. One thing that I am always shocked I when I do consulting and work with small businesses and medium sized businesses, when I asked how much referral business they get, a lot of people don't know that number off the top of your head. So, if you're not tracking the amount of referrals, you absolutely need to know that as a metric, and the number one thing that you can do to increase the amount of referral business that you're getting is by asking your customers for referrals. It's so funny the amount of people who say, I hardly get any referral business at all. And I say, Well, when's the last time you asked? When's the last time that you went to one of your clients or your customers and said, I so appreciate your business. And I wonder if you know anybody in your network who could benefit from our product or service. And they say, oh I've never done that. But yeah, they wonder why they don't have any referrals so-- >> It seems like such an easy step but to your point, you're saying they're focusing on awareness, getting my brand, my service, my name out there, getting people to take action? >> Yes. >> And building that affinity and then I'm good, but that simply asking to make it a referral whether it's a yelp or something as simple as that seems like a pretty easy step. Strategically, how do you advise customers to get from that, take that if you look at it like a funnel like Jeff saying, take that group of affinity customers and convert some percentage to advocates, what's your strategy for helping a consumer brand or even a service provider, like an exterminator for actually making those conversions and then and then having that be a really kind of engine to drive referrals, to drive more leads to the top of that funnel? >> That's a great question. So, I like to talk about something I call the high five which is knowing the five most important people that have the potential to drive your business forward for the next quarter, the next year and the next five years. So, this is an actual list of five people. And any business owner hopefully can sit down and say, Here are the people that I need to really super serve in order to move my business forward. So knowing who those five people are, it could be an advisor, it could be an investor, it could be somebody you've never even met, maybe a thought leader whose thought that you really enjoy, that you think this person could really help me and open me up to a lot of people in their network if they knew who I was. Make a list of those five people, and then figure out how often you need to be doing something staying top of mind for those people. So for me, I like to make sure it's at least once every two weeks. So, sometimes it's as simple as sending an article and saying, Hey, I came across this article, I thought you would really love it, wanted to send it your way. Now and reality, did I just come across that article? No, I spent maybe an hour looking for the right article to forward that person. It's taking the time out to show them that they matter to you, so whether that's sending them a nice gift in the mail for no reason or a handwritten thank you note after they made an introduction for you. It's checking in on things, I always say, you should know what is important to the people who are important to you. You should know the teams that they follow, you should know their spouse, their children, the things that are happening in their lives so you can check in with them. And we live in an age where it's so easy to get information about anyone because all of us are putting content out there on the internet all the time about ourselves. So take the time to figure out what matters to those people who matter to you, and then stay top of mind, letting them know that they matter to you. So, like I said, for me, it's once every two weeks and I look at my list of five about every six months in terms of adding a couple of new people on maybe cycling some people off. But I've been doing this for four years. So, I have a list of 20 people. And I those are like my alums, some of the alumni of my high five, and I'm still extremely close with all of them. I still make sure that I'm trying to add value to them because having one person who's going to advocate for you could open the door for millions of dollars of revenue for you. So, it's just identifying who those people are, because to your point, it's impossible to sort of make everyone the most important person, it's impossible to take everyone at that third step and take them to the fourth step. So, rather than holistically thinking about it. I like to really drill in and say let's start with five. And if you've got 50 employees and you assign five people to each of those 50 employees to say make sure this vendor or make sure this customer, or make sure this partner feels very appreciated by you on a regular basis. You're going to, you really start to see the ROI very, very quickly in your business. >> So some of the trends, if we look at this we're all consumers of any kind of product service, we have this expectation, this growing expectation that we're going to be able to get whatever we want whenever we want it, have it delivered in an hour or a day, or so, we want to be able to have this experience on mobile, maybe started there, maybe finish it in the store, what are some of the trends that you're seeing that you recommend that the company with any product or service needs to get on board with, for example, this morning they were talking about progressive web apps and being able to deliver an experience where the person doesn't have to leave the app, or they can transact something like through Instagram. What are some of those top tools that you recommend to your broad client base. You got to get on board with like mobile, for example, right away. >> Yes, I was going to say the PWAs are absolutely critical, because I think we've all as consumers been in the situation of trying to load something on our phone, and it's five seconds goes by six seconds, I'm like forget about it. >> We're done. >> Yeah, I'm done, I'm over it. So PWAs is super important because it's all about putting your customer first and making things simple for them. The other thing is making sure that whatever system process you're using, everything needs to be connected. You can't be managing stuff across eight different platforms and expect for things not to fall through the cracks which is I'm learning so much here at Imagine and listening to all the best practices of people who are using Magento to manage every part of their business because something is seemingly minor as sending a confirmation email twice instead of once or having eight hours go by before the customer gets that, those types of things, say to a customer on a subliminal level, I'm not important, I don't matter, they're not putting me first. >> So just fan comes from fanatic. And there's great things about fans, and some times there's less great things about fans and we've seen a little bit of that here in terms of this really passionate community around Magento. And it was independent. And then it went to eBay and then it went back out of eBay. And now it's back in Adobe. And it's funny seeing the people that have been here for the whole journey. Part of that responsibility, if you're going to invite someone to be a fan is you have to let them participate, you have to let them contribute. And often which we're seeing, I guess, in Game of Thrones, I'm not a big fan, but if you get outside of kind of the realm of where the fans want things to go, it can also cause some conflict. So, how to people manage encouraging fans, really supporting fans, but at the same time not letting them completely knock their business off or hold the business back probably from places where the entrepreneur needs to still go? >> That's a great question. There was a really fascinating study that Viacom did a couple of years ago about fans. And especially in the under 35 sets, so millennials, gen Z. And the vast majority of people felt like fans have some ownership of the thing that they're a fan of. And that's a really interesting study in psychology to think about these people who feel the ownership. But you know, it's true. You mentioned Game of Thrones, that's a great example of seeing these fan bases who come up with names for themselves, and who are tweeting in real time about things that are happening. Magento a great example because open source has been such an important part of the culture and the history of the platform. These people feel in a very real sense this ownership. And you're right, I think sometimes that scares small business owners, medium sized business owners. They say, Well, we don't want to relinquish control. We don't want to put ourselves in a situation where we're upsetting people. And I would say, You're right, fan comes from the word fanatic. And that fanaticism, that passion is something you absolutely want. Because I would argue that a greater threat than that is what I was talking about earlier, which is apathy. You don't want people to be like, I don't care. And passion is of course, the opposite of apathy. And that's what you're looking for. So I would say, are you going to put yourself in a position where sometimes there could be a disagreement, you could upset somebody? Absolutely, but you those are the people, it's like if you're in a relationship with somebody and you have a fight that passion that's there is because there's care on both sides. You're both super engaged, you're both very passionate about your position. So, having a system in place to defuse that by saying, I hear you I understand where you're coming from, let's figure this out together, is part of the customer service staff that you've just got to prepare for. >> Can you using, sorry Brittany, using all this data that's available that Magento, Adobe et cetera can deliver and enable organizations to understand that and maybe even kind of marry those behaviors with apathy on one hand passion on the other and how do we get to that happy medium? >> Exactly, how do we get to the happy medium, what are the data points that matter? How are we, the idea of super fan means something different to every organization. So, part of it is uncovering what it is that really matters to you. I always say a super fan is somebody who over indexes and their affinity for a product, service, brand, entertainer, therefore increasing the chance that they're going to advocate on its behalf. So, thinking about, there could be people who are spending a lot of money with your brand who just aren't really that passionate about it. They're not going to tell people and that's fine. But those aren't the people who would be a quote unquote superfan, even though they may be spending a lot of money with you. So, it's figuring out what the markers are that are important to your brand or service. I work with a lot of brands on this because it really is different for everyone. But figuring out who those people are and then talking to them because this is something that, there's so much psychology around the why. Like why people behave the way we do that the consumer behavior, the internal and philosophical drives that are making us make the decisions that we make and the best way to uncover that is to talk to your customers because a lot of times you'll learn so much about your brand, you'll find so many things. I always love talking to recording artists about this, they put out a new song or a new album and in the fans find all these hidden messages >> Taylor is known for that. >> Always some-- >> Taylor is one of the best in the world. And a lot of times artists will say, Oh, yeah, like, I didn't do that on purpose but I'm totally going to take credit for it because these fans found it. And oh, yeah, of course, I meant to do that. So, you'll find that some of these customers understand your brand oftentimes better than you do which is a really fun thing. >> It's also just the ecosystem. You my favorite one always reference is Harley Davidson, guess how many brands get tattooed on people's arms, and just the whole ecosystem of other products that were built up around the motorcycle, and to support kind of that community they weren't getting any nickels necessarily if somebody sold a saddle bag or a leather jacket, or whatever but it was such and it still is, I think such a vibrant community again, and as evidence by you put a tattoo on your arm that it's something to strive for, not easy to get. >> Why we always say build a brand not a business because the brand are those things that people are connecting to. We were talking about NASA before we started filming. I'm a huge space geek and Lisa loves space having worked for NASA in the past and that's one of those things, I don't know this to be true but I got to believe NASA way outpaces like every other combined government agency in licensing. I mean, people walk around wearing NASA logos on everything >> I saw at least three of them this morning. >> Yeah, I mean, I bought in the last month, probably three different NASA licensed products. So I mean that's the passion that if you can connect to somebody on an emotional level and make your story part of their story. They want to represent it, they want to get that Harley tattooed on their arm. >> That emotional connection but also that personalization that's key? >> Yes. >> What's difference in from your perspective on a superfan versus an influencer? Are they one in the same? >> It's a great question. So, they a lot of times are one in the same and that same Viacom study that I mentioned earlier. Something like two thirds of people said that they consider themselves to be pop culture influencers which sounds like a lot. But if you think about it, pretty much everyone is an influencer and that's because for Nielsen, the most trusted recommendation is or the most trusted form advertising is a recommendation from a friend or a family member, 92% of people trust a recommendation from a friend or family member, which far outpaces every other form of advertising. So in a lot of ways, these micro influencers are the next wave of advertising. These advocates or these super fans are, I think in many ways an untapped well of resources for the fans who drill in and you mentioned Taylor Swift before. How many people listen to Taylor Swift for the first time because a friend suggested they listen to Taylor Swift. I would argue that lots and lots of people and Taylor said something to me years ago that like a former manager, or someone said to her, and that was, if you want to sell half a million albums, you're going to have to meet half a million people. That was said to her when she was like, 15, 16 years old and she thought, okay, yeah, I'm going to go meet half a million people. I'm going to be befriend them, I'm going to listen to their stories, I'm going to let them know what they say matters to me. And here we are, she sold, I don't know, 50, 60 million albums, however many she sold worldwide. And but that's really where it starts, that one to one connection. >> Seems to just kind of all go back to referral. And isn't that sort of the basic human connection? It's like, are we trying to over-complicate this with all these different tools that simply, even with hiring and tech or whatever industry, referrals are so much more important because you've got some sort of connection to a brand or a person or a product or service. >> You've got that connection, you've got somebody who's already very well qualified. And I like to talk about something that I call the wave method which the wave is a ritual hello, goodbye. How many times a day do you wave at people, countless. And virtually you say hello to tons of people everyday. People who are coming to one of your social pages, people who are engaging with your website. So I say, I encourage people to think about that hello and goodbye, that interaction. Think of a wave as an acronym and ask yourself, are you making everybody who's going to come into contact with you today feel welcomed? Is there something on your virtual site or in your real storefront. If you're a brick and mortar business that's going to make people feel welcomed? How are you making them feel like they belong? The A is appreciated, how are you letting those people know that they are appreciated by your business? I think I know I have often felt like I'm a number or I don't matter. Utility companies are notorious for this for making you feel like they don't really care if they have your business or not. Or they know perhaps that they're going to because there's not like a different water company you can you can use it your home. And that sucks, like we've all been made to feel like we weren't appreciated by somebody that we were doing a financial transaction with. So ask yourself, how can you make your potential and current customers feel appreciated? The V stands for validated, and one of the best quotes that I've ever come across is from Oprah. On her last episode, she was imparting some of the lessons that she had learned over the years of hosting her shows and she said she'd interviewed something like 30,000 people over the years, and they all wanted the same thing. And that was validation. They all want it to feel like they were important and their feelings mattered. I see you, I hear you what you're saying is important to me. So, validate your customers. One big mistake that I see people make all the time in customer service is when somebody has a complaint, having your rebuttal be like, Oh, I've never heard that before. Or it's 10,000 people haven't have had great experiences. That's absolutely the worst thing that you can ever say to somebody because you're bringing in other experiences that don't matter to them. It's a one to one conversation. It's a one to one relationship. So bringing in, that's like having a fight with your significant other and saying like, Well none of the women I dated before you ever had a problem with this, like how well is that going to go over? Like you don't want to bring in other experiences. So that V and wave validated >> And the E? >> and then the E is excited, making people feel excited because that passion, having people feel like you know you're excited that they're a customer of yours and you can bring something that's going to make their lives better is the most important key. >> Brittany, thank you so much. I could keep talking to ya. I wish we didn't end but we do, for sharing your experiences, your expertise, your recommendations on becoming any kind of brand with any product or service, generating the super fans. We appreciate your time. >> Thank you so much. It was so great speaking with you guys today. >> Ditto. >> Thanks. >> For Jeff Frick, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching this on theCUBE live from Magento Imagine 2019 from Vegas, thanks for watching.

