Ep.137/ SHOPTALK FALL RECAP
ShopTalk Fall Chicago Recap: Insights from one of the biggest ecommerce conferences
Mariah Parsons recaps the ShopTalk Fall conference in Chicago 2024, highlighting key takeaways and experiences. The conference spanned three days, with Thursday being the busiest due to the main concert by Busta Rhymes. Key themes included the importance of in-person engagement post-pandemic, the role of AI in enhancing consumer experiences, and the growing trend of duping products. Notable sessions featured insights from industry leaders like ThredUp, Lowe's, and Winky Lux. Mariah Parsons also emphasized the value of live selling, the need for brand compliance with FTC regulations, and the innovative use of tech in retail. She concluded by sharing her excitement about new products and brands discovered at the event.
Episode Timestamps:
0:05 Recap of ShopTalk Fall Conference
4:29 Overview of ShopTalk Fall Conference Structure
4:48 Networking and Meeting New People
15:23 Content Sessions and Key Takeaways
15:23 Consumer Engagement and Retail Innovations
21:45 Tech Innovations and Future Trends
25:43 Fun Elements and Experiences at ShopTalk
31:09 Product Discoveries and Favorites
Ep.137
MARIAH PARSONS
TRANSCRIPT
This transcript was completed by an automated system, please forgive any grammatical errors.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Shop Talk Fall, e-commerce insights, post-pandemic engagement, AI integration, consumer feedback, in-store tech, live selling, Federal Trade Commission, Mission Possible theme, women keynote panel, Bussa Rhymes concert, Vault shopping, dupe shopping, reselling trends, wellness activities
SPEAKERS
Mariah Parsons
Mariah Parsons 00:05
Greetings and welcome to retention. Chronicles, the podcast with learnings from expert e commerce brands and partners. I'm your host. Mariah Parsons, if you're here, you're either on a quest for E commerce enlightenment or you accidentally click the wrong link. Either way, I am thrilled you stumbled into our corner of the internet, and I hope you'll stick around. We've got pearls of wisdom for everyone, whether you're running a multi million dollar business or simply just starting out on your entrepreneurial journey. Before we unleash the brilliance of today's guests, let's give a shout out to our podcast sponsor, Malomo. Malomo is so much more than just another Shopify app, their post purchase wizards, making beautiful and branded order tracking smoother than a jazz solo. So our amazing founders, like our guests, can keep their customers happy and up to date while they track their orders. So hit that subscribe button like it'll increase your LTV overnight and go listen to our other episodes at Go malomo.com that's G O M, a, l o m, o.com Get ready for insights, chuckles and perhaps a profound realization or two With this newest episode of retention Chronicles. Hello everyone, and welcome back to retention Chronicles. So this episode is going to be a little bit different from normal, because this is going to be my first solo episode. I am doing this to recap Shop Talk fall, and I'm quite excited to chat all about everything I learned at the conference and just some special takeaways. Because I've been getting a lot of messages about, you know, partners and or a lot of messages from partners and brands alike, just asking, you know, how it went, because it was the first time that shop talk had a fall conference in Chicago. And I've recently moved to Chicago, so it was really easy for me to get to so selfishly, I'm so happy that it was here. But yeah, so it's going to be going to be a fun little recap, and it's going to be from the perspective of being there for the podcast, which was also something that I haven't done before, being part of their press slash media perks was amazing, and I am so excited to give a little bit of an insider's recap. So before I really launch into it, I wanted to say that I'm so excited to announce that we have rolled out our LinkedIn and our Instagram and Twitter for retention Chronicles. So please help us out. Go, follow, subscribe, share whatever on each platform. I'm also going to be changing a couple of things on our intro in the next couple of episodes, so stay tuned for that. And we also launched our new website, so if you have a guest that you think should come on the show, or you would like to sponsor the show, we are now so excited to roll that out, so it's retention Chronicles podcast.com if you have any feedback or any topics you want to see on the podcast, leave a review of the show and let me know on Spotify. You can also leave comments now, so that's really fun. And we also have our own YouTube channel set up now. So please, please, please send the support that way if you're tuning in and you want to continue to learn alongside e commerce experts from both the brand side of things and the partnership side of things. So with that, I hope you enjoy this overview of Shop Talk fall. It's going to be off the cuff, because that's how we roll here. And so for anyone who is in the E commerce slash retail space and hasn't heard of Shop Talk you or shop talk fall, you might know the name because of their bigger conference that usually happens in Vegas in March. And if you're sad that you missed out on Shop Talk fall, don't be because there will be another one in March and the following year in September for the Fall version. So without further ado, let's get into it. So a brief rundown of the show is three day conference, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And