>> live from Las Vegas it's the cube, covering Magento Imagine 2019. Brought to you by Adobe. >> Hey welcome back to the cube, Lisa Martin with Jeff Frick live at The Wynn Las Vegas for Magento Imagine 2019, with about 3500 people here give or take a few. We're very pleased to welcome Magento evangelist Ben Marks to the Cube, Ben welcome >> Thank you for having me, I appreciate you making time. >> And thanks for bringing the flair to our set. >> I've got to let people know where my allegiances lie, right? >> So this is the first Magento Imagine post adobe acquisition, that was announced about a year ago completed about six or seven months ago. You have a very strong history with Magento the last 10 years, Magento is very much known for their developer community, their open source history and DNA. Talk to us about, how things are now with the community and really the influence that the developers have. >> Well if it's up to me we retain this really strong influence in the business. I mean at the the core of Magento since its inception the very humble beginnings that it had back in back in 2007 has been this this developer ecosystem. And that is what takes the software basically all the output and all of the expertise and intuition that we have that we put into our products and our services, it only goes so far. Now it is a platform that tends to fit in a lot of places but it only goes so far and we have that last mile, that is the most important distance that we cross and we cannot do it without this ecosystem. They are the ones that they know, they understand the merchant requirements, they understand the vertical, they understand the region, they understand cross border concerns, whatever it may be they know our product from an expert perspective and then they take that and they make it make sense. That being the case, Adobe I think so far has shown excellent stewardship in terms of recognizing the value. A big part of that 1.7 billion price tag, they paid for the community. They knew this ecosystem was the real, has always been the x-factor in Magento and so they've been very diligent, well now that I'm an employee we've been very introspective about what that means as part of adobe, is part of this this massive set of opportunities and new addressable market that we have. And we're just all trying to make sure that we look after all of these people who are at the end of the day probably our biggest champions. >> Just curious how you've been able to maintain that culture because to be kind of open source and open source first timer, first isn't the right word but open source neutral or pro, along with your proprietary stuff and to really engage developers it's such a special town and as a special culture because by rule you're saying that there's more smart people outside of our walls than inside of our walls and embracing and loving that. But you guys have gone through all kinds of interesting kind of evolutions on the business side in terms of ownership and management. How've you been able to maintain that? And what is kind of the secret sauce? Why are the developers so passionate to continue to develop a Magento? Because let me tell you we go to a lot of conferences and a lot of people are trying really hard to get that developer to spend that next time working on their platform versus a different one. >> Yeah, well you know it's endemic to our culture that whether it's a developer, someone who's working who's an expert in administering Magento stores, just whatever someone's focus is in this ecosystem, it is interesting we've always had at the underpinning everything has been this open source ethos. So from the very beginnings of Magento, the creators Roy Rubin and Yoav Kutner, they sought out as they announced this Magento thing back in the day. They intentionally made it open-source because they knew that, that had been proved by a previous open-source commerce software and they knew that that was really where they were going to win that was the force multiplier. Again the thing that would get them into markets that they couldn't address with their very small agency that they were walking out of. So through the years that grew and in large part we can thank the Doc community, especially in Germany, the Dutch community, there's just the general open source ethos there. But I learned about open source from Magento, I had someone help me out when I was first starting at my first week working with Magento as a developer there was no documentation, I had to go into a chatroom and ask for help and this guy he actually spent about a couple of hours helping me and we remain close friends to this day. But at the end of it I'm like so should I pay you? And he was this guy this guy from outside of Heidelberg he's just no this is open source, is like just as you learn give it back. And that's a perfect summation for a big part of the spirit here. It helps who are in commerce, there's money kind of flowing all around but at the end of the day we provide options, we provide flexibility where there's nothing wrong with the sass platforms there's nothing wrong with some of the the larger like API driven platforms, it's just at some point if you have a custom requirement that they can't satisfy and that happens regularly, guess what? You got to go with the platform that gives you the extensibility. So they feel a sense of ownership I think because of that and they're sort of proud to take this wherever they can. >> So with the Adobe acquisition being complete around six eight months you mentioned Adobe doing a good job of welcoming this community but you also talked about this core ethos that Magento brings. I believe in the press release, announcing the acquisition last year, Adobe said open source is in our DNA. Have you found that one to be true? And two how much has the Magento open source community been able to sort of open the eyes and maybe open the door to Adobe's ethos of embracing it? >> Let's see how much trouble can I get in to today? >> So I have a good counterpart over Alberto Dobby and it's a stretch for me to call him a counterpart. He's got his JD,he's been big in the open source world for since forever but, Matt Asay probably... >> CUBE alum >> ...if you follow tech online, you've seen this post, you've seen him as an postulating on open source and it was interesting a lot of us were asking the same question from Magento world because a lot of us remembere the eBay days and an eBay had a sort of a different plan and vision for Magento that ultimately, that whole thing they were trying to create just didn't work out. Magento survived, but we're a bit wary we all knew it was coming it's the natural progression from private equity ownership but really, where is this open source that we were told about? And Matt is a kind of a big a piece there but as it turns out he jumped on Twitter immediately when none of us was supposed to be talking about anything of course but that's in Matt's nature. Because there is a lot of open source at Adobe in fact there's a lot of open source technology that underpins even these Enterprise Solutions that they offer. I visited with with several of our team members in the Basel office and there are Apache Software Foundation board members. I mean you want to to talk about the beginnings of open source and the impact its had on the world? These are some of these people and so yes it's there I think it's not a secret to say that Adobe really hasn't done a great job of telling that story. So as I've met and kind of toured around with some of the Adobe vice presidents who've been visiting here and I love that they're engaged. They get this, they want this to expand. It's been it's been really interesting watching them and encounter this and then start to be inspired by us as much as we are inspired by again the opportunities that exist as we all come together. >> It's great, yeah and Matt's been on his Trevi a week cover, CNCF and will be a cube con I think next week and in Barcelona so we're huge advocates, but so it's such a different way of looking at the world again accepting that there's more smart people outside your four walls than are inside your four walls. Which just by rule is the way that it has to be, you can't hire all the smart people. So to use that leverage and really build this develop wrapped advocacy is a really tremendous asset. >> Better together, is what we say, and it could not be true. I mean there there is no way we could know at all, we can't hope to. So what we've done actually in the last couple of years really under some brilliant leadership by Jason Woosley we've been able to double down on our open-source investment and I'd say that was a moment when we truly became an open-source company with through and through because we spun up and we took our best architects and just put them on a project called community engineering that they're dedicated to enabling contribution of fixes improvements and features from our ecosystem. So by doing that we all of a sudden we now have worldwide engineering that is that they're all experts in their individual domains so that line of code that some contributor from somewhere is contributing, he or she has become an expert let's say in something as glamorous like totals calculation like the logic that has to go into that. Because of their real-world experience we get the highest quality code that's just backed up by a lot of trial and tribulation. And from that we basically get to cover all of our bases and they tend to write things in a way that's way more extensible than probably we could ever envision. I don't know of a better formula for having a product that satisfies something so varied and challenging and just constantly evolving as e-commerce. >> Well and I think Jason mentioned this morning that the community engineering program was only launched a couple of years ago. >> Literally a two years ago February. >> So significant impacts in a very short period of time. >> Yeah we were fascinated to see that while we'd had this kind of haphazard almost ad hoc open source engagement up to that point, once we really built machinery around it We've we've managed to build something that is a model for any other company that wants to try to do this. Once we did that we very quickly got to some of our big releases where over 50% of the new lines of code were written externally. And that was cool for about a week and then we realized that that's not even the story the story is everything else I talked about which is just that degree of ownership that degree of informed engineering that we would never come up with on our own. And it was a real signal to this very patient and resilient ecosystem that hey, we're all in this together. And of course we've done that also, we've replicated that with our developer documentation, it's all open source and able to be contributed to and we sort of look at how that can expand and even to the point where our core architecture team now all of their discussions so you can go to github.com/magento, you can see our backlog, you could see where we're discussing features and kind of planning what's coming next. You can also go to our architecture repository and you see all of our core architects having their dialogue with each other in public so that the public is informed and they can be involved and that is literally the highest stage I believe of open source evolution. >> That's a great story now the other great thing though that it don't be brought to you is some really sophisticated marketing tools to drive the commerce in your engine, so I'm just curious your perspective. You've been playing in this for a long time but you guys are really kind of taken over at the transactional level now to have that front-end engagement tools, partners, methodologies, I mean you got to be excited. >> Well really so going back to my, I remember my agency days I remember why some of the Google Analytics code looks the way it does because I remember the product that it was before. Urgent analytics right and I remember when we could first do split tests and one of the first cool projects I ever worked on in Magento 1.1 was sort of parsing Google's cookies to be able to sort of change the interface of Magento and test that for conversion rights. And to think of how far we've come, now we have the power and the mandate really to absolutely know everything about the customer experience, the customer journey and then I'm sitting there in our keynotes you know in the general session yesterday, looking up and I'm looking at the slide and I'm seeing like 14 trillion transactions that are captured in our various apparatus and I think that it's tremendous responsibility, it's tremendous power. And if we if we combine, if we use this insight responsibly, what we do is we continue to do what I think Magento has done all along which has allowed us to be at not just at the forefront of where commerce evolves but really to set the standard that consumers begin to expect. And I know we've all felt it, when you have when you have that experience and it feels very full of friction I know we can do better and I will immediately go away from any website that makes it hard for me to do what I want to do any website that seems like they are kind of a partner on my journey that's where I mean that's we're going to spend my time and my money and that's really what we're trying to really lean into here. >> Which is essential, because as you mentioned if I'm doing something on my phone I expect a really fast transaction and there's friction points, I'm gone. I will be able to find another service or product that meets my need because there is so much choice and there's so much competition for almost every product and service. So being able to leverage the power of advertising, analytics, marketing and commerce to really deliver the fundamentals of the business needs to truly manage the customer experience is a game changer. >> Yap it is so what we're what we're looking to these days you know Magento, just before the acquisition was announced made a tremendous investment to start up it's completely independent trade association called the Magento Association. It's a place for our community to collect under. And and when we're here and Magento is still a big champion of ours a big source of investment and we are you know we are looking and I kind of wear both hats right because I'm a board member of that group as well as being a Magento Adobe employee. But one of the focus that we have is still that collaborative spirit where we start to carry the message and the capabilities of this tooling so that we can ensure that this ecosystem remains and powered to deliver the experiences that our customers and their customers expect. >> Absolutely, well Ben thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and your enthusiasm and passion >> Yeah did that come through I was hoping. >> You could next time dial it up a little bit more. >> Okay good. >> Awesome and bring more flair. >> I'll bring more flair next time. [Lisa Mumbling] >> I'm still wondering what happened to the capes? >> The magician master capes yes. >> I can I can probably go grab you a couple. >> That would be awesome orange is my favorite color. >> Good to know. >> Ben it's been a pleasure having you on the program we look forward to next year. >> Likewise thank you both. >> Our pleasure. For Jeff Rick, I'm Lisa Martin and you are watching theCube live at Magento imagine 2019 from Vegas. Thanks for watching. (upbeatmusic)

>> Narrator: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Magento Imagine 2019. (fizzing) (upbeat music) Brought to you by Adobe. >> Hi, welcome back to theCUBE. Lisa Martin with Jeff Frick at Imagine 2019, the Wynn, Las Vegas, with about 3500 customers, lots of partners, lots of developers, a lot of energy here. And speaking of energy, we have Jason Woosley, VP of commerce at Adobe. Jason, you came onto the stage this morning from the clouds suspended. Talk about energy. >> It was a lot of energy, and there was a message behind it, right? (clears throat) I mean we really are talking about our Cloud penetration and how that is the future. So, you know, I got to do something really cool and check something off the bucket list where I actually did descend from the sky onto the stage. It was the best Imagine entrance I've ever done (Lisa laughing) and really does talk about, you know, how important our Cloud Strategy is. Thanks for having me on, by the way. >> Absolutely. >> Our pleasure. >> So, a lot of energy here, again, community, community, community. We go to so many shows, so many people are desperate to engage developers. And you guys have that in your core. It's been there from day one. Continues to be such an important part of who you are as well as the road forward. >> It's the reason for why we are where we are today. I mean bar none, right? Our community, this eco system. And it's not something you can buy. It's not something you can even intentionally build. You have to nurture, you have to create a platform that speaks to a large audience, and then you've just got to make sure that you're treating those developers and your partners really, really well, empowering them to really differentiate that experience at the last mile. And, you know, it's a flywheel effect. You end up with this incredible community that's anxious to contribute back into our code base and they have made, what you see at this conference is a result of that community. It's not anything that Magento could do. It's not anything that Adobe could do. It is just something that has to organically happen, and then you have to nurture the heck out of it. And that, that's really what we've done. >> And this is a community that you say has grown organically to several hundred thousand people who I feel like to say that they're influential to Magento, the technologies is actually an understatement with how much, how, again, I think influential's the wrong word. They're stronger than that. >> They're absolutely core to it, right? I mean they're an extension of our development methodology. You know, I like to think about, you know, I run engineering as part of my organization, and everybody in my group is customer-facing. Just like everybody in out community is customer-facing. And so we've tried to tear down the walls that separate our community members from our internal core engineers, because it creates this incredible diversity of perspective that you can't find anywhere else. I mean, no matter how much I invest in broadly diverse engineering teams across the globe, 300,000 engineers, they call themselves Magento developers, don't take a paycheck from Adobe but contribute back to our code base, influence our road map and really show us the way. It's an incredible phenomenon. >> In the last year since the announcement of the Adobe acquisition and the actual completion of that six, seven months ago, how has that community reacted, strengthened? What have been some of your surprising observations about the community's strength? >> It is surprising, and I'll tell you why. I think we came into the acquisition with a lot of apprehension, right. There was a concern that, you know, Adobe's too big. They're too corporate. They don't really love Open Source. All untrue, right? Adobe has incredible Open Source initiatives already inside, but you don't here a lot about it. And so, our community, I think, is it's a little bit concerned about, you know, does the level of investment go down? Does all of our ability to promote that product, does that, do we start to back off of that? And of course, we have not done that at all, and in fact, what we've seen is that our community loves the Adobe acquisition. They see opportunity just as clearly as we do. We have more than triple-digit growth in the number of community contributions coming in to us since the acquisition last year. It is a clear sign that the ecosystem is fully on board with where we're going. >> Right. Well clearly the Adobe Suite provides so much gunpowder to power the commerce that's been at the core of Magento from the beginning. I mean it almost begs the question, why didn't this happen a long, long time ago? >> I think there's something to be said about that, and, but you know what, it took Adobe a while. They picked the right platform. We're very confident of that, and, you know, their investment in community is actually paying off on the Adobe side, right. When you think about digital experience products, they (Adobe) are now more active than ever in open source projects. We've got, you know, folks from Adobe Experience Manager that are writing code and contributing to Magento, which is, it's absolutely terrific. And they're now talking about how do we get the ability to kind of create that contribution mechanism and at least create a platform concept where, you know, everybody plays. It's an equal playing field. You can serve us small, you can serve us large. And it just brings everybody together to solve these common, complex problems that are joint merchant's face. >> I don't know how many times you've been on stage in the last few days but, a couple. But one of the things you really, you know, (pounding) you didn't pound on the table but you basically pounded on the table, is that we are still, totally, 100% behind SMB. >> Jason: Absolutely. >> It's our core. We're not giving that up. >> We built this market together, right. This was what made Magento what it is. It's where we play the best. We know it better than anybody else in the industry, and we're not retreating. We're doubling down. We've got ground to take in the mid-market, and I can't wait to do it. >> Right, but what's wild is you're enabling the mid-market, to compete with the tools of the big guys. So, announcements are on the integration with Amazon, announcements are on integration with Google. So it's kind of an interesting place for small retailers, small merchants. They've got to compete in this world, so you're really giving 'em an aid, an opportunity to both play in what might be a big competitor as well as leverage that ecosystem and assets as well as doing it within their own brick and mortar or their own site . >> And that's a terrific point. I think one of the reasons we do that is we've seen consumer expectations rising through the roof, right. I mean, everything from, you know, fast shipping is now one-day. And it wasn't very long ago that fast shipping, if you could get it within a week, that was pretty darn quick. >> Jeff: Right. >> But now fast shipping is one day, and that's across the board. Consumers are expecting frictionless payment. They're expecting, you know, buy online, pick up in-store, omni-channel capabilities. Really all of these capabilities. And a consumer, a shopper, really doesn't care whether you're big or small. What they care about is the experience that the consume when they interact with your brand. And so, bringing the tools of the enterprise to the mid-market allows them to compete on a more level playing field, and that's really where you generate all those great innovation. And that's where you see, you know, these smaller merchants that are really able to, you know, drive into something that, you know, may not have been a core target for some of the larger enterprises, but they find an niche and are able to deliver, but they have the same personalization needs. They have the same logistics needs. All of that has not changed just because they're a smaller organization. And so it's really on us to be able to provide them the tooling and the access to the capabilities that let them compete with the larger merchants. >> No, 'cause you're right. As consumers, which we are every day, we don't care if they're a big or small company, or what technologies that, well, no we do care, to a degree, that we can start something from a mobile phone, have a great seamless experience >> Jason: Yep. >> that's not gonna cause me to churn, because I'm not going to be able to find what I want. I want it to be personalized. I want them to know enough about me in a non-creepy way, as you say. >> That's right. If it's good, it's magic. (Lisa laughing) If it's bad, it's creepy! >> Right, regardless of-- >> That's fair. >> That's for recommendation engines. >> Yeah, no, that's fair. >> And expect that they have what I want. But also what you're doing now is giving these SMBs, these smaller organizations, the ability to harness this sort of symbiotic data power between Adobe and Magento for advertising, analytics, marketing, commerce, to be able to have that wealth of knowledge to make that experience exactly what that consumer expects. >> Exactly right. I mean it's about bringing behavioral data and the transactional data together to really get a 360 degree view of individual customers. And guess what? There's too much raw data there for Excel to ever be able to tell you anything. You've got to rely on things like artificial intelligence and machine learning so that things like Adobe Sensei to really derive insight out of that mass set of data. But that's the way you create those personalized experiences. You have to employ those techniques to get there. >> Right, I just wanted to unpack the Sensei down-spin a little bit, 'cause I think that's really interesting. You know, AI's been a great buzzword. We see it in a lot of places. You know, our Google email now automatically figures out what we want to reply to our email. But it's the integration of AI in applications is where we're really starting to see it come to market early, and this is a great example of, you know, using the Adobe AI inside of Sensei, on specific parts of the application to deliver a better application, a better consumer experience. >> And we've got a great roadmap for rolling out Artificial Intelligence capabilities to Magento commerce. It's one of the largest value adds that we'll do over the next 12 months, is really bringing those capabilities around recommendations, around experience personalization and experience targeting. Around A/B testing. And then you think a little bit into the future, and suddenly you're looking at an AI that can give you pricing recommendations and campaign recommendations, and, you know, that is a, that's a world we cannot wait to really explore fully in the commerce world, because I think that those are the tools, you know Amazon applies a lot of dynamic pricing techniques right now. It's a really expensive process. I don't know a lot of small merchants that have access to the tools to do that. We're bringing those tools to small merchants, and that's gonna change the game fundamentally, I believe. >> And a way that they can do it, almost themselves, rather than having to have a team of resources, which a small business doesn't have. >> And that is the name of the game for small business. You can't require them to have a data science team. You can't require them to have an IT staff or a Web development team. You gotta give them everything they need so that they can focus on retail, what they know best, merchandising to their customers and, you know, managing their inventory, driving up the correct margins and then making sure that they're able to grow the lifetime value of their customers, right? That's the Holy Grail for retail is when you can actually optimize against lifetime value. Because it's the number one thing that all merchants are chasing. >> Yeah, 'cause you had the guy on the keynote yesterday. I'm not in the demographic. I'm trying to remember the name of the-- >> Oh, Troy, Troy Brown from Zumiez! >> From Zumiez, yeah. >> Yeah. >> I thought it was just really interesting, you know, kind of re-thinking retail, right? Retail is not dead, but it's different, and you have to be different. And really to see how they have kind of taken their concept I thought it was pretty interesting, especially around the fact that he has no more fulfillment centers, he said. But basically, they're fulfilling from the store. They want to engage you in the store. It's a convenient thing. Especially now we see Amazon packages are all gettin' stolen off of doorsteps. But, you know, enabling them to be creative around their customer engagement, not necessarily worry about how to run a bunch of A/B tests. They let you do that complicated stuff. >> Let us take on all of the complexity, and then they can actually benefit from the insights derived from that. And what Zumiez have done, it's a phenomenal story, right. I mean, you're going away from this centralized warehouse concept, to really turning all of their stores into distribution centers, right? 704 or so, brick and mortar-strong where, you know, they now have merchandise close to their consumers. They have, you know, the ability to do showcasing, buy online, pick-up in store, all of the omni-channel techniques that are grabbing so much traction right now. And Zumiez has really capitalized. >> Jeff: Right. >> They've done a terrific job, and it's great seeing it come from these really innovative retailers, right? I mean, that show last night with Zumiez was absolutely, you know, fantastic. Their culture is super unique, highly energetic, but they're driving technology forward in a way that you might not expect from a skateboard apparel shop. >> Right, well, they're making Champion cool again. It came out of the Champion, and it was in the demo. I'm like, I didn't know Champion was a cool brand. >> Apparently, it is cool now. >> Jeff: It's cool now. >> You and I are both out of that demographic, (Jeff laughing) but it is a very good story. >> One of the things that we're hearing and seeing is that we talked about personalization and that this expectation, that as consumers, we bring to everything we buy, whatever it happens to be, but also, this sort of, looking at Amazon as an example, of going to brick and mortar from purely online, the acquisition of Whole Foods, people still wanting to have that human interaction. We talk about it all the time when we talk about AI, is that pretty much the common thread is yes, AI, and maybe yes, online to a degree, and then there's still that need and that demand for that personal face-to-face or maybe voice-to-voice interaction. >> Yeah, well, you know, its really for me, it's about taking that brand, you know, experience and making sure that it's resonating across all of your digital properties as well as all of the physical properties, right. It is about really leveraging. My brand experience is consistent across every place that I come encounter my customers, and I'm ready to transact anytime my customers are ready to transact. And when, you know, talking about Amazon. we've announced some really cool stuff this Ad Imagine on Amazon, a partnership. where Amazon sellers can now have a branded storefront on Magento. This is allowing folks that have done a terrific job selling in the market place, where you don't have a lot of opportunity for experience differentiation on the amazon.com site. >> Lisa: Right. >> And it's a terrific marketplace. More than 50% of product searches are starting on Amazon now. So it's a reality that retailers need to find a way to come to grips with. >> Jeff: Right. >> And what I'm really excited about is that those merchants that are doing really well on Amazon now have a new channel where they can create these branded experiences and really start differentiating themselves from their competitors. It's going to be a terrific story. It's Branded Storefronts for Amazon Sellers is the name of the offering. And its going to change the game for folks that have been exclusively Amazon, maybe thinking its too hard to go get an online presence that actually represents my brand. Now its a piece of cake. They've got a clean path to get there, and the capabilities go both ways, right? We also announced Amazon sales channel for Magento commerce that allows you as a branded merchant, to go and participate on the Amazon Marketplace and have full control over your inventory, your orders and all of your catalog. >> It's so funny, you know, we talk about experience but so much of retail execution is actually inventory execution, right? >> [Jason} That's Right. >> It's inventory management. That's where all your money sits. You can get it real upside down really quickly if you're not managing your inventory. And if you don't have the right amount of inventory, especially as you say with same-day delivery now being an expected behavior. And so to add the sophisticated tools on the back and to manage that inventory across that broad, kind of distribution plane, if you will, with all these different points of engagement is so critical to these guys to have any type of chance of success. >> Yeah, it is. It's absolutely critical, and we've also got a Magento order management product that specializes in sort of global inventory control. We've made terrific investments there to bring new capabilities to make sure that those omni-channel aspirations are not something that a merchant has to go invest a whole lot of money and change in their systems. I think it is interesting to think about when you talk about how B2C is really bleeding into B2B, right. As supply chain management, you know, 70% of our B2C merchants, self-described, actually engaged in B2B workflows, and almost all of our B2B-only merchants are really looking at how do I go B2B to C? >> Jess: Right. >> So there's this really great platform play happening, and the fact that Magento commerce and Adobe commerce Cloud can serve us B2B and B2C and all the hybrids in-between really puts us in a differentiated position and helps merchants not have to go invest in multiple platform, multiple maintainability and then find some way to reconcile the inventory between the two. >> Right, and we had a quote earlier today. I can't remember who said it, but I thought it was great where, you know, no longer is the actual transaction the destination. Right, but now you're bringing the transaction to, you know, kind of the journey. It's a very different way to think about a traditional funnel. It isn't the traditional funnel that you work your way down to the end. Now you're inserting commerce opportunities, >> Jason: Yep. >> engagement opportunities all along kind of this content flow. >> We kind of teased ourselves, right, We kinda lied to ourselves and said that, you know, this is a linear journey. And we've all bought into it, right. You know all the steps, right. It's a discovery, awareness, I mean all the way to post-purchase. Its not linear. People move in and out of each of those sections, and so being able to transact where the customer is ready to transact is critically important >> Jeff: Right. >> and then understanding that the post-sale service is the key to lifetime value. That's the other major learning that we're trying to take away from this. And it's why it's important to be at every point your customer is. >> Yeah, it's interesting, 'cause especially with these things, because you don't sit down to work on your phone like we sat down to work at these things. >> Jason: That's right. >> And so your attention, >> Jason: works coming to you. >> it's coming to you, and its coming in little bits. Oh, and by the way, there's a whole bunch of notifications coming on that can pull you away. >> Jason: Yeah. >> So they're very different challenges in terms of actual engagement when this is the primary vehicle. >> And increasingly, it is the primary vehicle, right? >> Jess: Absolutely. >> More than 50% of traffic to retail, e-commerce site is generated from a mobile phone, and there are emerging markets where that is the only internet-connected device, and so it's the standard. You absolutely have to take mobile very seriously. There's a great set of technologies coming online to help us get there. It's called Progressive Web Application. It's going to change the game on how mobile is treated as a device, and in fact, it gets rid of the need for discrete native applications. So instead of having an IOS app, an Android app, a desktop storefront, a mobile storefront and maybe a tablet storefront, plus your online brick and mortar, now you can actually say, my digital properties are serviced by one set of technology. And that way, when I make a change to one, it shows up in everything. I don't have all these difference code bases to maintain. It's a total cost of ownership, and really, a time-to-market play >> Lisa: I was gonna say, >> across the board. >> faster time-to market for sure. >> Absolutely. Yeah. >> With far less resources. >> Well, and bringing it so that you really have to invest in allowing your merchandisers to merchandise on your digital properties, right? If there is an engineer sitting between your merchandiser and the customer, that time lag and even just trying to get it done, there's so much frustration there. So creating these self-service tools that really allow non-technical merchandisers to go in, make adjustments to how they're selling products across all those channels very, very easily and in one place, that's gonna return a ton of value to our merchants. So its another thing that we're super excited about. >> No, you deliver that consistent experience that the consumer is expecting, and then, we were talking to PayPal earlier, start to help companies close that revenue gap of getting them from mobile to, you know, wanting to transact and making that whole process seamless. >> There's a nine billion dollar opportunity in closing the mobile gap. When you think about abandoned cards and folks that begin the checkout process for whatever reason, likely they get frustrated and don't want to type in their credit card number or don't want to type in their address, and then they move to another device or another store that's doing checkout in a more frictionless way, the nine billion dollar opportunity if you close that. >> Wow, that's huge! >> So its incredibly important. >> It is incredibly important. Well Jason, we wish we had more time, but we thank you so much for stopping by theCUBE and talking with Jeff and Me. Such an exciting time. Sounds like developers are feeling embraced. The community is happy. Customers are reacting well. So we can't wait to hear whats next, next year. >> This is the best place to be in the world in commerce. Thank you guys so much for having me on. It's always a pleasure, and I've enjoyed it a lot. >> Oh, our pleasure as well, Jason. >> Alright, thank you, guys. Thanks, Jason. >> For Jeff Frick, I'm Lisa Martin at Imagine 2019 at the Wynn, Las Vegas. Thanks for watching. (upbeat techno music)

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE covering Magento Imagine 2019, brought to you by Adobe. >> Hey, welcome back to Las Vegas. Lisa Martin with Jeff Frick. We're coming to you live from Magento Imagine 2019. Welcoming to theCUBE for the first time Gary Specter, the VP of Commerce, Sales and Customer Success at Adobe. Gary, welcome to theCUBE! >> Thank you, I'm thrilled to be here. >> So there's about 3,500 people here, you guys have, from 60-plus countries. >> Gary: That's right. >> I think 100 sessions, 150 speakers. People coming down from ceilings, up from the floor. >> Gary: And we're streaming live. >> First ever live stream, yes. >> On the general set, first ever. That's right. Someone tweeted out that there are 35,000 people watching. >> Marketing probably loved that and then had a heart attack at the same time. >> Yeah, I'm sure they did. Not exactly accurate but I'll take what I can get. >> Tell us about the event, the spirit of the event. This is kind of, yesterday evening things kicked off. What of some of the things you've hearing from customers, partners, developers? >> So, I think the thing that's really unique about Imagine is that it does involve partners, the community, developers, along with Magento and our customers and our prospects. And it makes it really different because the developer community and our partners are so passionate about Magento. And I think everybody feels really good about the marriage of Adobe and Magento. You had technologies that were very well aligned, not overlapping. It enables us to extend the capabilities of what we can do from both the Adobe side or the Magento side. I like to say that the color palette got a lot bigger, and I think there's a lot of excitement around that and what that means to all of these people, developers, partners, the ecosystem, customers, prospects. So the energy is really high. I think obviously people are, what's next? And what does this mean for Magento? And I think it means investment, I think it means a higher rate of agility and an expansion of what we do. Acceleration of our roadmap. So I think people are very, very positive. And this is my fourth Imagine, and it's really, I've never felt the energy higher than at this Imagine. So it's exciting for me. >> Gary, one of the interesting ways that you talked about community and everybody wants developer communities, right? And you guys also have open source as a passion. But you phrased it in a way I've never heard before, is that you like going to sleep at night knowing that there's a whole bunch of other CEOs betting their business-- >> That's right. >> On this platform. >> Yeah. >> And it's not just you guys, so it's a really different way to think about open source. We often think of the developers and there's smart people outside your four walls contributing code. But it's not often couched in terms of the business terms. >> No. >> If there's are other people betting their business, thinking about how are they gonna help grow your business by building their business on top of Magento. >> That's what drives the passion of the community. These people realize that there's a symbiotic relationship here. If Magento successful, the ability for them to be successful is very broad. And if Magento's not successful, then you have to ask yourselves did I make the right bet? So a lot of our tech partners have build these great solutions on top of Magento, and it's a partnership. And you don't have that anywhere else, and again, I sleep better at night, to your point. I don't know where you got that quote, but it's actually mine, it's phenomenal. >> No, no, I think I got it from your Argentina 2017 talk perhaps. >> Actually, it's true. I know that all of these tech partners, these CEOs, they have my back. I'd like them to know I have theirs. And I don't think Adobe has any, there's no reason or rhyme why that would ever change. I think Adobe will enhance it. And I think that's why there so much excitement here. >> Well, and it's really a validation and what we talked about before, the prior segment, was now to bring the marketing tools, and the AI and all the power that's in that big building in San Jose, free the commerce transaction, really, to your point, adds so much more horse power to the total solution. >> Like I said, color palette just got a lot bigger. There's so many more things that we can do and so many more colors we can use to create these great experience for our brands and our customers, that we could've done before but it was a lot of work, but now we've got all of the makings of a platform that will enable that and we're already pretty far along in taking the Adobe experience cloud and making that work. And I'm just really excited about the future and what this offers for our customers and our brands. >> We've heard a number of guests that talk about just what you were referring to a minute ago, and that was really this symbiosis of Adobe, the power that Adobe brings, the data that Adobe brings, along with Magento, So a new Adobe commerce buy was just launched a couple of months ago, at Adobe Summit powered by Magento Commerce, but you look at it as analytics, advertising, marketing, commerce, fundamentals for managing what is a changing and highly demand customer experience, 'cause we want more and more things accessible from right here. So some of the feedback from customers, partners, developers since that announcement and now going "Ahh, okay now I can actually touch and see and play with this two symbiosis machines coming together." >> Yeah, I think it's not a hard thing to get. I think when the acquisition first happened, there's a little let's wait and see and make sure they get it right. And I think what I feel today, or what people have given to me today is the feedback that they're believers. They know that we're gonna execute on this strategy, and this strategy is gonna allow us to extend our lead on our competitors, which in return, allows these brands and these commerce players to extend their lead on their competitors. >> Let's talk about the small/medium business folks for a minute. When the announcement was made last year, the intention, right after Imagine 2018 I believe, for Adobe to acquire Magento, and then right after they acquired Marketo, there was some concern for is Adobe gonna kind of shift what Magento has been doing, so successfully for so long, away from focusing on those smaller merchants to the enterprise folks. Yesterday and today, we heard some great, exciting announcements with what you guys are doing with Amazon Sales Channel, with Google Shopping, and it sounded like the small and medium business size folks were going "Yes, this is what we need." Talk to us a little bit about that. >> I mean, you mentioned two, along with PWA and some of the other things that we're doing. While these can be leveraged in the enterprise, they were built for the mid-market in the SMB space. And there is no doubt that Adobe and Magento both understand how important SMB and the mid-market is. And in fact, we've seen acceleration in the SMB space since the acquisition, from the Magento side of the house. And Adobe is fully committed and knows that there's market share there to be had. And the application or the business problems that we solve at the enterprise, are still applicable for the mid-market and the SMB space. They're handled in a little bit different of a manner, but they have same aspirations. And the solution's gonna be able, when you look across everything that you're gonna be able to do, it plays for both markets. And Adobe has an incredible opportunity to really drive market share in this mid-market. They don't have a big footprint there today. Even if you capture just a small portion of it, and its our plans to capture a large portion of it, but even a small portion of it is gonna make a big impact on Adobe. So I think that we will see acceleration in the mid-market and in the SMB space with what we're doing, what we're developing together, and the different types of products that we can offer to those markets that Adobe has in its broader portfolio. >> And of course on the enterprise side, what we don't see here that we saw at Adobe Summit a couple weeks back are some of the really big integrators who have huge practices built around and on top of the Adobe tool set that now you get to leverage. I'm sure you're pretty excited about as running field. There's, again, a whole nother group of people, not necessarily CEOs, but managing partners, who have bet their jobs, bet their livelihood, bet their practices on this, and now you getta take advantage of those resources as well. >> Absolutely, and I think that a lot of the large integrators and partners, I think everybody's starting to understand that commerce is very different now than it was five or 10 years ago, right? I call it bite small, chew fast. And HP is a great example, where they started in some of the smaller APAC countries and then went to Brazil, and they're looking at the US last, but they're taking it a step at a time. One country, one country, one country. And a lot of our big retailers or brands that wanna expand globally are doing the same things, or companies that have portfolios of brands, one at a time. Bite small, chew fast. Launch, be successful, launch, be successful. And I think the SIs, including the large partners, understand that and they're changing the way that they look at businesses holistically. So I think right time, right place. >> Yeah, we had Gillian Campbell from HP on right after her keynote this morning, and it was an interesting kinda POC program. And I said what was some of the market dynamics that identified APAC as the right market to start in. And part of that, I think, was that from a historical legacy perspective of using Magento on the HP Inc. side. But some of the things I found interesting to them was that leveraging the data to understand the cultural e-commerce differences snd how different cultures interact with different social media platforms or purchasing platforms differently, and how important it is to really understand those commerce patterns and start to drive conversions from there there and then go success, roll it out, rinse and repeat. >> And she nailed it right? I mean, buy online, pick up in store versus having it delivered to your home, if you live in the middle of India, what's the reality of you getting that delivered in an hour? And if you look at country like Russia, which is very spread out, right, so there's not a high density outside of a lot of their major cities and you have a lot of the same issues. If you're gonna have it ship to your home, how long is it gonna take? It might be easier just to go pick it up in the store. And I think it's different in every region. And it's good to be able to have access to that data to get a good read on what are the things our customers want specifically to drive the experience they need within that region. >> Right, key for a company whether it's something the size of an HP Inc. or not, to be able to scale globally, but also have that sort of local market adaptation where you're able to react, understand the preferences in your markets, and deliver exactly what those consumers want. So having a tool like Magento as the power to enable that global scale regional adaptation, it's a driver. >> And I think you start to add complexity when you look at do they use their phone, do they use their computer? Do they use social networks and buy buttons? I have an interesting dynamic in my own house where I've got a 13-year-old, and the way that she would shop online is different than the way that my wife would shop online, which is very different from how I would shop online. I browse and go to the store. My wife uses her computer. My daughter shops on Pinterest, or Instagram, or Facebook. Very different journeys for the three of us, and we could be buying the same thing, and we're all gonna do it differently. So it crosses generations as well. >> So, Gary, it feels like kinda the dust has settled post-Adobe acquisition where everybody feels kinda comfortable, and it's been a year and everything didn't go bananas. So as you look forward now, after things have kinda settled, what are some of your priorities over the next year, If we sit down a year from now, what are you working on? >> I can tell you that for me, the biggest priority for me is to make sure that the mid-market and the SMB flywheel is effective, the way that we go to market, the way that we target that segment. And it's not that I'm not interested in the enterprise. I'm extremely interested in the enterprise. But we have a lot of people that are working on the enterprise. And Adobe doesn't have deep domain expertise around the mid-market. But with Marketo and Magento, you now do. So for me personally, I wanna make sure that that flywheel is well-run, it's well-oiled, it's set up for success, that operationally, the things that we do to drive market share in that segment run as effectively as the rest of Adobe on the enterprise side. It's a new sales motion for Adobe. But the good news is I think Adobe understands that. We understand that as a company, and I think over the next year, for me, that's where my focus is gonna be. >> So if we keep looking out to the next year, this is your fourth Magento Imagine. >> It is. >> Is there gonna be a Magento Imagine 2020? >> So I will tell you that there will be an Imagine 2020, and I will share details around that Wednesday. I've been asked to help close Imagine out, and when I do, I will be thrilled to announce our plans for Imagine 2020. >> So can folks watch that on the livestream tomorrow, Wednesday, that 15th? >> They can. >> Are you gonna be coming up from the floor, the ceiling? >> I think I'm probably just gonna dance on out. I have been invigorated, I love being here. Imagine is the one opportunity every year where I come out of this thing just feeling really good about the opportunities that we had ahead of us. And by Wednesday, although tired, I'm usually really happy to be going back and getting in the field with my teams and just driving opportunity. And I think we had an amazing one. >> Well, we'll be all watching. Is it imagine.magento.com to watch the livestream ? Or magento.imagine.com. go to to the Magento.com site, Wednesday tomorrow in the afternoon, you're gonna be able to hear more about what's to come next year. Gary, thank you so much for giving us time today. >> Thanks for having me, enjoy it. >> Our pleasure. >> It's great to meet you all. >> Excellent >> Thank you. >> For Jeff Frick, I'm Lisa Martin. Tou're watching theCUBE live from Magento Imagine 2019 from Vegas. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)