I definitely thought this is also subjective, so we'd actually have to check and see what the numbers were. But I thought the busiest day was Thursday, because I think people are just traveling and getting in on Wednesday, and Thursday is when they have their all conference concert this year. It was Busta Rhymes. So I think a lot of people just were there Thursday. Definitely a really similar number on Wednesday. But I thought a couple more, couple more people were walking the conference hall on Wednesday, and then Friday is smaller, just because people are traveling. People want to get back to wherever they live. So usually, some people, I think, are checking out hotels. They bring their bags to the conference which shout out to shop talk fall for having a bag check, because that really, really saves people at the conference hall so that they can come for the morning or afternoon or whatever, and then they can, you know, leave from the conference hall to go back to wherever home is. So I really like that. And I even could use it, because it had a coat check, and I checked my own bag with some of the goodies that we'll talk about later in this episode. So yeah, I thought general overview of the conference, I guess, flow. And then they had a main stage set up a showroom floor, which is where all the sponsor booths are, where people are doing most of their you know, they're conversing. They are talking with other people who are attending the hall. They're getting drinks and mocktails and coffee and all that fun stuff. They're getting food all on that shop talk floor. And then the there were separate stages set up for the content sessions. So off of that floor, you had the main keynote stage and then five different rooms where industry leaders were talking all at the same time. So it's you could choose as an attendee, which conference or which content session you wanted to go to. So there was an abundance of stuff that you could attend. You couldn't hit it all at once, obviously. So you just had to pick and choose, like, what topics or what speakers interest me the most, and then go to that room, and usually they were about 40 ish minutes, with 10 minute breaks for the majority of the day. And then there are also fun things, like a little like massage slash spa place where shop talk, they hired some professionals to make sure that people were relaxed, and could kind of get a little wellness hit in while they were going around the conference. And then there were also, there was also a pickleball court, so little, little experiential things scattered throughout that shop talk floor. But the biggest thing that I want to call out is just how many people I can meet in such a short amount of time. And so I was going at it from probably like 830 every day, 8:30am until about 11pm so they're full days. Don't get me wrong. I definitely, I, you know, pound the pavement, because I realized that there aren't a ton of opportunities to do so. And so when they come by, I gotta do it, especially in, you know, when I, when I live in Chicago now. And so I met, I counted, or at least tried to count about like, 80 people in the semblance of, you know, three days. And that is pretty incredible, when you could just walk around, introduce yourself. Most people are so happy to have a conversation, and are so happy that they don't have to be the ones that go up to you. Um, it can also be overwhelming, just because the sheer amount of people that are in that room and you're, you know, standing there, especially if you're attending by yourself, which I was, but I help, I find it helps to just take a deep breath and really just go up some with the with the best intentions of making conversation and just getting to know what they do and asking them, you know, what brings you to this conference? Why are you interested in this space or this industry, or, you know, what do you what are you most excited about? You know, all those things. So I really applaud shop talk for bringing in the caliber of people into the same room, because there were just so many interesting conversations with so many cool people that I'm just always, you know, I'm, I'm an extrovert through and through, and so talking to other people in the space is definitely how I refill my cup. And I'll shout out some of those, those conversations that really just have me thinking still. And so with that, I wanted to address some of the content sessions that I attended. And so I will start with kind of my synopsis of things that I'm still thinking about, because there were so many sessions with stacked leaders talking about the same subject. So you know, hearing from either founders or C suite or leading professionals at companies like thread up farm, real Crunchy Roll studs, Winky Lux, Kendra Scott, hard candy, Melvin golf, David Yurman, Pandora, Tony's bear, Bradley skims, zoomies. The list goes on and on. There are so many more. Um. And so I want to talk about and I talked about this on LinkedIn as well, if you prefer to kind of go through and get a written summary of the things that I'm still thinking about. But I saw just a theme of activities drawing conference goers and customers alike. They just draw them in. People want to be engaged, especially post pandemic, they want to be in person. And so the comp at shop talk the conference, I saw this with the core pickleball court that they had set up. There was a ton of activity. People were playing all day. They were meeting new people. And it was so smart, because I met the core team. And so