(energetic music) >> Narrator: Live from Las Vegas. It's theCUBE, covering Magento Imagine 2019, brought to you by Adobe. >> Hey, welcome back to theCUBE. Lisa Martin with Jeff Frick in Las Vegas at The Wynn, for Magento Imagine 2019. We're excited to welcome to theCUBE T.J. Gamble. Not only the CEO of Jamersan, but a Magento Master. >> That's the big one right there. >> Right? >> CEO's important, but don't forget that one. >> Well, one of the things I wish our audience could see, is that awesome orange cape that you and the other Masters were wearing this morning. >> If I had had known, I'd have brought the cape, but the cape's going to get framed and put up somewhere, so we tucked that away in the bag. (laughs) >> So you have been a Magento advocate, part of this massive community of over 300 000 that they have accumulated in the years. For a long time now, this is the first Imagine post-Adobe acquisition. What is your take on this year's event? How is this community, in the year since the acquisition was announced? >> You know, the community is a little apprehensive, a little concerned. Change is always a concern for people. You know things are going so well, Magento's growing. Everything is positive forward, and then you have Adobe come in and acquire it. Some people, they're on edge a little bit, but I think you come to conferences like this, and you see the announcement of them rolling Sensei into it, and channels, you know the Amazon channels they rolling in, and you start to see the acceleration of features and innovation that Adobe brings when they bring those level of resources. And so, I think people are starting to really, kinda, get over that nervousness and start to feel the excitement of where the platform is going, and it's just about to explode, and get even bigger. >> It's a whole bunch of resources, right? The new investment, and as you've seen it kinda change hands a couple times: isn't it a pitted company, then going to eBay, then out of eBay, private equity, and now to Adobe, and yet the community has been very , very grounded and stuck with the platform all the way around. Opensource is a huge part of this story, small, medium-sized business is a huge part of this story. There's some really big announcements today, kind of integrating into the Amazon ecommerce system, integrating into the Google shopping systems, and I still can't believe that Adobe didn't have an ecommerce platform, before they brought a Magento. It fits perfectly into this kind of funnel process. >> It could not fit any better if they had built it up from the ground themselves. You know, if you've didn't see at least the promise of it right away, then maybe you weren't paying attention. It fits into what Adobe's doing just incredibly, because Adobe's all about experience, and so Magento being the most flexible e-commerce platform in the world, it does not have the limits that some of the other platforms have. So if you can envision it, if your customers desire it, you can deliver it on the Magento platform, which is what made it just-- I mean, it's like you say, it's just the perfect fit into the Adobe ecosystem. And I don't know why they didn't have an ecommerce platform. I don't know if they've tried and failed. I didn't keep up with the history of Adobe like I have Magento, but I'm glad we're here. I'm glad it worked out that way, because it's gonna be good for everybody. >> What are some of the things that you're hearing from those small and medium businesses, as Jeff was mentioning this morning, the announcement of the Amazon sales channel integration with the free extensions in the marketplace, Google shopping, aimed at squashing the fears of some of those small and medium-sized businesses may have had in the last year of being acquired by a company, Adobe, that has a very strong and oquias presence? >> Yeah, it's not so much those features are-- it's you're starting to see the investments, so that's good, but those features are more about ecommerce is getting more complicated. You're going to have to start selling in multiple channels, you're going to have to start selling on all of the social platforms. Facebook's gonna eventually roll something out. They're already doing it with WhatsApp. Instagram just announced the check-out within their site. So there's a lot of things you've got to manage, and data is difficult, so anytime a platform can out-of-the-box handle a lot of those integrations, you can now manage Amazon, you can now manage your Google products, widen your ecommerce platform, and it becomes the hub for small merchants to run their business, because most small merchants don't have a complex ERP as their hub for their data, so they can-- >> A lot of resources, right? >> Exactly, so if the ecom platform can help you manage that data, so you can focus on properly merchandising, that's great for everybody, because small merchants, the have and the have nots: the gap is widening, and so small merchants are going to have to have tools that they can leverage to keep up, because they're never going to be able to throw the money at it like somebody else can. I mean Amazon is spending eight hundred million dollars next quarter Three months, they're spending eight million hundred dollars to go from two day prime to one day prime. How is anybody supposed to keep up with that? You can't, so you compete on your own turf, but you still need tools so that you can leverage all of the available things out there, all of the available channels and stuff, that you can go out and bring ecommerce to your customers, instead of forwarding customers to your ecommerce. >> It's a great example, bringing it to the customers. I'm curious to get, kind of your take, on the small, medium ecommerce players out there, that's kind of experienced message, right? It's a big piece of the Adobe story. We were at Adobe's summit a couple weeks back, and clearly they've got a ton of resources. When they talk about this ongoing engagement with the client, be with them wherever they are, let them shop wherever they are. Like you say, that's easy if you've got a lot of resources, but I'm curious: are smaller merchants seeing that? Are they changing their way? Do they go to market where it is more of an experience, and the products come along, or a lot of them, that's just too big for them to bite? >> Both. You see both. It depends on the maturity of the merchant, what kind of resources they actually have to dedicate to it. The great thing about experience is, is once you have a platform with limitations, like an Instagram check out, that is an experience. Instagram handles the experience for you, so somebody finds a product, they one-click, and they've ordered that product, and all of the canceling that order, all of the notifications go through that platform, so they've made that very easy for a merchant to have that top-level experience. You know, if you're a small Mom-and pop, and you gain access to Instagram checkout, it's gonna be the exact same experience as the big brands that have access to it. As long as you understand your audience, and you're creating posts to engage with them, and you know how to merchandise your products, you don't have to worry about the technology stack. So I think this is going to be the great equalizer with where merchants are actually interacting with their customers. It's going to be a huge opportunity. >> What about, kind of, the competition with somebody, like an Amazon, where on one hand it's a great distribution channel for me as a small merchant. I got some specialty items-- I used to always joke, "Good news, just got an order from Walmart. Bad news is you just got an order from Walmart", right? So, you've got the scale issues, as you mentioned in Instagram. Suddenly I turn on Instagram, and my cup goes viral. How are small merchants kinda playing both sides of that coin: I wanna play with Amazon. I want to use their distribution technology, I wanna use Instagram with to pay. At the same time, I've got limited resources. Oh my God. One of these things hit and I get 100 000 orders pop up on my system tomorrow, I'm in trouble. How are people managing that? How are you helping them, kind of, strategise? >> You want to find the right tools. You need to understand your customers. You need to understand where to best engage them, and if you have limited resources, you have to be selective. You have to figure out which one is the best, like if I have all my customers on Instagram, then that makes sense, but if all my customers are on Twitter, then why am I putting resources into Instagram? So you figure out which platform is best. When it comes to Amazon, not to quote-- we don't want to quote 90s rap on here, but in the words of the Immortal Too $hort, "You should be getting it while the gettin's good". Take advantage of it while it's there, but sooner or later they're going to own your market. You understand that, you go in with eyes wide open, that sooner or later if you're successful, Amazon is going to take over your market share that you're getting from their platform. But until that happens, you have no choice but to play by their rules. These other platforms, it's a little different, because Amazon's dangerous because they own the channel, the actual medium and the platform by which transactions are happening, but they're also a competitor on that platform, which is what makes them dangerous. When you get in that situation, there just so many gray areas. We've never been in that situation before. The good thing about these other social channels, is that they're the medium but they're not also competing. Like Instagram is not selling on their platform, so it's-- somethings going to happen with Amazon. Every Juggernaut dies at some point. We maybe a 100 years from now before we see that happen, but, you know, something's gonna have to happen to stop Amazon. We can't have one platform, that is also a competitor in the space be 75, 80, 90% of all ecoomerce. We just can't have it, so something's going to happen between now and when we get there. I'm not the guide, I'm not Nostradarmus, I'm not going to prognosticate what that is, but changes are gonna happen over the next five years, because that's just not a market conducive to competition. >> Speaking of changes, there's a lot of change going on with the expectation of consumers, which we are every day, for many products and services, and we wanna have a personalized experience. We also want to be able to do everything from our smartphone, so this rise of, at least it's starting a transactional buying process on mobile is really critical. One of the things also announced today was progressive web apps. Want to get your perspective on that as a game changer in the next gen for shopping, and how might that enable a small to medium business to compete better with its competitors on Amazon itself? >> Yeah, PWA is if you don't know what a progressive web app is, you need to go do research right now. It was-- they definitely mentioned it today. It wasn't necessarily announced. It was announced, I wanna say, a year and a half, two years ago now. They've been working on PWA Studio in Magento for a while. Progressive web apps are a Google initiative, and Google usually gets what it wants. We won't talk too much about Accelerated Mobile Pages, or anything like that, but usually if Google's pushing it, it's a good thing. PWAs are interesting, because they're not a technology. They're a methodology. It's like responsive web design. It is just best practices for how you should deliver a mobile experience. It's a single page application, which means you load your app once, and then elements-- when you're moving through your site, elements that are the same don't refresh. Like if the navigation, the headers the same, when you click, it's still there. It doesn't flicker, it doesn't jump, it lazy loads things in, so it brings things in as it needs it, to save time, so that it loads faster, and to save data, because mobile usually you're on a cell network when you're doing that. It touches on all of the important aspects of ecommerce, which is why it's coming fast. Number one, you're gonna have increased conversions, because if you can browse around the website, and it's snappy, and it's fast, you're much more likely to order something. So you've got increased conversions there, that's number one. Number two, you're gonna get more traffic, because it's a Google initiative, Google rewards fast websites. So if you do it properly, and you've got the SEO right, Google's going to send you more traffic, and so it also leads to more loyalty, because you can have a more pleasant user experience, and your customers like you. Really in ecommerce there's really only three stats that really matter when it comes to how much money you're taking in: how many new customers can you get-- right, that goes back to the conversion rates, and Google sending you stuff-- how much did they order, were they more likely to order more when it's fast, and they go right through and they can browse through 1000 products really quickly, and then how frequently do they order from you? That's it. Every other stat in ecommerce trickles down to those, and PWA touches on all three of those, which is what's going to make it happen and happen really fast. Right now, if you move into PWA, it's a little bit of a risk, a little bit. That risk lowers every day, so if you watching this, two months from now the risk is a lot lower, but the technology is new, the tooling is a little new. It still needs to mature a little bit to be readliy available for the masses and affordable, especially for smaller merchants, but if you do move now, you can have a serious competitive advantage for years. If you're building a website right now, you 100% need to at least look into PWAs. If you're gonna launch it, later this year, you're gonna launch it early next year, you absolutely have to look at it, and if you're going to start the website next year some time, I really-- it's going to be an odd case that launches a website by summer of next year, or after, that is not a progressive web app. It's gonna be that fast. >> T.J. I wanna get your perspective on something else that we're talking about here at the show, and that's AI. You know, talk about AI, and machine learning for a long time, and as we kinda suspected, really the easy application flows are inside somebody else's application. We're seeing Adobe use AI on the back-end or on the marketing side, 'cause the whole idea is to get you what you want, and as somebody once said "If it's done poorly, it's creepy. If it's done well, it's magic". So I wonder if you can kind of reflect on how AI is changing what you can build, amd what you can deliver to the customer, even if you're an SMB, 'cause you're leveraging AI back in systems, way back supporting it. >> Yeah, the AI is a buzz term right now, and buzz terms are always really popular about five years before they're useful, and we're probably a couple of years into AI really being a huge buzz term, so it's starting to creep down market. With something like SenSei being added to Magento, you're going to see it creep even further down market. I'm excited about it. What AI in ecommerce-- where it's really going to play is understanding your customers in real time. Those who understand their customers, can provide a better experience. And how do you understand your customer, the differences between them, what they're looking for in real-time, while they're interacting with your website, that's really difficult to do, and it's impossible to do without something like artificial intelligence, so leveraging it for your product recommendations, for your search, for what content you're going to show to them. It's still going to be a lot of work, unless we figure out how to AI create all that content. Still going to be a lot of work, but just having the ability to understand the subtle nuances and differences between your customers and their desires, and then to be able to actually react to those in real time, is going to be incredible. >> Especially as there is not only so much noise out there, but there's so much competition, pretty much every product and service. T.J. we thank you so much for joining us on theCUBE this afternoon. Next time you gotta come back with your orange-- >> I'll bring the cape. >> Magento Imagine cape. >> If they would have just told me, I'd have brought it, but-- >> Now you have to come back. >> Now I've got an excuse. I'll forget it next time so I have to come back again. >> There you go! (laughs) Allright T.J. thank you so much for joining us. >> Thank you. We appreciate your insights. For Jeff Frick, I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE live from Las Vegas, Magento Imagine 2019. Thanks for watching. (energetic music)

>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE covering Magento Imagine 2019, brought to you by Adobe. >> Welcome to the theCUBE, I'm Lisa Martin at The Wynn, in Las Vegas for Magento Imagine 2019. This is a three day event. You can hear a lot of exciting folks networking behind me, talking tech, talking e-commerce innovation and we're pleased to welcome fresh off the keynote stage a couple of guests from HP. We've got Gillian Campbell, the Head of Omni-channel Strategy and Operations. Gillian, thank you for joining us. >> Thank you for asking us. >> Our pleasure and Herriot Stobo, Director of Omni-channel Innovation and Solutions, also from HP. Welcome. >> Thank you very much. >> So Gillian fresh off the keynote stage, enjoyed your presentation this morning. >> Gillian: Thank you. >> Everybody I think in the world knows HP. Those of us consumers going, you know what actually, that reminds me, I need a new printer. >> We can help you. >> Thank you, excellent. Whether I'm shopping online or in a store. So you gave this really interesting keynote this morning talking about what HP is doing, starting at Apache. You really transform this shopping experience. Talk to us a little bit about HP, as I think you've mentioned it as a $50 billion start up and from a digital experience perspective, what you needed to enable. >> Yeah, so as I said, HP have been around for 80 years and in 2015, we became our own entity, HP Inc., and really started looking at how do we enable digital to be pervasive through everything that we do. Our internal processes are reached to customers and identified a great opportunity to really take leading edge and our digital commerce capabilities and we already had some early proof points and APG so we launched a global initiative and we're now on that journey to enable that best in class experience through the digital platforms. >> So Herriot talk to us about, you're based in Singapore. >> Yes. >> What were some of the market dynamics that really made it obvious that this is where we want to start building out this omni-channel strategy starting in Apache? Is it, you know whether, Gillian you mentioned it before. We started retail spaces, some being expensive. Is it more mobile experience and expectations on consumer's part? >> I think we've got a mix of different starting points across Asia. We've got some mega cities like Hong Kong and Singapore rising, Tokyo. And then we've got you know emerging markets across South-East Asia. We don't necessarily have any single market place that controls the entire market as we might see in other regions and so we've had a lot of runway to go and experiment and try new things. We also have an ecosystem of branded retail in Asia. Not in all markets, predominantly in India but also in some markets in South-East Asia that allow us to really blend the experience across both offline and online and to give customers choice at the end of the day. Let them decide how they want to shop and interact with our brand. So we have been running Magento 1 since we first launched our online store businesses in Indonesia and Thailand about six years ago and then we moved into China, replatformed, lexi-platform onto Magento 1 and then that was really the foundation of what we decided to go and build upon to become a global program. so we already had some proof points under our belt with Magento so. >> And what were some of those early wins that really started to make this really obvious that this omni-channel experience, the ability to give customers choice? Whether they want to start the process online, finish it in store, vice verse, or at least have the opportunity to have a choice? What were some of those early wins and business outcomes that you started to see? >> I think even just from because we're all, customers are people. Whether you're a corporate customer, a small business, or a consumer, we're all people and we all know that we shop that way. So essentially the storyline on that back to HP was we have to enable experiences that we would want to experience as well and it was quite a shift for a tech company who were really all about the products to be thinking about, well, how do we really enable that end to end experience? And as Herriot said, the runway was open. We already had some proof points. I was new in the job so I was like all listening to, you know, what the team were telling me. We have a great opportunity here and took that formered as a new concept for the company. We got funding approval and you know the rest is the history and the journey that we're on. So I think it was just taking a different perspective and a different approach and working with a team who already had the, built some of that credibility and others proof points with the earlier deployments and I think we kind of took a risk at the time when we started the engagement with Magento. They weren't in that leadership quadrant and we took a risk to say, let's partner with an energizing company and do something a little bit different and we're still here working towards it so I think that for me was the breakthrough, was just having the tenacity to say, we're gonna drive this path forward. It may not be how we would have done things in the past, but we're a different company now. and we had much more thinner air cover to be able to do that. >> Little bit more agility and flexibility. >> Yeah, absolutely. So you guys, you talked about, Gillian about all the buyers. We are the consumers and we have this expectation, growing expectation that I want to be able to get any and transact anything that I want to buy, whether I'm a procuring person for a company and I'm traveling but I need to approve expenses or I'm a salesperson maybe sitting next to a medium-small business customer. I need to have the option at least to have this store front. What are the things that you guys launched in Apache, leverage be the power of Magento Commerce was click to collect. So tell me a little bit about from maybe an e-commerce cultural perspective, what is it that makes people want to have the ability to start online and actually complete the transaction in a physical location? >> Essentially I was in the Advisory Board yesterday and one of the other customers of Magento said, "Until we can invent a way to touch and feel online, "there's always gonna be a need to have, "outlets where you can go touch and feel." and I think with the click and collect, some of our products are, you know, high-end PCs and gaming devices and printers that is hard to get a good appreciation of what it looks and feels like online. So if you're gonna be spending you know, a significant money you may want to go in and be able to see the colors, feel the finish. You know some of our newer products with the leather portfolios is not something you can truly appreciate without touching it. So I think we have to enable again those customers who do want to experience, feel the weight, you know feel the finish, see the color scheme 'cause its usually important, again not for all customers. Some customers are quite happy to spend thousands of dollars on an online purchase without seeing it and then making sure they have a good facility to be able to, well if they wanted to, to return if they got the normal the product. >> As we look though at like we talked about, this consumerization of everything where we have this expectation and the numbers, I think you even mentioned it maybe in your keynote, Gillian, the numbers of, or somebody did this morning, like upwards of half of all transactions are starting on mobile so we got to start there. What are some of the things that you guys have seen in region in terms of mobile conversions? >> So there's still a massive gap between desktop and mobile conversions, first of all. I mean we're not anywhere near parity between the two. But obviously we're seeing a huge volume of traffic coming in as well and it's shifting that way, so you would expect it to drop as result. I think with Magento what we've seen over the, you know, past few deployments that we've been running and that were over 8% improven. But the desktop conversions are far higher. I mean in terms of improvement and actual conversion so we've still got a long way to go. There and that's a naturative process, that's a journey that probably never ends in terms of ongoing optimization and experimentation. So yeah a lot happening there. I think just on the click and collect topic as well that you were asking about people wanting to start their journey online and then come into bricks and mortar. We're seeing a huge uptake on it just by experimenting, by piloting. Over 26% of our consumer notebooks in India that we've put onto this program were being collected in store and this is in environments which are inherently chaotic on the streets. You don't want to go out there but actually I'm passing that way anyway so it's just easier for me to pick it up on the way home and probably quicker 'cause I can collect in two hours. So it's just giving people customer choice, no additional incentive and it seems to take. So now we're expanding out regionally. >> So you said there's, this morning, Gillian, in your keynote eight markets covered, mostly Apache, but also in Latin America. >> We just started in Latin America, again, the development process is not just as simple as we're switching on. So we've been doing a lot of work for this past six months with Latin America. The team there, they're super excited to get launched. There's some differences there, we've talked about the regional variation around fulfillment models that we have to adapt towards but the intent is to get Latin America deployed, leveraging some of the layer lengths from what we've done in Asia specific and then starting to move around into more the near region and then ultimately back into the US and Canada. >> So as you look forward and of course you've mentioned we're on this journey right, what are some of the key learnings that you're going to apply? You mentioned this morning, something that was very intriguing and that was, respect the integrity of the Magento platform. Talk about that in context of some of the other learnings that you'd recommend for colleagues and similar or other industries to be able to achieve what you have on a global scale. >> I think from the outset, there was this kind of like baggage of deployments of capabilities not just in commerce but deployment of capabilities across HP that we had not respected the integrity of the platform. We had adjusted the code and developed on the code to make it HP specific and with the new HP Inc. company one of the guided principles was no, when we buy the leverage software applications respect it for what it is and adjust business processes and adjust integration rather than adjust the core so that we can get the advantage of the longer term opportunity without creating such like. So it was really just a foundational, you know, let's not go in here with a mindset that we know better than the core. The core is there for a reason and then build around that and ensure the integration and I think you know with Herriot's leadership, we've been able to you know, just keep that firm is why we can be successful and be successful longer term as well. So that all the, and one of the things we talked about yesterday also is the excellent capabilities that are coming with Adobe and the integration that we talked about the recommendation of Adobe Sensei and integrate that with Magento Core. If you don't keep to the respect the integrity, those upgrades and capabilities become really hard to take benefit of so we're really excited about, you know, again, sticking with the core and enabling and growing with the core with Magento and Adobe. >> I would just build on it, I mean I think its never gonna be easy running a global commerce platform. Single instance, multiple countries, you know, 27 markets to get started with. Who knows where we're gonna end. Its always gonna be a challenge so we have to keep it as simple as possible. These upgrades are fast and furious and that's great and we all gets lots of benefit but if we start going down our own path, we've lost it. We've lost the benefit. >> And that's one of the things too that Jason Wolfsteen said this morning was that the word Magento was gonna be enabling businesses to achieve without getting in their way and it kind of sounds Herriot, like you're saying the same thing. That we've gotta be able to respect the technologies that we're building so we don't get in our own way and we keep it simple as we wanna expand globally. Ultimately at the end of the day, you're creating these personalized experiences with consumers and that personalization is so important because it's more and more not only are we transacting or wanting to on mobile but we want our brands like HP to know us. We want you to know our brand value, you know our average order value so that we can become part of the experience but also ideally get rewarded for being loyal. >> Yeah. >> Yeah, I mean, I mean just coming to mobile again but you know, 2.3 delivers the native PWA capabilities which we're super excited to get started with. You know we've got so many used cases for this straight away, right out the box but you know we've got to do it gradually, do it the right way. I think we're also aware that we're not gonna be able to run with PWA in all markets straight away 'cause not all markets are ready for it quite frankly. User behavior- >> Is that a cultural thing? >> It's purely cultural. Maybe technical and just technical ecosystems as well. Places like China in particular, where, you know, customers use app stores but they use app stores from every single phone manufacturer right there. That's where the customer is. We can't just move away from that so we need to keep some of those legacy approaches for a little while and then yeah test in other regions and then take the learnings when we're ready to adopt it. >> Exciting so here we are at, this is the first Magento Imagine since the Adobe acquisition. Gillian, let's wrap things up with you. What are your, you mentioned you were part of the Customer Advisory Board yesterday, just some of your perspectives on this years' event now that Magento is powering the Adobe commerce cloud. >> I actually attended the Adobe Summit a few weeks ago here also in Vegas and started to see the thread of commerce coming into that conference and then seeing the Adobe, the experience, coming into Magento and I just think it's a perfect combination of opportunities especially for a company like HP where we were linked in to connect, you know, marketing and sales and support across the customer journey and the capabilities with Adobe and some of the marketing stack, and then the commerce stack, and there was support bringing that together is a super exciting opportunity for us. You know the partnership that we have with both Adobe and Magento again as one as I really, they were just starting what the next journey was gonna look like. >> We feel that about so many things, we're just starting, but Gillian, Herriot, it's been a pleasure to have you on theCUBE for Magento Imagine 2019. Thank you both for your time. >> Thank you, thank you. >> Our pleasure. I'm Lisa Martin and you're watching theCUBE live from The Wynn Las Vegas at Magento Imagine 2019. Thanks for watching. (light music)