Justin Polak, who he he was repping core pickleball through and through, he was standing right there, and you could just get to talk to him about this sport that's, you know, like breaking the world and has been for the past couple of years. And it was just a good stress reliever for people to go and play mid conference. And I also wanted to shout out the dot digital booth. They were one of the sponsors. Um, they had a vendor booth at shop talk, and they had friendship bracelet making, which is so current with the times, I love seeing it. And they also had these customizable trucker hats that you could, I guess, heat press, or what's the right word there, but you could get all these, they had all these patches that you could press onto a trucker hat. And so people were just loving activity. They got so much traffic and traction that I thought it was just really creative. And then mirroring that in the retail side of things we heard from Lowe's on the keynote stage at the conference that they have been innovating on in person events, because it is really something that draws people into their store, and their customers are really thankful for it. And one of those events is having in person workshops for kids, which I think that is such a sweet way to bring in parents and kids alike. Get kids using their hands and, you know, really trying to understand, okay, this is something that, you know, this little tool. This is how I would use it, like get innovative for someday, you know, them needing to have those, those that skill set, and so I thought that was a really fun way to draw in parents and kids to go to Lowe's as a store. The second kind of takeaway or current that I saw is AI is still a main topic. But the the co founder and CEO of thread up, he was talking about James Reinhart. He was talking about how he actually thinks that AI isn't getting hyped up enough, which I thought that was a fun spin, and he made the correlation that AI will eventually become something like the internet or like a mobile cell phone, because we're just so used to it now today, but when they were new, innovative things in the space, people were, you know, freaked out or just couldn't believe the level of technology that we were going to have access to as individuals. And so AI still main topics, so many, so many, so many content sessions and speakers mentioned AI but I really liked the use case that thredUP gave of using an AI search image and AI stylist to help consumers who were shopping on the thredUP resale site. And so if you aren't familiar with thredUP, they have an incredible program that you can send in old apparel and they will relist it for you. And so it's great for consumers who want the option of refreshing their closet without their items landing in a landfill. And so I just thought that was an interesting way to look at AI. There are so many, obviously, so many other takeaways, but that was like one of the big ones. And one of the takeaways that I liked from that session was that AI was making it easier for consumers to find what they wanted on the thredUP site. And I shop with thredUP. I know how overwhelming it can be to see all these different options, but to have the image search and then a stylist that can say, Oh, you want, you know, this Halloween costume, or you want this type of outfit for this event, then this is what you compare. And it pulls it pulls a whole outfit together. Um So just as a fan of thredUP and a fan of the E com tech space, it was, it was fascinating to hear. Um third takeaway was, people, especially consumers, love to be asked by their favorite brands for their opinion. And I talked about this a couple of times on the podcast, and my love of neuroscience really backs us up, because people love to be helpful. You know, most this is a generalization, but most people like to be helpful. And so GE appliances with their they had an idea to make an at home ice maker, and they weren't sure, like, what size would be right for the home, for the individual or for a family, and so they asked some of their most loyal customers to raise their hand if they would be willing to, you know, give feedback, try out this new product. Tell them what size they wanted in their home and what size would be best, and it's one of their best. It's now one of G's best, best products, as I understand it. So I really like that little snippet from from GE Appliances. And the fourth little tidbit that I that I really liked is shoppers are looking different in stores, or shopping in stores looks different. And so Winky Lux, their Co Founder and CEO, she was talking Natalie Mackey. She was talking about how they now see customers, especially younger customers, walk into stores with a screenshot of a product that they saw on Instagram or Tiktok, and they hold up the screen and say, you know, where can I find this product? And that is, it seems so straightforward. When I heard it, I was like, Oh yeah, no duh. Like, I screenshot so many products or images or inspiration from what I'm seeing on Instagram or on Tiktok. But I guess I just hadn't thought about it. And so I was like, Oh, my God, that's that's a really smart thing for their their team, to be aware of. And know, like, okay, how can we capitalize on serving those customers best, who are bringing screenshots and saying, like, Oh, this is what you saw online, or this went viral with this product. And something else that the Winky Lux team did, which I really liked, is they offered a free lip gloss to anyone who would bring in their makeup bag