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: Live from the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Magento Imagine 2018. Brought to you by Magento. >> Hey, welcome back to theCUBE. We are at the Wynn, Las Vegas with Magento at their Imagine 2018 Conference 3000 plus people here, really cool day we've been talking about all things commerce and digital commerce innovation. Excited to be joined by Peter Sheldon, the VP of Strategy from Magento, thanks so much for joining us. >> Thanks for having me, yeah. >> So this has been really fun, there's a lot of merchants behind us here in the marketplace, we've been talking to some of your customers who, a direct consumer, we just had Coca-Cola on. But we also see a lot of businesses here. Talk to us about what you guys are doing to help, not just the retailers, you started, right, being building this reputation as Magento, helping retailers to target online shoppers, but there's a lot more opportunity that you guys have been successful in, in the business, B2B space. Talk to us about, the vision, the strategy, on both sides. >> Yeah, so I think what's fascinating about Magento is their diversity of our client base, and I think it's a little bit of a testament to the flexibility and agility of the platform, but you're absolutely right, we started out primarily serving the B2C market, working with retailers, CPG firms, branded manufacturers and so forth, luxury goods. But commerce has really evolved and moved on, and I think what we see today is a lot of opportunity in B2B, and so when I think about B2B, these are typically manufacturers and distributors wholesalers who are looking to digitally transform their businesses, and really make the buying process more efficient. So whether it's a distributor who's buying products from a manufacturer, or an end-buyer might be a contractor, especially in home improvement, or something, who needs to buy tools and materials from either a manufacturer or distributor. Traditionally, it was a very traditional sort of, retail based buying experience. You would go to a branch, a distributor's branch face to face, engagement over sales person, or the sales rep would come visit you, and you would through a paper catalog. >> Relationship based. >> Relationship building. >> Exactly. >> And so forth, and that's a high cost of acquisition channel, and so I think what a lot of B2B firms are realizing is there's significant, first of all, there's demand from the buyers because all buyers have their consumer life as well, e-commerce is so mature and the B2C space with Amazon, that buyers are incredibly frustrated if in their business life they don't get that great ease of e-commerce experience, and instead they're still faxing and picking up the phone or even if it is a digital order entry experience, it's really terrible, and it's not intuitive to use, it's not easy to use. So, there's a real demand to digitize that ordering process, but more importantly, I think for B2B firms, there's some real operational savings and putting margin back into the bottom line by creating a lower cost of doing business and serving customers, and it's e-commerce and so I think we see one of the areas where a lot of firms first start out is in the spare parts business, so we work with a lot of manufacturers. It just makes so much sense to move their spare parts and warranty business online, so it's very easy to re-order spare parts, I don't need to pick up and call my sales rep to do that, I can do it in a digital manner. But I think what's really fascinating us is just the diversity of different B2B clients, their backgrounds, there's not a vertical that's immune to this. We see pharmaceutical companies, we see agriculture, we see traditional heavy manufacturing, light manufacturing, life sciences, you name it. And so the diversity of clients we see wanting to use our platform for digitizing their selling relationship that they have, it's really fascinating. >> We've heard a lot today that commerce is limitless, and it sounds like that's kind of what you're talking about, is that this day and age, every buyer is a consumer at some point, right, or everyday. We have these expectations, Amazon set the bar really high and every company to be successful has to be a technology company. So, from your standpoint as the VP of Strategy, some great exciting things have been announced at this year's Magento Imagine Conference. Share with us some of those, and especially I'm curious what you're seeing in the mobile space. >> Yeah, so mobile's really fascinating and I think it actually continues on to what we were talking about a moment ago in B2B. So, if we think about that B2B buyer, often the B2B buyer is an engineer, a contractor, a field service representative. They don't live in an office, they don't have ready, convenient access to either a laptop or desktop. They are out on a site, they are, if it's agriculture, they're out at a farm. >> In a field, yeah. >> Or in a field, or they're in a construction site, or they're inside a plant, and their primary means, or their only means of digital access is their smartphone. And typically they're having a slightly larger screen, phablet type smartphone, probably in a hard case if it gets dropped and so forth. But the way that they're going to engage with a brand digitally and to make a B2B commerce order, to look up the status of their order etc. It's not, we often talk about mobile first, it's not mobile first, it's mobile only. They don't have easy access anymore to desktop, laptop. If you're not serving them through mobile, they're not able to buy from you and they're going to buy from one of your competitors. And we see this thing across the board. Perhaps less so here in the US, but in some of the merging markets where we operate and where we have great success, markets like India. They again, it's very much a mobile only society now, and certainly in mainland China and other sort of emerging markets. So I think we're rapidly going down a path where if you think even in our day to day consumer lives, as we're thinking about making purchases, we're sitting on the couch, we're multitasking or watching television, but it's our phone that we're interacting with. >> Right. >> And if we think about the challenge today about buying through a phone, traditionally commerce purchase experience, it's really not that great. In fact in some cases it's pretty awful. Typical sort of page load time on a mobile can be five, six seconds, and as you want to navigate around using your thumb and scroll through and do some product research, every time you make an action, every time you touch that screen, the page reloads again, and it's actually frustratingly slow. If you actually get to the point of buying, obviously you've got to enter your shipping address, and that's just- >> Can imagine that conversion rates, and things and attrition. >> Exactly. And so- >> What have you guys done to change the game? >> Right, right exactly. So, those conversion rates on the mobile web today are pretty bad. They're about sort of, 1.7% and on a traditional desktop, it's 3.5% but yeah 70% of all traffic and visitors are coming on mobile devices, it's actually quite a profound sort of issue in the marketplace around us. So what are we doing about it? Well there's a really exciting new, and I call it technology, but it's really just a set of standards around open web technologies, Javascript, CSS, HTML, called PWA, or Progressive Web Apps. Now, Progressive Web Apps is not a proprietary technology, it's just open web technologies, but what's changed and evolved are the browsers themselves, so Chrome and Safari, Firefox, they've evolved and they now support what we call service workers, which is the ability for the browser to do more backbone processing. And the end result of all of this are a lot of brands are now rebuilding their websites away from responsive websites, which is the big investment we've had over the last five years to now building Progressive Web Apps. And a really nice thing about Progressive Web Apps is that they perform like a native app, they're very very fast, the page load times are typically around a second or so, and there's no refresh. Every navigation and action is almost instant gratification, so very fast, very slick to use. It feels like you're using an native app, but you're not, you're actually using a web experience in a browser. And so there's a couple of really important things for merchants around that. One, much, much better conversion rates. So all of the KPIs that a VP of e-commerce is ultimately responsible for, they're measured by there's a conversion rate, average order value, bounce rates. They all see significant improvements. And I never say there's some merchants always sort of facing a little bit of a dilemma, should we build native apps, or what should our native app strategy be? And the problem with native apps is they're incredibly expensive to develop, incredibly, a lot of maintenance with all the updates to iOS and Android. And many merchants really didn't see success because consumers will only download and give you real estate on their phones for an app that you really engage with on a very frequent, on a multiple times a day basis. Most of our customers are retailers that perhaps only have two or three transactions a year with their clients, with their end shoppers, and so a native app strategy just doesn't work. So the real exciting thing I think with merchants are, you can actually almost put the need for an app strategy to bed, they don't need one anymore. They invest there in PWA. So here at the conference we announce Magento's support for Progressive Web Apps. We've launched a new development toolkit we call the PWA Studio, and it's really a native capability for our merchants and our system integrators to be able to build Progressive Web Apps on the Magento platform. So we're super excited about it. >> Yeah, sounds super exciting and also really the consumer, the convenience is that consumers are demanding, and you're really reacting to the mobile only experience there. >> That's right. >> Has a huge potential, upside, for the merchants. How are you seeing that being used or use cases for that in the B2B space? >> Yeah, so if anything, it's almost kind of, more applicable in B2B than it is in B2C, although they're both going to adopt PWAs. So what's interesting about B2B is that there is a much more frequent transaction or interaction with the end buyer. B2B buyers are frequent purchasers, they are buying in bulk and they're making purchases perhaps multiple times a day, perhaps multiple times a week. And so they are power users and they do have a great deal of engagement with the brand, with their distributor, so again, it's starkly, I think the B2B firms have built native apps and have done so on top of Mangento, it's very easy to build a native app and integrate it into our Rest APIs etc. But again it's expensive and often it can be a seven figure front sum to initially develop an app strategy and to continue to maintain it, so there's a real there's a real TCO advantage of actually switching that strategy to do a PWA. The adoption can be higher because you don't need to install the app, and just the cost and support of building and supporting a PWA is significantly lower than a native app, and so again there's a lot of use cases for using PWAs in the B2B commerce space as well. >> Awesome. So besides what you announce with Progressive Web Apps, what are some of the exciting announcements you guys have made at Imagine? >> Yeah, so I think product announcements, we got an exciting new product we're calling Page Builder, it's a content management and page building tool. So what this really does is it allows the marketer merchandiser the real control over building and maintaining the pages on their site, and that's mobile web, mobile desktop and building able to do that, and it really alleviates any dependency on having to a front end developer where there's a true wiz with drag and drop capability, gives them complete creative to build very sophisticated content pages, but to do and have complete control over their publishing schedule, being able to preview that. So we're very excited about that. I think it empowers the marketers and merchandisers to be more creative and to get more done in the day, we're empowering them to be, act independently of needing to work with a front end developer. >> Awesome, and you guys speaking of developers, have a very large community. >> We do, we do. >> Of 300,000+ developers. >> It's quite incredible, I mean here at the conference, it's sort of their main annual get together of what we call the community. I'll come here to Las Vegas every year and to the Wynn and the community is here, and a lot of that community is made up of developers, and those developers, many of them work for our merchants, many of them work for system integrators, many of them work for other technology partners, and some are contractors, self-employed specialists and so forth. But as you say, that community is over 300,000 developers strong, that's 300,000 people who make a livelihood doing development on Magento. So it's really an amazing community, and they're incredibly passionate about Magento, and they contribute back to Magento. We are, have our roots as being an open source platform, one of the great differentiative benefits of that is that our community help us innovate and they help us, they contribute code, they contribute features and capabilities back into the platform that means that we can extend our R&D team to be this much, much greater force where we can develop new capabilities and deliver value to our clients at a far faster pace than any competitors do. So it's a really interesting aspect of our business. >> Well Peter, thanks for stopping by theCUBE and sharing the great announcements that you guys have made today and this week, and the direction you're able to go in and help take best practices and things learned in the consumer space, and apply it to businesses. We wish you the best of luck, and we look forward to being back at the Magento Imagine next year. >> Yeah, great. Love to have you back. Thanks so much for chatting with me today. >> Our pleasure. We wanted to thank you for watching theCUBE again, we are live at the Wynn in Las Vegas with Magento at Imagine 2018. I am Lisa Martin, stick around, we're back with one more guest after a short break. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: Live from the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Magento Imagine, 2018. Brought to you by Magento. >> Welcome back to theCUBE, I'm Lisa Martin. We've had a really informative day talking all things commerce, open commerce, and digital commerce innovation at Magento Imagine 2018. I'm joined by Amanda Batista, who is the head of content marketing for Magento. Amanda, thanks so much for all your help in coordinating this. We've had a really educational day with your folks, with your customers and partners. >> Yeah, we've had a really great community. It's been wonderful to have theCUBE here, and I'm so thrilled to be able to be here with you closing out the show. >> So this is the eighth Imagine event, There's over 3000 people here. You guys had some great speakers on stage today. I'm always very excited to see female leaders on stage. >> Absolutely. >> We talked about Baked by Melissa, she was our first guest today sharing her story. You've been growing this event year over year. What is it about #LeadingTheCharge, your hashtag and message for this event, that really differentiates this eighth event from the last several? >> Well #LeadingTheCharge is a really exciting message for us because ultimately we're focused on empowering merchants and developers and really allowing them to not worry about the technology component of things. Whatever you can dream, you can do on Magento. So, #LeadingTheCharge for us here today is really about bringing people together, making connections, and really thinking about, How do you use this community? How do you tap into all these resources? How do you see people that you haven't seen in a while? It's kind of our coming out party, our big coming together. You know, #LeadingTheCharge I think means different things for different folks, but I think for us we're really aiming to empower individuals to do the work that they do really well but also come together. So I actually heard a gentleman say that part of Leading the Charge for him is a matter of making connection. It's almost stepping out as a leader and allowing other people to come together. I think #LeadingTheCharge has been a really nice message for us today and I think our speakers have really brought that to life. >> I agree and with the sentiment that we've heard. Magento started reputation-wise, helping retailers to target the online shoppers and the experiences there. We talked with Peter Sheldon today about what you guys are doing in really formalizing how you're helping businesses, B2B organizations. There's so much opportunity that's really being driven by all of us as consumers and we have this expectation that we can get anything, anywhere, anytime. >> That's right. >> And have it delivered day or night. Amazon sets the bar really high. You guys had Amazon on main stage this morning talking about the fact that there's now 100 million Prime subscribers and how half of Amazon's revenue doesn't come from products they sell, this third-party marketplace just kicks open the doors of opportunity- >> Amanda: Right. >> for businesses from small to large alike. >> Yeah, I think it's really exciting, too, because, you know we can't all compete on price. We can't all be Amazon, but I think as we're really encouraging merchants to think about, What are you offering that's special? What are you doing from a content standpoint? Obviously, content is near and dear to me, that's my bread and butter and what I've been doing for a long time, but we really think about, what are we offering people that's value-add? Is it an added catalog, is it a manual? Is it something that helps you do your job better? Is it something that helps you go back to your organization and feel celebrated and feel excited?" I think when it comes to how we're empowering people, we're really focused on, from a content perspective, enabling you to, again, not really worry about the tech component, but think about how you can innovate your business. That's really important to us. >> Well, that's one of the things that Melissa Ben-Ishay, she's product officer at Baked by Melissa Cupcakes and how- >> Amanda: Sweet it is. >> I still want, it is, and I still want a cupcake. >> Amanda: Yes! >> It was very evident when we were talking with her that she gets, because of technology, that makes things simple for folks like herself, it allows her not to just grow the business, to open more stores, to reach hundreds of thousands of people, but to do so in a way that she doesn't have to worry about the technology. >> Amanda: Right, right. >> And that really- >> That's a great example, really, for us. I think when we look at who we're looking to enable, you know, Melissa started a business ten years ago, was let go from her job and said, Let me take a passion and bring it to life with business. They had e-commerce even before they had stores. They had e-commerce before they were up and running. I think using that as a linchpin, as a springboard to really bring her business to life, delivering a hundred cupcakes on foot on the New York City subway. I'm from New York, I ride the subway, I wouldn't want to do it with a hundred cupcakes, frankly, but these are the sort of bootstrap methods that she was enabled to do not worrying about that sort of tech component, right? She's bootstraps, she only had about five founders, five people around her with her business. Really great to hear from her and I don't see any cupcakes anywhere but I'm dying for one. >> Me too! >> Or five. >> We need to get some. One of the things that you mentioned, content, earlier, in being a content marketer, look at media as an example, with Netflix and Spotify and Amazon, and what's happened to traditional media. It's now that the way a service is delivered is as important as the content >> Absolutely. >> and what we've heard a lot from your customers that have been on the program today is they have the opportunity to deliver services in a responsive way, and in a way that's really personalized, which is really key, right? As consumers, we all want to have an experience that's tailored to us, and we've heard that as sort of an enabling capability that Magento is helping. We had a gentleman from Coca-Cola on, talking about the Share a Coke experience and how that started as a program in Australia. >> Amanda: Right. >> With one bottler, then went to Europe, then became something that was focused in store, and then the consumers are going, Hey, Coca-Cola, I can't find a bottle with my name on it. And it became this really big program for them, that they had to figure out, How do we do this in the U.S. with 70 bottlers? They needed technology that would allow them to identify and have this visibility of inventory, which you guys allow them to do, but to enable their customers to have an experience with a personalized bottle of Coca-Cola. >> Right. >> Amazing how the technology opens up doors like that, and allows these businesses, whether it's something as an establishment like Coca-Cola, or a Baked by Melissa, to be able to deliver this relevant, personal experience, at the touch of a button. It's Amazing. >> Well, listen, and it's non-negotiable, right? Think about your own experiences as a consumer. Who are you shopping with? I'm shopping with brands that understand me, that know what I need, that are offering value-add. You know, you might also revolutionize the way that we view our experiences, and we really don't have patience. Like you said, we have digital, everything is very quick, and I think the experience is the differentiator. We're really focused, again, on taking the technology out of your planning equation so that you can focus on what are you offering? What are you delivering? How are you delighting? That's a big, big area of opportunity and I think what you do to delight and engage and if you're using data intelligently, and not just the nitty gritty of data, but also simple things, the way that you welcome people via email, the way you engage on Instagram. There's a number of ways to do things that don't really require a lot of planning, a lot of cost, and so in our content efforts, we're really encouraging merchants to think about that. How do you do things in a sort of home-grown way without spending a lot of time or money? We have to be agile, we have to be quick as marketers, I certainly know that, that's the world I live in, and again, it's non-negotiable. I think as a consumer, if I don't feel that you understand me, if I don't feel that you're paying attention to the things that I'm buying or not buying, I'm going somewhere else. I'm going to go to a place that makes me feel as though I'm going to be fulfilled and delighted. I think delight is such an understated thing, but we're here at the Wynn which does a wonderful job with experience and everywhere you go it's so delightful and wonderful. >> Lisa: It is delightful! >> I came back to the room last night and my computer cord was just rattled up ever so gently, and I thought, That's delightful! You know, I Instagrammed that. That's a perfect example of providing experience that is superior. >> Speaking of experience, we just had the gentleman from the Accent Group on, Mark Teperson. It was so interesting how they've taken this company down in Australia and New Zealand, with multiple, many, many, many brands of footwear. And, you know, the online and the physical world have been merging in retail for a while now, but what they're wanting to do, to click and collect, and to create this in-store experience. It was such an interesting way of thinking about and hearing from a Chief Digital Officer say, We want to be able to enable people, especially mobile first, we're sitting on the couch with these things often, but to enable them to be able to come into my store and have an experience. That word is, we heard that referenced in many different times today, the Accent Group was a great example of that, as well as when we had your V.P. of Strategy on saying, A lot of cases depending on the, whether it's B2B or B2C, it's not mobile too, it's mobile only. It's not just leveraging technology and data and analytics to understand what I want as a consumer, but it's how I want to consume it. So it's what I was saying earlier about we're seeing this level playing field of how services are delivered, equally as important as the content that you're going to deliver to me. >> Yeah, absolutely. Again, non-negotiable, right? This idea of an omni-channel experience bridging the gaps between online and in-store, like you said, we're on the couch. I almost never shop on a computer any more, right? I'm mobile, we're enabled, we have PayPal, we our credit cards saved. I think to keep that momentum going, you want it to be a seamless experience. How many times have you gone online and found that an item is supposed to be available in the store. When you go, it's not there, right? I've even done due diligence as a savvy shopper who works in retail and says, Let me call the store and make sure it's there. There's really no margin for error there, because when we talk about experience, if you do go in store, and if you do take the initiative to make that purchase and take time out of your day, right, we're all busy people. I think mobile and digital has made it easy, especially Amazon Prime revolutionized that. (mimics beeping noise) Two days, it's on your doorstep. I think as we look to see who's sort of mimicking that experience, I think an easy way to do it, is simply put, have your systems connected, ensure that things are integrated, ensure that your inventory visibility is on point. It's a non-negotiable experience, really. >> Well, Amanda, we've had a blast at Magento Imagine 2018. Our first one, looking forward to being back next year. Thank you for putting together a great array of guests. I know we've learned a ton about this. I won't look at online shopping again the same. We want to thank you for helping us have a really enlightened and delightful conversation. >> And likewise, we've loved having theCUBE. You guys have been wonderful. I've learned a great deal and it's been really nice spending this time with you. So thanks for having me, Lisa. >> Absolutely. We hope you've had a delightful experience today with us on theCUBE. We've been live at Magento Imagine 2018. Check out theCUBE.net where you can find all the replays of the segments that we filmed today. You can also find the editorial components on SiliconANGLE.com. I'm Lisa Martin for theCUBE. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music)