and dump it out on the counter and tell them about their favorite products, about what products they don't like, or just kind of give them like, give the Winky Lux team a rundown of what makes up someone's makeup bag. And I thought that was a genius way to get customers in store, to get them to interact, and get some of that customer data that is really, really essential, especially as we keep seeing innovation or developments in the privacy, consumer privacy space. And so I really like that idea of like, we will show you a new product, or we will give you a new product if you come and tell us a little bit about your habits and your routine and what what you like about a product, what you don't like about it, to help with their own product development and their own customer experience. And then the fifth little snippet, um, just high level of what I what I liked is that retailers are enabling tech in their stores. And I love the example Ulta Beauty gave, because they are using tech to they call it, um, their skin analysis and tech and so it will color match what foundation or what primer, or what, whatever product someone is looking for, they will color match to your exact skin tone based off of holding up a camera to to your face. And then it analyzes, you know, what undertones do you have and what you know what, what color would be best suited for you. And then they also have bots to put lashes on humans, which I was, I have not seen that, and I haven't seen any news about that. And so I thought that was, that was a cool way to see the intersection of tech, which usually, I think the E commerce space, or D to C channel, sees a little bit more than the retail side, just because, obviously, e commerce, you're online. So like the the through lines between being online already and tech, you can move it a lot at a quicker pace, because a lot of tech companies are online, but then to bring the technology into the retail space is is quite fun to see, and I'm excited to hear other other little stories of how brands are doing that. So that's kind of my that was kind of my top five little moments that I was like, You know what? That really stuck out to me in a sea of amazing content. But I really liked those, those five takeaways, and then I obviously met with a lot of innovators in the tech space itself, whether it was through partners or vendors or sponsors or just anyone roaming the floor. And so I wanted to also call out those takeaways. And so dupe shopping, you know people saying, Okay, this is a dupe for YSL, black opium perfume. Mm. Shop, you know, shop here, shop this. Now, this is huge in the influencer space, huge on any social media platform, of people wanting something that is a similar product to what is benown and loved, but maybe can't afford it, or maybe wants something that is, you know, not branded, or any whatever reason somebody would be shopping for a dupe. It is a huge, huge category like Amazon. Is Amazon really, really runs dupe, dupe.com, too. There's, there's huge, there's huge markets for this. And my, one of the conversations I had with Megan neufer, who she is developing dupe score. She is making a tech that can actually tell a consumer, based on the quality of the product, the ingredient of the product, how similar a dupe is. So she can look at, you know, product A and product B, and say, okay, product A is the higher, you know, the higher price, or the luxury item, and product B is the dupe. How similar in terms of all these rankings, are they? What similar ingredients, smell, usage, longevity, you know, all of that. How similar are they? And then tell the consumer, okay, this product has a 93% score, which means it's, it's pretty close to the original item that you want. And I just, I thought that was just so smart. So if that is something that you're curious about, head over to her Instagram dupe score, and you can see kind of how, how they're evaluating different products in the consumer space. It's really, really cool. I also so second takeaway that was my first second takeaway is reselling and trading old items is really appealing to customers. And I just talked about this with the thread up. Example of how their their team is really selling B to B and B to C. Of this, this tech that allows people to to donate or to give in, or send their old, their old apparel items and shoes and accessories as well, send those in to maybe give them a second life and someone who's excited about them, and the consumer who's sending them in doesn't have to feel guilty about it. And then I also met the team from tip tap, and what they're doing is you can send in any item that you you know you're you've had your life cycle with that item, and then you can get credit to spend wherever else. So it isn't even across. It isn't even across the same industry. You know, you could send in a pair of sunglasses and then use that credit to buy shoes or something of the sort. That's how I understand it. And so I had a fascinating conversation over lunch with their team, specifically Amelie and Alicia Amelie missig and Alicia Wetmore, they were just so, so enthusiastic about the technology, and I very much could see myself using that as a consumer, but they are on the brand side, where a brand could enable that on their site, Which I thought was great innovation in tech third point and final point about just markets that I see, I guess trending or coming up is live selling, and this was actually from one of the speakers. So the last two points that I've made about tech innovation have been just one off conversation. So not from, not from speakers in the conferences, but this was from Steven Tristan young at Poshmark. And he was talking about how in Asia right now, live selling is a huge, huge industry. And if you're a Poshmark shopper, you will, you will have seen the live selling option of people will, you know, almost like an Instagram Live will go on, uh, on the air, and show off what they're selling currently. And he said that is huge market in the in Asia, and that it will probably move into the US soon. So I just thought that was interesting, because I I'm not familiar with the live selling market, and I thought it would be a good head up, heads up for our listeners here, and then our fourth and final, quick little takeaway from the tech side of things is that brands will need to stay up to date and really, really, really cued into what the Federal Trade Commission is doing. And this conversation was inspired from Kay at sway tech, and she is doing so so many interesting things that I don't even understand, like I feel like our conversation scratched the surface. She posts on LinkedIn and gives updates about the Federal Trade Commission and what they're doing and why that's important. Into brands and how it could be a really high price tag if you're not compliant. So I definitely suggest to go check her out, because she she's one of the conversations that I was just like, I'm blown away. But how much knowledge you have and to impart on the E comm retail world? Um, so definitely, definitely check out Kay. She is doing a lot in that space, and I'm definitely not the expert on it, and I'm going to have her on at some point, because I know it'll be a really interesting conversation. But definitely, just really, really something from the compliance side that that brand should be aware so that was more of the tactical, tactical side of the thing, side of the podcast, side of the shop talk recap. Um, but I also want to go into the fun elements, because that is, that is what I feel like embodies e commerce and retail. And so these are also going to be little quick hits. I'm more than happy if anyone wants more follow up or more details about anything that I'm talking about. Um, please hit me up. I just know that I appreciate little quick hits on things like a podcast. So this is more about the fun elements of the podcast, or just things that I really appreciated that weren't, you know, like tactical industry observations. So I mentioned at the top of the episode that I went in to shop talk being part of their the being part of the press. And so they had a press Lounge, which was so fun to be to have access to. And it made me feel like I was straight out of nobody wants this, the new Netflix series, all about a podcaster falls in love with the rabbis, with Kristen Bell and Adam Brody. I will not shut up about it because I loved it so much I've already watched it twice, so thank you to shop talk for enabling me to feel like I was living that dream. But I really just appreciated the detail. And I could have recorded live in one of their rooms, but chose not to, because I wanted to continue to meet people while they were all in town. And I knew I could record this after the fact, but I really appreciated that also. A fun little touch is they had mocktails in the afternoon, which just gave a little bit of an extra, I guess, step like, step in my step to just be going to afternoon meetings and carrying around this fun little plastic champagne flute glass with a fizzy little drink in it. So I just, I thought that was fun. Now, one of the bigger things that I also appreciate knowing that I've hosted themed parties before, and I can't even compare anything I've hosted to hosting a huge conference like this, but they stuck to their theme of Mission Possible or so well that it was, it was in like every little detail. They had a walk up. And I, I have videos of this all, so I'm happy to share. But they have a walk up of, you know, like you being a secret agent and everything while you're walking onto the floor. And then they had a session at the end with all these takeaways and mission complete and all these just little motifs that that were really sweet. And they also had a live band that was part of the transition time for keynote speakers. So when they had people walking on and off stage, or, you know, people clapping for a session well done and completed. They just had the live band, like, rip off, like, 30 seconds of incredible music. And I don't know how many people were in the band, but it probably was at least 20, like every instrument. So I really like that. And then on the other stages, they had a lot of key content from a lot of interesting speakers. So I really appreciated that they also had an all women keynote panel. So like every single keynote speaker, which I think it was six keynote sessions, I'd have to double check myself, they were all women and they were all badasses, and I appreciated that. And they also had a happy hour just for women right before the bussa rhymes concert, which was it's just, it's so incredible to see the support that everyone gives in this industry. And that's why I love it. That's why I have a podcast in this industry. And so I really applaud, and wanted to call that out from the shop talk team. And then also the, obviously, the bus Orion's concert that was at House of Blues in Chicago, and they, you know, it was packed everyone, everyone who's at the concert, or a lot of people who are at the concert, or everyone who's at a lot of