>> Narrator: Live from the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. It's theCUBE. Covering Magento Imagine 2018. Brought to you by, Magento. >> Welcome back to theCUBE, our continuing coverage of Magento Imagine 2018. We're at the Wynn in Las Vegas. You can see it's happy hour behind me. I'm Lisa Martin, we are joined by Mark Teperson the Chief Digital Officer of Accent Group, customer of Magentos'. Thanks so much for stopping by theCUBE and having a chat. >> Thanks Lisa, great to be here. >> So you are an award finalist, the Imagined Excellence Awards are what, in just about an hour and a half. But this is really cool, you are a finalist in several categories. The best in class fulfillment with Platypus Shoes. The best mobile experience with Athlete's Foot. And you yourself are up for Commerce Leader of the Year, wow. >> Yeah. >> I feel like I should be asking for your autograph. >> No please, please, look it's really humbling to have been nominated for so many awards. I think, the thing for me is that it's a huge acknowledgement of the work of the entire team that makes this happen. You know, I have the privilege of being the face of it. But it is an extraordinary team that I get to lead and work with across the organization that really kind of makes all of the magic happen. So, I'm representing them tonight as well. >> Awesome. So tell our viewers who Accent Group is. Where you're located. All that good stuff before we kind of get into all the magic. >> Yeah sure. So the Accent Group Limited is a publicly listed company in Australia. We own and operate nine different retail formats and about 13 different wholesale distribution licenses. We are the largest footwear retailer in Australia. We have 445 stores across both Australia and New Zealand. We turn over in excess of around $800,000,000. So a big business in Australia. >> A big business, many many brands as well from Doc Martens to Timberlands to Sperry Top-sider. So quite a diverse set of brands as well. >> Yeah, look it's, one of the great things about my role is I get to work across the continuum of kind of consumers. And the way I describe it is, is I get to work, that we see everything from first walkers to last walkers and everything in between. And so, from a digital perspective that gives us a really unique opportunity to track and observe the behavior of consumers and their adoption rates of different technologies and different consumer patterns. Which allows us to perhaps be a little bit more responsive and a little bit more considered in our investments of technology. >> That's what we want as consumers right, we want a personalized experience. Mobile, huge. Mobile, pointing at the wrong thing, tablet whatever. We want that, we want, wouldn't we be marketed to but we want to have an experience that's relevant as that's seamless as well. How did you go about, well talk to us about the digital transformation of Accent Group. You've been there a long time. >> Mark: Yeah. >> How are you leveraging technology over the last few years to transform and be able to facilitate a true omni-channel business. >> Yeah look its a great question, it's been a long journey for us. You know this didn't happen overnight. This has been a very long journey. It was initially really backed by our board and we started on this journey five years ago. I've had fantastic support from our CEO, through the transformation process. And that really set the path for us to be able to start transforming ourselves. I think lots of retailers get it wrong when it comes to technology. They make the cardinal sin of building monuments to themselves. You know they build things that they think are great representations of their brand. But if they just stopped and considered you know, what does the consumer really want, what is that unmet need of the consumer or what is that problem that I'm trying to solve? I think we'd all make better investments and deliver better experiences for consumers. And, so we've been really diligent in kind of thinking about and understanding what our consumer was looking for, from us. And, really prioritizing, you know, the million things that we could be doing to a really strong set of, of foundation building blocks, that would set ourselves up for a digital transformation and hopefully a very prosperous future. >> So we mentioned the awards that your a finalist for. Talk to us about what you're doing with Magento, from your seat as the Chief Digital Officer. What were some of the key criteria that you said, you know we don't want to fall into the same trap that we've seen a lot of other retailers fall into and build a monument to ourselves. We're going to listen to consumers and be able to create this responsive experience for them that obviously reaps a lot of financial rewards for us. What were some of the key criteria that you set out with, saying we've got to be able to have technology that enables A, B, C. >> Yeah look, so when we were thinking about how to bring our strategy and our vision to life, there were a couple of things that we were really looking for. One was flexibility and the ability to, realize, I suppose, re-imagine a consumer experience. So we needed that flexibility and because we have so many brands that we retail and we represent, we needed something that could be multi-site, multi-platform as well. So that was some of the key considerations that we came to. But when we were thinking about the consumer experience it was really about the delivery of that front end experience. So, how do you deliver a really great click and collect experience for a consumer. How do we deliver, ship from store, with a high level in degree of accuracy for the consumer so that we don't disappoint them. And now as we kind of look forward, we're looking at how we can deliver same day delivery in three hour delivery, not just in a single city but across the entire country of Australia and even New Zealand. By re-imagining our stores not only as experience centers for consumers to really touch and feel the product but as distribution centers to be able to get product to customer much faster. And Magento has really enabled us to transform and realize that experience that we re-imagined for our customers. >> So I was telling you before we went live that I watched the video. The video testimonial that you guys have done with Magento and with the case study. And, I am a stats person. I love stats because it's really the voice of the customer is the best brand validation any vendor can get. But being able to show a positive business outcome that is quantitative, is huge. >> Mark: Yeah >> You guys achieved with one of your brands, a 10X increase in sales growth, in 10 months. >> Mark: Yeah >> Tell us a little bit about that. >> Look that was unexpected. I think it blew everybody away. We took a great brand and a great business, Platypus Shoes. And this brand is really geared up for the Millennial consumer. Really deeply ingrained in the culture of Millennial life. We sell fantastic brands, Nike, Addi, Vans and Timberlands through that business. And we have a fantastic in-store experience. And so our digital experience was just really kind of dragging the chain. It wasn't living up to that expectation that the consumer had, once they've experienced our physical retail. So we took an old platform and we decided to take the plunge into M2. We were one of the very first enterprise customers on M2. And in the delivery of that platform we launched and very soon after, followed up with click and collect. And ship from store, to really enhance and connect the consumer experience. Lots of people talk to this vision of omni-channel. It's much harder to execute. It's much easier in theory than it is in practice. >> Of course, yeah. >> But what we learnt in a very short period of time was that the consumers really wanted to transcend our channels. And they loved the experience that they were getting in each of the channels, separately but together as well. And so this halo effect, we had so much brand equity with our Platypus business that as soon as we were able to deliver on that unmet need that the customers were telling us that they wanted, they came to us in droves. And so we had a 10X increase in sales in 10 months which is a pretty staggering outcome. It's been fantastic for the whole business. >> It's interesting that you talk about the in-store experience. What are some of the other benefits that the stores are getting? I imagine if you can do like ship to store, there's going to be more store traffic as a result of having this seamless experience for the customers. >> Yeah. In the whole strategy when we think about omni-channel strategy, the best, the very best channel for a consumer to actually engage with us in and purchase is click and collect. And I'll tell you why. Because in click and collect, what you've done is you have captured that online demand that exists for products and they've said to you that I actually want to come and pick it up in your store. And when they come and pick it up in your store, by doing that the 12 other retailers that they have to walk through in the mall to kind of get to you. There not going to shop there because they have committed money, they've committed funds to your business. And so that gives us a fantastic opportunity when that customer walks into your store, you know that they are a serious consumer. And that gives us great additional opportunities to introduce new products or experiences to that customer. So by capturing that demand online and driving them into that in-store experience, we get to showcase the best of both environments. That really savvy fast, fun, content lead digital experience and that sensory experience in-store. Where you get to feel and touch the product and talk to our awesome team members. And really have a fun experience buying shoes. You know the wonderful thing about footwear is and I always joke about it, is that unlike the apparel space and fashion, shoes don't make you feel fat or thin. They just make you feel good. >> That is true. I feel really good in the shoes I'm wearing today. >> There you go. >> So, huge success with launching this with Platypus. Like you said, it even kind of surprised you guys. Do you have a line out the door of the next, from a strategic vision perspective, the dominoes all lined up. Ready to just launch this thing. >> Yeah, absolutely. So I think one of the things that's led us to be really successful is the discipline that we have around how we roll out strategy. And supported by a phenomenal team across the entire Accent Group. I think what's really important to kind of acknowledge is, is that it's not one person, it's not one division that makes this stuff possible. It's an entire organization. And it's entire groups of people that come together to really make this possible. So some of these initiatives involve more than 50 people across the entire organization representing every facet of the business. And so through the discipline that we bring to our strategy process, we've got a really, well planned pipeline of product and innovation that comes over the next 12 months. In fact our pipeline feels pretty full at the moment. Some of that looks like endless aisles. So what we've done was ship from store for our digital business in terms of driving and fueling sales, is in reverse. So endless aisle gives stores that same capability. So our regional store that might not have the full assortment of product can now tap into $110,000,000 worth of inventory across our entire business. >> Lisa: Find it anywhere. >> Find it anywhere and we can get it to that customer and not only will we get it to them free of charge. We'll do that next day. And that's a pretty amazing proposition for a consumer. In addition to that we're looking to roll out same day and three hour delivery again across the entire country. Both Australia and New Zealand. That requires a huge amount of coordinated effort a lot of integration, a lot of sales process. To make sure that we can, I'm not even sure if it's a word, systematize you know, how you do this because it's all very well to have this capability plugged into a business, but you've got to be able to deliver that fantastic experience for the consumer. When they un-box that product or when they come in-store to pick up that click and collect order, that it doesn't feel like a foreign experience for the sales team who are serving those customers. And the customer feels like it's a really well thought out process. >> So as we look back at your last question. The digital transformation that you're on with the Accent Group and the time that you've spent there, what excites you about you know the rest of 2018. Is it being able to take on advanced technologies like machine learning and Artificial Intelligence to make that experience transcendent across digital and physical stores, even better? >> Yeah you know, I often get asked the question, "What keeps you awake at night?" And they're two things. The first one is, the competition that doesn't exist today. And that includes technology so the rapid evolution and adoption of technology and how that can disrupt the market. And the second thing is, what the customer wants tomorrow. Those are two very salient things that keep me awake at night. So what keeps me excited I suppose is looking at the success and the way in which we adopt and roll technology and strategy through the business. It's not technology for technology sake. It's really easy to get caught up in the hype around some things so I've been following the A.I. trend now for three years. It finally feels like it's reaching commercialization in the market. And I think in the next 12 months we certainly will see a much greater adoption of parts of Artificial Intelligence in how it can power better consumer experiences and perhaps even better intelligence in decision making in our organization. It's a very humbling thought to think that, you know whilst I know a lot about the industry and space, there a 1,500 things that happened yesterday and the day before that and you just can't keep up. And nobody has the monopoly on good ideas so events like this and getting out and talking to people and figuring out you know, what is that next big idea. What is that trend that's riding you know in the market. That's how we try and figure out what the next big thing is going to be. >> And we've felt that all day with commerce is limitless, opportunities are limitless as well. Mark, thanks so much for, >> Not a problem. >> stopping by and telling us about what guys are doing down in A (mumbles), it sounds, pretty awesome. >> Fantastic, thanks for having me. >> Absolutely our pleasure. We want to thank you for watching theCUBE, we are live at Magento Imagine 2018, in Las Vegas. I'm Lisa Martin. Stick around, we'll be right back to wrap up the day. (light music)

>> Announcer: Live from the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Magento Imagine 2018. Brought to you by Magento. >> Hey, welcome back to theCUBE, I'm Lisa Martin, live at the Wynn, Las Vegas at Magento Imagine 2018. We've had a really cool day here talking about lots of facets of commerce, e-commerce, and really talking about commerce as a center of gravity around digital transformation. If you drink Coke like I do, you're going to be pretty excited to hear our next guest. We've got Todd Skidmore, the manager of eCommerce from Coca-Cola. Todd, thanks so much for joining us. >> Thanks for having me. >> So I'm super thirsty now, there's probably some Coke bottles behind us. >> (laughs) Yeah, exactly. >> So everybody knows the iconic Coca-Cola brand and the Share A Coke branding that you guys have been using a long time. As retail, and really as consumers, as we've really started to change the way, not just that we buy, but the experience that we want to have, I'd love to hear the journey that you guys are on at Coca-Cola to make a product that's been around for how long, really personal. So talk to us about what the Share A Coke journey is, and let's start with why you even started it. >> Perfect. Yeah, so the campaign actually started really as an opportunity to connect with consumers in a more personal way, and it was an in-store campaign. It started in Australia, actually, in 2011, and was hugely successful, so it moved its way across the world and made it to the U.S. in 2014 and of course, you can imagine the U.S. as big as it is, and we have the distribution, and complexities, and manufacturing, took a few years to bring it, but it was hugely successful in 2014, but of course, success breeds opportunities, and with that, people started going, "Well, I can't find my name on a bottle "in the store, how can I get my name?" Posting on social media, et cetera, which is great exposure, but we had an opportunity, so when we brought the program back for the next summer, the campaign in-store as well, we also brought in our first foray into direct-to-consumer e-commerce where you are able to go onto the site, personalize a bottle yourself, and get any name on a bottle. You weren't restricted to what was in the store, or even if it was in the store and you couldn't find it, now you had an opportunity to bring that to life. So that's kind of been the journey, and that was three years ago when we launched the site, and now we've gone from just basically selling one skew, which was a Coke bottle, infinitely customizable one skew, but one skew, to now we have over 6,000 skews on the site, including licensed merchandise, lots of different bottle options, all kinds of stuff, so. Really, the whole thing has been about connecting with consumers, listening to what consumers want, and then bringing those experiences and the brand in a really special and unique way. >> I love that you're listening and taking that consumer feedback and identifying by doing so, I imagine, using big data and analytics, to then identify additional business models and revenue streams for Coca-Cola. >> Yeah, so, the crazy thing is we started it and the big thing was you can get your name on a bottle. Well, then we started realizing by looking at the data that people were using it for weddings, and events, and all kinds of things, and reunions, and graduation parties, and so being able to customize it and have it for an event like that brings really a special, you know, the Coca-Cola to those occasions, which is exactly what we want as a company, is to be a part of the communing and occasions like that, so being able to use that data to drive our products and also drive our marketing. So now we don't just talk about getting your name on a bottle, we talk about these occasions and marketing. We have a whole wedding page, talking about weddings, et cetera, so. >> Wow! That's cool. So you guys are a award finalist here at Magento Imagine 2018 for the Imagine Excellence Awards in the Customer Insights category, and it's kind of (mumbles) with what you were just saying in terms of listening to customers, but also from a data-driven standpoint, you mentioned marketing, and I'm a marketer, and marketing is now a science because there is so much data available, but as consumers we want that. We want an experience, whether its Coca-Cola or some other retailer, we want them to know enough about us, to not steal our data, but to be able to deliver a seamless experience regardless of channel, that's relevant to me as a person, as a human. And that's something that you guys will find out, I guess tonight at the awards ceremony. >> Yeah we'll see what happens tonight, but yeah. So we definitely try to use as much data as we can to inform where we're going to take the next program, marketing campaign, et cetera. So it's listening to what people are buying or even saying in the reviews, et cetera, so. >> So in terms of the genesis done in Australia, and then brought it to the states as an in-store program seasonal, a few years ago you've launched the online direct-to-consumer, I imagine, mobile, tablet, any way that they want to consume it. >> Yep. >> Talk to us about opening up this channel, direct-to-consumer and what that is helping achieve from a business perspective. >> Well, I think it's another way to sort of certainly learn more about what our consumer wants, and we certainly get probably the best data that you can get on an eCommerce site than you get even compared to almost any other type of platform or way we've had in the past. We've had rewards programs in the past which was also another way to get great consumer data, but this is one where you absolutely know if someone makes a purchase they're making an investment in your brand, which means you know that's a valuable customer, and that's a valuable consumer that you can then understand that's the type of people that we want to be associated with, market to, and have them be a part and connected to our brand. >> So the responsiveness to your consumers is quite clear. If we take a look at, you said 6,000 skews now? >> Todd: Yeah. >> So it's expanded beyond the actual Coca-Cola bottle. So many different opportunities. How are you using technology to help manage and track all these different skews and ensure that supply and demand is in sync. >> So, we do the best that we can while-- we are, I will be honest with you, we're a pretty scrappy bunch within Coca-Cola, and we have an analytics team, or person I should say, a 'team', person, and we rely on that to pull that data down and analyze it and take a look at what's happening. We're of course reviewing that and reacting to it as quickly as can. I talked about an example in my speaking session earlier today where, at Coachella, TeenVogue picked up one of our outfits and took a picture of a model there. It started trending on Instagram, and it was only offered in-store, in our brick and mortar stores. We were able to get it up online within 24 hours so we could start reacting, so of course that just happened days ago. >> Right. >> So, we're really trying to be progressive and fast and agile about reacting to what consumers are interested, because they were on Instagram going, "Hey, where can I buy this?" et cetera, and so being able to sort of react and do those things is exciting. >> Absolutely. One of the things that I find interesting, and we've talked a lot about this today with out guests, is the conveniences that we expect as consumers, right? We want to be able to go to any device wherever we are and buy whatever we want, and expect that it's going to show up in a little brown box on the doorstep two days later. How are you seeing trends in the consumer space spill into the corporate space? >> Maybe reword that again so I... >> So you're selling to consumers, and you're doing a lot of pivoting, "Hey, they want this, they want that." >> Todd: Oh, okay, so like corporate orders? >> Exactly, exactly. >> Yeah, I mean, I think really we all know that the whole business world and everybody's lives are coming together. It used to be traditional, it was like work was my work and personal was my personal. That's not the case anymore, and also with e-commerce sites, b to b sites now are becoming more like d to c sites. People are expecting much more of it, expectations are much higher from what you're going to deliver on a b to b site. So I think all these worlds are sort of merging, and I think from a corporate perspective, they see an opportunity with a Coca-Cola brand, and we want to be able to deliver that on the corporate side as well, so. >> So is that business growing then, in terms of companies coming to the website to, like you see with, you said weddings and other occasions, is corporate buyers now kind of at that level? >> Yeah, so we even have hotels buying for events on our site now, so we have some relationships there that we've tapped in to, which is the great thing about Coca-Cola is we have all these partnerships with properties, entertainment, et cetera, and we try and bring all those things. That's been a big focus of mine, is taking advantage of the things that Coke already has in place, and bringing them to a new way, and a new way to sort of participate in those partnerships via the bottles basically. >> So the website is by... >> Well, you can go to cokestore.com, that's the easiest way, or shareacoke.com. The reason we've sort of moved to the cokestore.com, think about it, it was kind of a program to begin with, now Share A Coke is just a piece of sort of an overall direct-to-consumer offering that we have. >> So, exciting opportunity tonight with being a finalist with this award, what are some of the things that you're looking forward to as 2018 continues in terms of, maybe some of the next iterations of products or opportunities based on what you're hearing from your consumers? >> Yeah, I think the next year or so is really going to be interesting and where we go in terms of direct-to-consumer and what things we can push into further, I mean we know we've got a really good, solid, we know that we need to to be able to offer something that is special and unique so we will continue to follow that path of, we're not going to try and compete in selling something that you can get everywhere else. It just doesn't make sense. But we want to be able to offer things that we can truly offer that are unique from what you can get elsewhere. >> And continue that personalization, and relationship. >> Yeah, that'll be driving our roadmap forward will we always be unique, special, personal, exactly. >> Awesome, well Todd, thanks so much for stopping by and sharing about Share A Coke. >> Yeah. >> Now I know where to go to order a bottle since you didn't bring me bottles that say Lisa on them. >> I should've brought you a bottle, yes. >> That's okay, next time. >> Yeah, alright, perfect, thanks. >> Thanks so much again for your insight, really interesting conversation. >> Alright, thanks for having me. >> We want to thank you for watching theCUBE. I'm Lisa Martin, live at Magento Imagine 2018. I'm going to go get myself a Coke. I'll be right back with my next guest, see you then.

>> Narrator: Live from the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, it's theCUBE covering Magento Imagine 2018. Brought to you by Magento. >> Hey, welcome back to theCUBE. We are continuing our coverage live from the Wynn Las Vegas at Magento Imagine 2018. We've had a really exciting day talking about commerce and how it's limitless and changing dramatically. Joining me next is Sucharita Kodali, the vice president and principal analyst at Forrester. Sucharita, it's great to have you on theCUBE. >> Thanks for having me, Lisa. >> So commerce is limitless. We've been hearing this thematically all day. You primarily are working with retailers on their digital strategies. And you've been doing this for a long time. Let's talk about the evolution that you've seen in the retail space with everybody expecting to have access to whatever they want to buy in their pockets. >> Right, right, right. I would say, so I've been working in the retail industry for the last two decades. I've been an analyst for the last 10 plus years. I've really seen a number of changes. And if I had to just summarize the biggest changes, one is just the inventory across different retail channels. So, that's definitely been a huge huge one. It's like, how do you, how do you order online, but then fulfill the item from a physical store or fulfill the item from another store? So those are, that's basically the digital transformation of retailers. Those are investments that companies like WalMart and Target have really been doubling down on and focusing on. The second big change is Amazon. And they single-handedly have transformed the retail industry. They have increased consumer expectations. And what Amazon's also done is reinvented retail as a business model. Because it is no longer about just selling product and being profitable selling that product. Amazon actually is not profitable with a lot of the items that it sells. It makes money in other ways. And it is probably what I would describe as America's first retail conglomerate. And that becomes a really interesting question for other companies to compete, do you have to become a retail conglomerate? Then, the third big change is just brand selling direct to consumer. I remember when I started at Forrester, my very first project was with a large consumer electronics company that asked, Well, should we even sell directly to consumers? There's channel conflict and issues with our distributors. And now, that's not even a factor. It's sort of table stakes you have to sell direct to consumer. And that's probably where we'll continue to see a lot of retail sales in the future. >> So the Amazon model, we expect to be able to get whatever we want whenever we want it, have it shipped to us either at home or shipped to us so we can go pick it up at a store. It's really set the bar. In fact, they just announced the other day that a hundred million Amazon Prime members. I know people that won't buy something if it's not available through Prime. But I think this morning the gentleman that was on main stage from Amazon said at least 50% of their sales are not products they sell, they're through all of the other retailers that are using Amazon as a channel as part of their omni-channel strategy. If you think of a retailer from 20 years ago, how do they leverage your services and expertise and advice to become omni-channel? Because as today, you said essentially it's table stakes for companies to have to sell to consumers. >> Yeah, yeah. There are so many questions that really require, I call it destroying the retail orthodoxies. And retail has historically been about buyers and merchandisers buying goods. There's the old expression in retail, You stack 'em high and watch 'em fly. And that is just where buyers would, Take a company like Toys R Us, they would basically take what Mattel and Hasbro told them to buy. They would buy a ton of it, put it in stores. And because there was less competition back in the '80s, consumers actually would buy that merchandise. And unfortunately, the change for retailers is that consumers have so much more choice now. There's so such more innovation. There are small entrepreneurs who are creating fabulous products, consumer tastes have changed. And this old paradigm of Mattel and Hasbro, or kind of fill in the blank with whatever vendors and suppliers, pushing things is no longer relevant. So, there was just an article in the journal today about how Hasbro sales were down by double digits because Toys R Us is now going to go out of business. So those are the kinds of things that retailers who did not adjust to those changes, they are the ones that really suffer. They don't find ways to develop new inventory, they don't find new channels for growth, and they don't protect their own. They don't build a moat around their customers like Amazon has done, or they don't find ways to source inventory creatively. That's where the problems are. >> You think that's more of a function of a legacy organization; having so much technology that they don't know how to integrate it all together? What do you think are some of the forcing functions old orthodoxies that companies that don't do it well are missing? >> Yeah, it's a lot of it is just in the old ways of doing business. So, a lot of it is being heavily dependent, for instance, on buyers and merchandisers buying things. I mean, one of the biggest innovations that Amazon realized was that, look you can sell things without actually owning the inventory. And that is, their entire, what we call the third party marketplace, and that is just so simple. But if you were to ask a buyer at a major retailer a decade or two ago, "Why do you have to buy the inventory?" their response would be, Well, you have to buy the inventory, that's just the way it is. And it's like, well why? Why don't you try to find a new way to do business? And they never did. But it took Amazon to figure that out. And the great irony of why so many retailers continue to struggle is that Amazon has exposed the playbook on how to sell inventory without owning it. And so few retailers to this day have adopted that approach. And that's the great irony I think, is that that's the most profitable part of Amazon's business is that third party marketplace. And every retailer I've talked to is like, Oh, it's really hard. We can't do that. But, the part of Amazon's business that everyone is looking to imitate is their fast shipping. Which, is the most expensive part of their business. Amazon is only able to afford the fast free shipping because of the third party marketplace. Other retailers want to get the fast free shipping without the marketplace. And it just doesn't make any sense. And that's really the heart of the challenge is that they just don't think about alternative business models. They don't want to change the way that they've historically run their businesses. And some of this could mean that merchants are not as powerful in organizations. And maybe that's part of the pushback is that, there could be a lot of people who lose jobs. The future will be robo-buyers and financial services you have robo-advisors, why not robo-planners in retail? >> So one of the keys then, of eliminating some of the old orthodoxies for merchants is to be able to pivot and be flexible. But it has to start from where in an organization from a digital strategy perspective? Where do you help an organization not fall into the Toys R Us bucket? >> Yeah, I think a lot of it does have to start with merchandising and putting in some interesting digital tools to help merchants be more flexible. So, you want to flex to supply and demand. And some of that comes with integrating marketplaces into your own experience. Some of it can be investing in 3D printers that can make things that are plastic or metals based on demand. That's something that I always wondered why Toy R Us didn't, for instance, make Fidget Spinners on demand. Why did you have to get them with a six month leave time from China, it never made any sense. You can scale service, so use technology to match great store associates with a customer who may have a question. And you don't have to be in the same store. It can be a Facetime call with somebody who is far away. But very few retailers do that. And finally, the last bit is really to look at new alternative business models and finding new ways of making money beyond just selling inventory. >> That's really key because there are so many oppurtunities when companies go omni-channel of not just increasing sales and revenue, but also reducing attrition, making the buying process simple and seamless. Everybody wants one click, right? >> Right. >> Super seamless, super fast, and relevant. It's got to be something if you're going to attract my business, you need to be able to offer something where you know me to a degree. >> Absolutely. >> Or know what it is I might have a propensity to buy. >> Absolutely. And that's the entire area of personalization. And that personalization can be anything from a recommendation that I give you. It can be proactively pushing a recommendation. That's what companies like Stitch Fix do is I tell you what I want and then they send you a box in the mail of things I think you would like and oh, by the way are your size and within your budget. It can be customization. One of Nike's most successful parts of their business is their Nike ID program which allows you to customize shoes according to colors and different sort of embellishments that you may like. And that's exactly the kind of thing that more retailers need to be looking at. >> What are some of the trends maybe that a B2B organization might be able to love or some of the conveniences that we have as consumers and we expect in terms of-- Magento, I was looking on their website the other day and a study that they've done suggests 93 percent of B2B buyers want to be able to purchase online. So, new business models, new revenue streams, but it really is a major shift of sales in marketing to be able to deliver this high velocity low touch model. What are some of the things that a business like a Magento, could learn from say a Nike with how they have built this successful omni-channel experience? >> Well, interestingly I think one of the most important things to recognize is that every B2B buyer is also a B2C buyer. And their expectations are set by their experiences in B2C. So, if you have everything from all of the information at your fingertips, all of that information is optimized for mobile devices. You have different ways to view that information, you have all of your loaded costs, like shipping, or tax, or if there's cross-border. All of the information related to the time to ship, any customs and duties, all of that needs to be visible because in any experience that you have with say a site like Amazon, you're going to get that information. So, the expectation is absolutely there to have it in any situation whether it's B2B or whether it's buying components or kind of very long tail items. That's basically the cost of doing business at this point, is that you have to deliver all of the information that the customer wants and needs. And if you don't, the customer is just going to opt to go purchase that product at whatever destination offers it. >> Somewhere else. >> And somebody will. That's the challenge when you have 800 thousand Plus eCommerce sellers out there selling every product imaginable in the both B2B and B2C landscape. >> So, on the data side there's so much data out there that companies have any type of business to be able to take advantage of that. I know that there's, BI has so much potential. Are you hearing retailers start to embrace advanced analytics techniques, AI machine learning, Where are they with starting to do that? I know that some eyeglass companies have virtual reality augmented reality type of apps where you can kind of try on a pair of frames. Where are you seeing advanced analytics start to be successful and help retailers to be able to target buyers that might say, oh, I can't try that on? No, I want to go somewhere that I can touch and feel it. >> Yeah, well, it's emerging still. I mean, retailers have a lot of data. I think they're trying to figure out where is it most useful. And one of the places where it is incredibly useful is in the backend with fraud management. So, after retailers were forced to put in chip cards as a payment form, what you started to see was more of the fraud shifting to eCommerce. I just had two credit cards that had to be shut off because of E-commerce fraud. But that is where you see the fraudsters going to. And what you see as a result of that is some innovators in that space technology companies really leveraging machine learning, AI, other advanced data techniques to identify fraudulent transactions and to better help retailers eliminate or reduce the percent of transactions that have to then be charged back. So, that's probably one of the most promising areas. There are others that are emerging. We're seeing more visual recognition technologies. House for instance, is excellent at that and Pinterest too. If there's part of an image you like you can click on it or you can tap it and see other images like that. And that's incredibly difficult. And it was even more difficult 10-15 years ago, but it's becoming easier. There's the voice element, voice to text or text to voice. I think that the best applications they're often in customer service, there are so many interactions that happen anywhere in a consumer facing world. It doesn't even have to be within retail. You can think about the complaints to the airline industry or to a bank. And a lot of it falls into a black hole. You always hear that oh, This call may be recorded, but it is really difficult to go back and transcribe that. And to really synthesize that into major themes. And what ML in particular can do is to basically pull out those themes, it can automate all of that, and can give insights as to what you could be doing, what you should be doing, what are the opportunities that you may not have even known existed. So there are definitely emerging places. I mean even a visual recognition, so we talked about House and Pinterest. Another great example is the computer vision that you have in the Amazon Go stores. And there's a robot that the Wal Mart stores are now testing to go find if there are gaps in the inventory that need to be filled. Or if something is running low or out of stock. So there are definitely some interesting applications, but it's still early days for sure. >> So last question, we've got to wrap here, but, we're in April 2018, what are some of the, your top three recommendations for merchants, as they prepare for say Black Friday coming up in what, six or eight months. What are you top three recommendations for merchants to be successful and be able to facilitate a seamless online offline experience? >> Well, we always have kind of imbalances between supply and demand, and that's where I do think things like third party sellers, third party marketplaces are huge. So to be able to leverage that is certainly one opportunity. Another is to think creatively about promotions. In Japan they have these promotions called Fukubukuro promotions, and it's basically like grab bags of like all the left over inventory. But then they basically put it into mystery bags where you can buy it for half off. And consumers line up around the block at stores to go buy these grab bags. Because they also have also like a gamified approach where, you know, one of out 10 of the bags will have like an Ipad or some really high value item. So people really like these things, and they have trading parties. So just new ways of having promotions beyond just the typical door busters that retailers think about. And then kind of third I think is just try to pace out the demand. One of the big issues in E-commerce has been just the burst in demand that always happen in December. And that creates a lot of problems from the standpoint of actually shipping the orders. So the more that you can pull those transaction forward into November, the better off you are from a fulfillment and supply chain standpoint. >> Alright Sucharita thank you so much for stopping by theCUBE >> Thanks Lisa >> And sharing your insights on the trends and what's going on in the commerce and E-commerce space. Really enjoy talking with you. >> Nice to talk to you too. >> We want to thank you for watching. You're watching theCUBE live from Magento Imagine 2018, I'm Lisa Martin. Stick around, I'll be back with my next guest after a short break. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: Live from the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Magento Imagine 2018. Brought to you by Magento. >> Welcome back to theCUBE's continuing coverage of Magento Imagine 2018 from Las Vegas. I'm Lisa Martin, joined by Anita Andrews, the director of analytical services at Magento. Anita, welcome to theCUBE. >> Hi, Lisa. How are you? (laughs) >> Very good, excited to be here. This is a really interesting topic, commerce. We talk a lot on theCUBE about digital transformation in so many different contexts. But really, it seems that commerce is becoming the center of gravity for digital transformation. Data is everywhere. There's so much opportunity for B to B organizations, B to C organizations, to leverage that data to drive new revenue streams, et cetera. Talk to us about what Magento is doing with respect to BI and how you're enabling your customers to use it to better their businesses. >> Yeah, so, I'm so glad that you sort of asked this question because we're doing a lot of conversations at this Imagine as opposed to previous ones around BI, around analytics, the role of data. And it's because I think we have a conversation and a story to tell around this. It's actually been long in the making. So, what we've learned after working with thousands of clients, from the basics of KPIs and reporting all the way up to machine learning, is that the approach to how do you launch this aspect of the business, really, that powers the entire business, is so important. Because otherwise, you end up with a crazy Christmas tree of solutions and no one really is moving the KPIs of the business forward using data. So, what we are doing is, we've created an infrastructure that allows all kinds of data. Whatever data that you have. It could be in a spreadsheet or it could be an automated feed. To come together into the platform to cleanse it, because everybody has dirty data, cleanse it, sort of model it for your use, and then be able to leverage it for, of course, KPIs reporting, but also run advanced data science on it, and then use that to power the commerce. And not just cross-sales and up-sales on the website, that's a story everybody wants to do and many aren't even doing yet, but also for things like email marketing, for online advertising, for vendor management, for inventory management. I mean, there's so many use cases. So, it's really about bringing the data together into a single place and then using that all throughout the organization. >> So, this is the eighth Magento Imagine. >> Anita: It's my first! (laughs) >> Mine too, ours too, at theCUBE! But you were saying that this is, the topic of business intelligence, is relatively new. Tell us, the role of data, you mentioned a number of use cases and multiple lines of business in an organization that can benefit from this. Why is this something that you think now is becoming so critical when 'big data' as a term has been around for quite some time? >> For a long time, and data has been around for a long term, right, everybody has spreadsheets from years back. I don't think it's that the role of data is becoming more important, per se, but I think that a lot of businesses have tried a lot of things and had sort of spotty successes, so online marketing is a lot better now with data. Right, I mean, absolutely. But this notion that there's these silos across the organization and the whole, I'm sure you guys have talked about this either today or yesterday, the whole customer-centric view that is becoming so vital to the business >> It's essential. online, offline, multi-channel. Well, the only way you do that is if you don't have silos. Right, and so this question of how do we bring all of this together and create the customer-centric view, and, by the way, you know, apply AI to many aspects of the customer experience, it can only happen if we sort of elevate the usage, the consolidation, all of that, and so I think that's a bigger problem. It's easy to kind of have a team work with data on its own. It's much more, it requires a lot more thought to kind of bring it all together and also get going, right? This isn't a a four-year plan to get there. You need to get going soon. >> Exactly, or you risk falling behind and not being able to catch up. So, let's talk about this modern stack. >> Anita: Yeah. >> This modern technology stack to capitalize on the e-commerce opportunities. Give us an example of a B to B organization, what they have existing when Magento comes and how they're able to use your technology across that spectrum of BI. >> Sure, so, most B to B organizations have data. Let's list some common sources of that data, right. So, first of all, they're going to have, most likely, Salesforce or some other sort of CRM database. They're going to have some sort of vendor database, right, either using a third-party tool or something they've home-grown. So often, something they've home-grown. They certainly have online marketing data, they've got transactional data, all of these different things that need to come together. So, in that way, they can leverage the MBI product, Magento Business Intelligence, to bring those data sources in together. Also, they can bring in their spreadsheets or whatever. But you use MBI to bring it together and then there's a level within that stack, the transformation layer, that allows you to sort of edit that data, right. I mean, back to the point of dirty data, edit it so that it's clean. So, you know that, well, in March we were wrongly charging shipping or something like that. Whatever the issues were, cleansing. And then start to report on that within MBI and create whatever sort of analytics you need to. But then you can also incorporate machine learning algorithms to start doing things like predictive analytics. So, start doing this vendor management, et cetera and then use that to, actually, MBI comes with some pre-built B to B dashboards, which is a thing that we just launched in the past year, which is also proving very useful. I mean, businesses have never seen this sort of total view of their customers, their data. And then you take, sort of, some of the learning and some of the information that's in the MBI and then use that to configure personalization Magento 2 commerce or, again, some of these other channels which might be email marketing, which might be, you know, call center scripting. I mean, whatever it is, that's kind of how it comes together. The MBI stack powering Magento 2, whether it's cloud or enterprise, and then other third-party tools that make sense to the customer as well. >> So, the customer has an existing POS system or an ERP system or a web store. Is it a simple integration process? How do they go about integrating that with, especially with, an accent group is coming on later today that has a hundred thousand skews and three thousand products. >> Yeah, so, the aim and the aspiration of MBI is to