people who are at the conference, excuse me, are going to that concert, and it's just, it's, it's really fun to see. I don't know how else. There's a how else to explain it. And then one of the most gratifying experiences is getting to shop with some of these brands right then and there. And so shop doc does this thing called the vault. Yes, and it is their shopping experience where they have a bunch of brands up and coming, and some, you know, like industry or industry tycoons or names, logos, and so this is one of my favorite times about shop talk, because I just get to discover a bunch of brands who are out here doing their thing. They're, you know, trying to, they're all hard workers, and they're trying to just make it in this world, and they believe in their product. And so I wanted to give a straw talk a shout out for having the vault, because it is something that is so experiential. And like, I also meet, it's fun to meet people while you're shopping, like, you're like, looking at this one thing, you're picking it up, and you're like, oh my god, what is this? Talking to other people about it. So I met people while shopping, which is also so fun, or just waiting in line and, you know, all that stuff. So it's going to be a long list. I'm going to forewarn you, I'm going to go through it, but we're almost done with this episode. So if you're like me, and you like to just hear about new brands who are hitting the space, or like to support smaller brands, or, you know, whatever, whatever rationale, whatever reason we're going to go into the list. So fun fact CO, that's the name company. They have these fun history card games. And so it's meant to be educational, and it's also meant to be fun, and that's what I need, because I'm like, I my mind. My mind does not remember history, like I wish it did. It just the fun. The facts are just that, you know, they're they're few, they're few. And so I really like the premise of having an educational game that is also fun, that you can whip out and play with friends. And this one is their Would You Rather game? And so the premise is, Would you like one of the cards, one of the questions is, would you rather be alive during the Revolutionary War or during the Oh, boy, what was the other the Renaissance? And so you can, like, talk about that with your friends, but then it also has a little bit of context of what was going on in history at that time. So it's a really, really fun way, and you can play with kids of all ages. So I like, I truly think of everything that I was able to bring home that might be one of my favorites. And I also meant their co founder, and she was so cool. So I rayleena, I just, you know, I was, I was raylina kirkston. She was very, very fun to meet. We just, we met at that women happy hour before the concert, and I made the connection the next day that I was like, this is just so cool. Like the fact that I can have something in hand, in product that I picked up the day before, and then the next day meet the founder was just it was sick. What else can I say? Um, but continuing on the with the list Royce chocolates, I got both little taste testers of their white and milk chocolate. And I'm a chocolate girl through and through. So I was so excited about that. And then Devine's hair and body wash, and then their hair milk as well. With my curly hair, I'm always looking for something that is sustainable but also works for my hair. So I'm really excited to try that out. I'm recording this a week after so I've I've not even begun to try out these things, or most of these things, but I'm really excited to dive into it, especially as things get we get into the holiday season. I feel like that's when I hunker down and I travel a little bit less. But anyways, we continue on. So le, mini Mac room. They have these. They had these little tiny nail stickers. I'm going to the Sabrina carpenter ticket. Oh my god, concert in a little bit. And so I cannot wait to try those out. They're perfect for that. And then elf had their power grip primer, their glow Reviver, lip oil and their invisible sunscreen. I opened the lip oil that as soon as I got it, and immediately used it for all the rest of the conference. It's a really nice, like applicator and really, really nice texture. So if anyone is in the is anyone, if anyone's looking for a new lip gloss, I'd recommend it. Okay, the orzo Laszlo, Seema, deep cleansing bar. I haven't tried it, but it was cute little mini, and it was, I'm so happy. Char charms, tumbler, straws and straw toppers, tangle, teaser, their new hair brush. Someone said that it, it felt I met their team, not just someone. I met their team, and she was like, it's a massage for your scalp. And I was so excited to open it. And so got home, opened it, and totally agree with her. Now, it really, really does feel good on their scalp. And they're really big in Europe, maybe specifically United Kingdom, but I'd have to check myself on that, and they're opening up their DTC arm soon, tailor made golf balls. This will be something that I will enjoy having my friends enjoy because I'm not a golfer. Um, and then there was also happy nuts and happy curves, comfort powder for chafing. Um. Um. There was the Zuli electric milk frother. There was smart sweets, which I didn't try before, but they're low sugar, healthy, healthy sweets. There was the Camille Rose by tiny moose, the tushy portable bidet, the Sweden's wipes, aroma, 360 perfume, Stanley quencher tumbler, which was a really small Stanley, and it was so cute. And my first Stanley, if