be able to take any data source, right. So, there's a bunch of data sources for which we have automated integrations. Literally, you put in your credentials and it starts flowing right away. Another option is that you have an API that you can use to import data in, so, if you've got the resources to leverage that, that's an option. Sometimes, if we don't have an automated integration, a lot of third-party data sources now will allow you to put them in a MySQL database or something like that. You can just just connect that directly to MBI, as well. And finally, we're very much looking at, from a product standpoint, how do we leverage the incredible community we have around Magento to develop more integrations, right. Because we cannot keep pace with the thousands and thousands of data sources that are launching every day. So, this community can and they are so close to what customers need to be able to bring in from a data perspective, so, we're also exploring that possibility as well, which would completely change the game. >> Yeah, you've got a very active developer community of, what, three hundred thousand developers? >> Yeah, it's something phenomenal like that. >> Lisa: That is phenomenal. >> Yes. >> When we look at the spectrum of analytics and we get towards the, whichever end it is, the right side, the left side, looking at advanced analytics. >> Anita: Yes. >> Artificial intelligence, for example, can you give us an example of a Magento customer that's being able to utilize artificial intelligence to drive new revenue streams or reduce attrition. Anything that comes to mind that's a really strong hallmark of your capabilities? >> Yeah, so, one of the ones that I love the most is around inventory management. And that applies to B to B and B to C, right. So, one of the things that we're starting to see a lot of traction and results around is advanced analytics and machine learning that's predicting how much inventory you have. So, inventory is money. You don't have enough, you're going to lose your customers. If you have too much, that's dollars sitting on the shelf, right, or accounts payable to your vendors, I mean, whatever it is. So, it is so, traditionally, it's been very hard to predict what you're going to need and when you're going to need it. So, there is now capability within MBI that you can feed into your vendor management or other sorts of merchandising management systems wherein you can sort of say, if you have a two week lead time to be able to get new inventory, then it can predict which of your skews, which of your products, are going to be running out before that two weeks end. And what we've seen with customers that are leveraging that is incredible increase in customer satisfaction rates because that sort of mismatch of, I thought I was going to get this but no, I'm not getting this, is going down. But they're also able to not even have to say it's out of stock on the site, which is a such a disappointing factor. So, improvement in conversion rates and customer satisfaction rates and on the flip side, there's another aspect of that functionality that says, well, do you have more inventory than, let's say, you know, two months' worth? And that two months piece is configurable per business, because if you're an outdoor goods store, two months in March for winter stuff is too late, right? You need to get rid of that now. But at the start of winter, four months might be great. So, all of that is totally configurable to be customized to that business, who knows the particulars of their business so well. And so, what we're seeing there is the, sort of, cost of goods that are being sent into after-market channels or sale or discount channels, is going down dramatically. And that's just a great case that I love because it's applicable, like I said, to B to B and B to C. >> So, on a B to B front, we have a lot of businesses behind us here. >> Anita: Yeah. >> As consumers, we expect to be able to get whatever we want whenever we want. Amazon just announced a hundred million Amazon Prime subscribers >> That's a lot of people. And people will not buy something if it's not available on Amazon Prime. We just think, what? We have to wait a week? >> Must not be a thing. (laughs) >> Exactly, exactly. But also something that the gentleman that was on main stage this morning from Amazon said, that about half of what's purchased on Amazon isn't sold by Amazon. >> Anita: Yeah. >> So, in the consumer space, we have this bar set very, very high. As business buyers, business buyers are consumers in their daily lives, as well. >> Anita: Yeah. I wonder, what are some of the trends that you're seeing on the B to B side that are maybe spilling over or being influenced by the consumer side and how is Magento helping businesses to be able to create these seamless experiences for businesses to transact in a high-velocity, low-touch model? >> Yeah, that's a really good question. You and I were talking before we got started here about how the buyers in a B to B environment, they're not a corporation. They're individuals. They're humans that actually are bringing their B to C personal experiences and expectations into their workplace. I mean, they don't turn into another person, right. They're maybe harder for procurement, you know, channels and all of that, but they're bringing the same expectations into it. So, frankly, you know, while Magento has sort of a B to B focused technology commerce platform, as well, that we've launched and is growing, as does MBI, you know, that will be a growing aspect, a particularization of the Magento platform. On the flip side, what we're also doing is saying they're not different and we're setting high standards for our B to B customers to say, it may be more challenging for you to act like a B to C customer, but that doesn't mean you get to, it may be hard for you to act like a B to C business, but that doesn't mean you get to not act like one, right, because the expectations are there. So, things like, whether it's as simple as what is order management, right, what is order tracking, what are ship and delivery timelines look like? Do I have various payment mechanisms, right? Consumers expect that, right, and those are often geographically dictated. Well, in the business environment, there may be other sort of procurement things to be thoughtful of. So, the conversation we're having, whether it's from a services standpoint or from a technology and product standpoint is have the same standards. And that is, frankly, in the conversations that I have day to day, I get a lot of but buts. You know, but, that's hard for us. Yeah, but so? Right, so let's figure this out. And, of course, you have to prioritize and all of that, you're not going to sort of turn from one end to the other overnight, but really, the message that we are seeing successful B to B customers hear and act upon is meet those consumer expectations and you'll knock it out of the park. >> Lisa: And who doesn't want to do that? >> Right. >> So, let's kind of turn the tides here. Let's look at Magento and how you're using your own technologies. How are you using analytics across that spectrum to really change the entire model? For example, you know, we talked about before we went on, as well, marketing. I'm a marketer. Marketing is a science now because marketers and every line of business has the ability to leverage data to drive many new opportunities. Talk to us about, internally, how you guys are using this spectrum of analytics >> Yeah. to continue to expand in B to B and B to C. >> Yeah, so, I'm going to give you a couple of different use cases, but this will be interesting because we're sort of opening up the kimono here about what goes on, you know, in our offices. So, yesterday, I actually heard our head of development, Ramadass, talk about a use case for using Magento BI within his organization. All of his different many development teams were tracking their tickets and numbers and all of that in various different ways and he sort of came in and said, well, this isn't going to work. I can't measure my organization. And he decided to deploy Magento BI across the whole thing. That wasn't easy, he said it wasn't smooth, but he started with one group who sort of took to it, and then once the benefit started to be seen, started to deploy across all the organization and he said, you know, he had the foresight and patience to stick with it and now he's got, you know, consistent view of what's going on there in the organization. Another angle that we use it from is, for example, with Mangento BI, there's certainly, it's different than implementing Magento Commerce, where, well, maybe it's not that different, but one aspect that I think is different is you do a lot of work to launch Magento Commerce and then, yes, you can expand your use a bit. MBI is pretty quick to get going, but how much you're using it throughout your organization or even within the product takes time. So, we've leveraged our predictive analytics to understand, to track those customer behaviors, and understand, well, when might be a good time to talk to them about, you know, machine learning? When might be a good time to talk to them about, you know, inventory management, whatever those topics are. But we're looking at those customer attributes, how far along are they in MBI, to run our online marketing campaigns, but even our personal marketing campaigns. We're not so big that we can't call up in our own customer success experiences and say, we think you're in a good place where you might want to think about doing this, as well. And then a third place is around customer support, so, a couple years ago, we used the product to figure out how much time were we spending on our customers, right? And there's a notion of a rate per hour. Are we allocating our time properly? It's very easy for the squeaky wheel to get the most attention. Is that the right thing for the business? So, these are the ways that we've used it internally. We're B to B, right? (laughs) >> Right! Would it be fair to say that you're democratizing data within Magento? >> Yes, everybody, I can at least speak to it on the MBI side and I know this is true in development, et cetera, everybody has access to the data. And that's kind of where, watching, you know, an individual contributor take that and run with it and sometimes it's a little bit too eager for me, and then I have to kind of dial it back, and we can't make all those changes today, but it is so impressive to see what they think about asking, what questions they think about asking of the business and that they feel like will solve an actual problem. >> So, kind of allowing innovation. Well, Anita, thank you so much for taking some time >> Yeah, thank you. to stop by theCUBE. We wish you the best of luck in your general session presentation this afternoon and we look forward to hearing from some of your customers and some of your leaders on the program later today. >> Great, thank you, Lisa. >> We want to thank you for watching theCUBE. We are live in Las Vegas at Magento Imagine 2018. Stick around, I'm Lisa Martin. We'll be back with our next guest after a short break. (upbeat music)

(upbeat music) >> Narrator: Live from the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering Magento Imagine, 2018. Brought to you by Magento. >> Welcome back to theCUBE's coverage of Magento Imagine 2018 from the Wynn, Las Vegas. I'm Lisa Martin, and I'm excited to be joined by some award finalists of the Magento Imagine Experience Awards. We have Dr. Markus Reheis, the chief marketing officer at Gabor Shoes, and Stefan Willkommer, the CEO of TechDivision, a systems integrator. Hi guys, welcome to theCUBE. >> Hi. >> Hi, nice to meet you. >> Great to have you guys here. Congratulations on being an award finalist for the best sales channel growth. We're going to talk about that in a second, but Gabor Shoes. Talk to us about what Gabor does, where you guys are located, and then we'll talk about how you're transforming the shoe space with e-Commerce. >> Gabor is a manufacturer of shoes, ladies shoes only. Our headquarters in Germany, and our main markets are in Germany and central Europe, but we do also export to 60 countries, more than 60 countries worldwide, to China, to Korea, also to the United States a little. >> Lucky me. So your customers are the retailers themselves. How many different brands do you have, different SKUs, different products? I imagine it's massive numbers. >> Yes, our main product is ladies shoes, as I said, we have several brands for the ladies shoes, Gabor, Rollingsoft for the sports shoes type, but we also offer bags, handbags, and socks and tights, but the most important is the ladies shoes for us. >> So many, many hundreds of thousands of SKUs, lots of different locations. You've been the chief marketing officer there for quite a long time. Talk to us about the opportunity that you saw, that you could give to your retailers by expanding this physical in-store shopping experience into the online world. >> Yes, we have started our online business quite late. We long time hesitated to set up our own online shop toward the end user, because it was always our philosophy that we want to be partners of our retailers. We did not want to compete with them by opening an online shop. So it was clear for us that when we start our online business, we want to have our retailers as partners on our side. And that's why we developed this Omnichannel concept that integrates the retailers. >> Omnichannel is a word that we hear a lot at events like this. It's critical for a seamless customer experience. We were talking before we went live is we're all consumers, everyday lives, we pick up a tablet or a mobile phone and we expect to be able to find whatever we want at a simple click. What was the process like of becoming partners with your retailers? Was it an obvious sell to them, that they have revenue-generating opportunities, the opportunities to reach many more customers in different regions? Or was it more of a challenging conversation to convince them? >> Yeah, let me explain a little bit about the situation. We do distribute via traditional classic brick and mortar retailers primarily. There are around 5,000 companies worldwide that buy shoes from Gabor. They have around 20,000 stores. But the situation is that there is quite a mixed structure of retailers. Many of them are small businesses, family owned businesses, and they do not have the chance to have an own online presence that is competitive. So they have to focus on their brick and mortar business. But nowadays, in Germany, we have around 30% of all shoes that are bought online, and this brings many of our customers into trouble. So it was our idea to open this marketplace to let the traditional retailer participate at the online business. >> So talk to us about, from a technology perspective, the modern technology that you needed to be able to deliver this. So, Stefan, talk to us about how TechDivision, as a long-time partner of Magento, is helping in working with Gabor shoes to enable this Omnichannel experience. >> First of all, the marketplace looks like a simple online shop. So for the end consumer, it looks like any other online shop where you simply buy just the shoes. In the background, there are a lot of processes going on, so like we have to allocate orders to stores, to inventory locations, that means the retailer, and we have to look where the inventory is. We don't want to do a lot of order splitting, of course, because we don't want to ship a lot of different packages, and you need a sophisticated solution who is capable of doing exactly that, because I mean there are a lot of processes, and of course algorithms that around, what do you need, or what do you have to have in place that you can do that like that. And Magento was offering, with the order management, exactly great product to delivering that. So this is the foundation for the whole concept, and makes it able for us, and for Gabor, to integrate the retailers really smooth. >> So how many retailers are integrated currently? >> We have started the concept just a few months ago. It was surprising that so many retailers contacted us and said, I want to be part of that system. So we have around 100 retailers with around 400 stores that still have to be connected. Currently we have 40 stores connected with the system. >> So you had retailers that were proactively reaching out to you, saying, we want to get in on this? >> Yeah. >> Wow, that must have been pretty exciting. And Stefan, you mentioned the word simple. And that's something, as buyers, we want a simple, clean experience as the consumer, but also for the retailer, right, and the supplier. Talk to us about how you're leveraging, You mentioned the Magento management software, to give your retailers this complete visibility of their inventory so that they can fulfill through the right channels. >> Yeah, first of all it is in the German market, in the German retail shoe market, a little bit simpler, maybe than in other countries. There is a couple of POS solutions, there are not too many, and we build a basic interface so they can really easily attach their inventory to our order management, or the order management of Gabor, and then we are able to utilize the different inventory, or the different stocks. That is pretty simple. There are a lot of other processes which are not really technical, it's more about contracting, so more the retailers, there is of course some training, you have to train the people, the staff, because they have to use the platform, and that way they see, okay, an order is coming in, what they have to do now, they have to create the pick list, they have to pick the stuff, pack the stuff, ship the stuff, print the label out, putting the documents in and everything, so you have to train the people and the simplicity is because they just need a simple web browser to do that. So either a tablet or a PC, that's all what they need. They don't need any other software. They don't need really other devices. Basically most of the retail stores already have these kind of devices in store. >> So they can utilize an existing POS system, or maybe an ERP system ... >> Yes. >> instead of having to replace things. So from an integration perspective, it sounds like it's a fairly... >> Yeah, they don't have to invest really money, they just have to, I mean, bring the inventory, and that can be through a flat file, or through a web service, so both possibilities are there. Right now they just need a web browser connected to the internet, that's all. >> Sounds so simple. >> Yeah, it is. >> So let's talk about, we hear the term digital transformation used everywhere, and it means different things to different organizations, depending on where they are in that digital transformation journey. When we look at commerce, commerce is becoming a center of gravity for digital transformation. Markus, talk to us about the transformation that Gabor has undergone. Where are you on this digital transformation journey? >> Still, we are really right on the beginning. We have installed, of course, digital tools to make the sales process easier, but we always thought about B2B processes. For example, we have installed a B2B online shop maybe 10 or 12 years ago, so that's an existing thing. The new thing for us is that we go towards the end user. I have a number for you. We produce around 9 million pairs of shoes every year, and still the amount what we directly sell to the end user is a very, very small amount. So we are at the beginning of this process, but we have ambitious goals, and we want to grow in the future. We started our marketplace concept in Germany, but we want to roll it out to other European countries, maybe to countries outside Europe, so there's a lot to do, a lot of opportunities for us in the coming years. >> So let's talk about the rest of 2018. Here we are in April. You're going to be adding many more retailers. What are some of the things from a technology perspective that TechDivision is going to be able to do with you, and maybe Magento, to start finding the other 8 million in opportunities that you just mentioned? >> In the end, it's not just a thing of the online store, but of course it's a thing of online marketing, so this has to be increased, definitely. Yeah, we still have a lot of things to do, onboarding the retailers, and this again is not just a technical thing, it's a lot of, Stefan already told you, it's more to do with training, and explaining the processes, that costs a lot of time. So it goes step by step, but we make good progress there. >> So last question, Stefan, for you- as the chief marketing officer, I'm a marketer myself, tell me about, from a digital marketing perspective, as consumers, and really, in the B2B space, Magento had a study on their website that said 93% of B2B buyers want to purchase online, right? So we're seeing that trend as consumerization into the business space. From a marketing perspective, there's a lot of shifting going on there, too. Big data has been a big enabler of marketing becoming a science. And being able to demonstrate to the business and influence business there. Tell me a little bit about, in the last minute or so, how are you leveraging big data and analytics, maybe even through Magento, to redefine marketing that you're doing at Gabor? >> Yeah, again, big data can help us to build customer groups, to send them individual offerings. That's a good thing about the digital business, when we have a satisfied customer, of course we can always, again, send them products, product offerings, but these offerings have to be individual, they have to be relevant for the end user. That's why artificial intelligence, for example, can help us. >> Maybe to add something, we already started using Magento BI, for example. So we are using that full commerce suite of Magento right now. We are using the areas to measuring how fast the shipment is done through a retail stores, and then adjusting the allocation to that measurement. So if a retailer is shipping faster, it's getting more likely that he's getting an order allocated next time, when an allocation run is taking place. So we are using this to get a better end user, consumer experience, by having the products earlier, or more frequent ship. >> Right. So many benefits for the businesses, the retailers, maybe repeat sales, they've got this instant purchase capability that Magento released recently, one click, get things even faster, reducing checkout time, all the things that drive up repeat business. But also the personalization front is going to be key to be able to deliver, as you said, Markus, the relevance offers that we all want. >> Exactly. The great benefit of this marketplace concept is that since we have connected the different stocks of our retailers, we can offer much more product by this way than we could do it alone. So the offering of our 3,000 styles per season gets nearly unlimited to the end user. >> Limitless. We talk about limitless commerce. Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for stopping by and having a chat with me today. We wish you good luck on the award nomination. I hear those are being given out tonight, so best of luck, and we hope to see you again on theCUBE soon. >> Thank you. >> Thanks a lot. >> We want to thank you for watching theCUBE, live from Las Vegas at Magento Imagine 2018. I'm Lisa Martin. You're watching theCUBE. Stick around, we'll be right back with our next guest. (upbeat music)