you would believe it, living proof, dry shampoo, the big house, almond biscotti, squish mellows, which were a crowd hit incredible active socks. Zeni blue light glasses and rebuy have these rebuys a tech partner or a tech platform, and they had these tarot cards, which were so fun. So they and I got these during their happy hour. So I guess it's not technically from their vault, but it was just so fun that I had to give a shout out for and they are all these tarot cards, so I'm holding one up to the screen if you're watching this with video. And it was just a really creative way to talk all things ecom. And I appreciate them going for the bit and being with the times. Okay, that is all of the products that I can't wait to give to people that I can't wait to use myself. Donate all of that, all of that fun stuff, um, and, you know, they're like little takeaways, for the most part, little little giveaways. And the last little session that I wanted to hit on was just, quite literally, little little conference hits. So other things that I wanted to call out, um, stop talk. They had a lot, a large selection of food. I was pretty impressed with that. And it changed every day. The stations, they had a couple of stations with different options. Most of them, like were tweaked daily or whatnot for lunch. And I appreciated that. I did think that there could have been a couple more tables, because there it was kind of top tough to find a spot to sit during peak lunch hour. But, you know, everyone, everyone figured it out. And also wanted to give a quick thought on conference swag from the vendor side. Specifically, I think it is always fun to see what, how people get creative. There are a lot of stuffies, like a lot of stuffed animals this year, from vendors who had booths. And I'm so curious as to why, like, if, because squishmallows are so big right now, if people were going the stuffies route, or if it was just coincidence. But good conference swag, to me, always is something that's practical, that you wouldn't buy yourself, practical or fun, that you wouldn't buy yourself. And if you can have an activity like the dot digital booth, or that can get people excited or just engaging and kind of like forgetting about the nervousness of interacting with new people, I think that's always a big, you know, big bonus point, um, that that vendors can get. And then in terms of attending the conference, I will stick by this. I think for my entire life, that if you can wear and it's your thing, right, like, if it's not, if it's not your, um, if it's not, if you don't feel in your element wearing bold colors, then don't do it. But I do, and I will stick by this, that if you can wear color, you should, because it gives people, you know, it helps you be remembered by people in the conference. It helps people in just like coming up to you, you know, there's kind of the subliminal or undercurrent of, oh, they're like, fun and probably easy to talk to if they're wearing color. And you know, you can get you can compliment people, or you can talk about your outfit. Like, I had people come up to me and compliment me on the colors that I was wearing. I was like, This is so incredible. And I just, I really appreciate that. It honestly, like it does some of the work for me, like, I will be completely honest. So I give that little tidbit, because I know it also can be so hard to just like meet people, but it does help you stand out, which can be nerve wracking, but I think in a good way, specifically in this industry, where it will pay off. And then also with if you're interested in finding events like this, I have always found that Slack channels, or just talking to other players in the space really helps with this. So for the partner side of things, for partner listeners, smarter ships. They are running a really good community, and they have event lists for you know, which ones you might want to go to, and then for the brand operator side of things. There's so many black channels out there that I can't possibly name on this podcast, but if you just search, you know, founder, founder only. Or brand operator only slack groups, you will find them limited supply. They have one as well, like a great one as well. And so you can find similar, I guess, industry Intel spots that will that will tell you all about which conferences to go to and and I hope you also consider this podcast as one that'll tell you that, especially after doing this recap episode, we'll see, we'll see what people you know want to hear about. But I was getting a lot of questions about what I saw at shop talk, so I was like, we're just we're doing it, we're doing a podcast episode on it, and we'll see what the first one does. But also wanted to shout out the shop talk team, because they also invited me to go to the Chicago Institute of Art for the first time, and that was incredible, and I loved it. So anyways, long winded way of saying, one this definitely I can talk to myself way longer than I would like to admit with this podcast episode. So that is shocking to me, and I'm happy and also unsure about how I feel about that, but I hope you found this valuable. And again, please let me know if you have any questions, put put it in the reviews of this show, or message me on LinkedIn. You know, any of that stuff, because I'm always looking to hear your feedback, and when I do, it's so so so fun. So thank you, and next podcast episode will be our normal, normal way of the show, with having a guest, and it'll be a great one. So thank you. Bye, everyone.
