WEBVTT

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<v 0>Hi everyone. Good afternoon. I'm Ashlye Marcus.</v>

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I'm Stripe's head of retail go to market,

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and I'm delighted to be here today and talk to you about unified commerce

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because as consumers, we all experience unified commerce,

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whether we know it or not.

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So when you're in the hardware store and they don't have that little nuanced

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thing you need and they find it on Endless Aisle and it magically arrives at

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your doorstep, that's unified commerce.

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Or when you find the t-shirt that you love and you want it in every color,

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I often can admit to this being me,

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and the associate finds it. Those are wonderful experiences.

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Now on the flip side,

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it's not always an amazing experience.
So I'd like to start with a story today

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about my outfit and getting ready because it actually wasn't the most delightful

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experience. I went to one of my favorite brand's websites,

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a website I often go to and shop, and I found what would be a beautiful top. And

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it arrives and it actually isn't so perfect. The fit is just a little off.

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So I head over to the store on a Saturday morning and the associate tells me

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that they don't accept online returns and my mind is just blown because

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working in retail for 20 years, I would say the last 10,

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we have been speaking about unified commerce and I am personally feeling the

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friction and the pain of fragmented systems.

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And so why am I frustrated?

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It's because it just added more work on my plate. I'm a busy mom.

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I've got a play date in 30 minutes and now I have to do a return at the Post

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Office on top of everything else.

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So I decide to look around the store anyways and the associate comes up to me,

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really polite,

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asking "Can I help?" and "Tell me a little bit about your aesthetic and can I

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help you?"
And my retail tech brain just goes into overdrive.

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And I start thinking, you actually have a treasure trove of data on me.

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You know my size. You have my full order history.

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You have my browsing history and you actually know what's in my cart.

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Yet when I'm walking in and talking to you,

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I feel like a complete stranger in this brand that I love.

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So what happens was I walk out and I am not

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unique in this. I'm sure this has happened to many of you.

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So 64% of customers will abandon the brand after a single negative

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experience. So whether that's online or in store, it doesn't matter.

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You're only as good as your last touchpoint.

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So what are we going to cover today?

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I'm going to cover three trends that are reshaping retail and really forcing

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retailers to modernize.

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Then I'm going to bring out one of our amazing Stripe users,

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Shayna Green of Indochino.

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She's the director of customer experience and partnerships,

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and she has been innovating the customer experience and really brings a

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delightful unified commerce experience to life.

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So you're going to hear directly from a user on this.

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And then I'm going to bring up one of my favorite thought partners, Eric Shea.

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Eric Shea is partner at the retail practice at PwC.

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We do a lot of work together.

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He's been driving enterprise transformation with retailers the past decade.

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And he has, I would say,

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a unique crystal ball into what is happening in the future of commerce and

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really how you can leverage what's going on on your unified commerce journey

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into building for the future.
So that's what we're going to cover today.

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So let's start with what's happening right now. Now,

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you cannot have a conversation in retail without the mention of AI.

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AI is raising the bar for personalization and it's happening really, really,

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really fast. So what do we know? 73% of customers,

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they expect personalization to get better with AI. Now,

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put on your consumer hat. I know I do all the time.

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And in an eight word prompt into one of my favorite AI chats on "What

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should I get for my summer handbag?" Eight words.

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I was able to get really good recommendations. And why?

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It's because it knows my price point preferences, it knows my brand preferences,

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and it knows my aesthetic preferences.

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I went into another AI chat and I flipped it and I said, "Hey,

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I need a bag for summer.

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Now you asked me what you need to know so that you can give me a meaningful

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recommendation." It actually built upon that.
It asks and probed, "Okay, well,

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what's the end use? Is it for day? Is it for evening?" And also asked,

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"What are the size specs?" And I also got really good recommendations.

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So now I've got a punch list of five different straw bags that I'm going to look

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at. So what does this mean?

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It means that the bar is being raised for you as a retailer and customers are

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savvy. They know that you actually have years of data and loyalty on them.

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You have more years of history on their purchasing behavior than these new AI

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agents. So what do customers naturally want?

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They want the personalization to follow them. Now,

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think back to my experience of shopping with a brand that I love and feeling

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like they don't know me at all. Imagine if the associate said, "Hey,

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Ashye." Instead of, "I know that didn't work,

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but how about we try this blouse? It's in your cart and here's another one.

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I just pulled it out of stock, haven't even put it on the floor.

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And both of them match the pair of pants that you bought last month." Now,

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that is a magical customer experience,

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and that's the surprise-and-delight moment that customers will come to expect

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from you. Now, how does Stripe know this?

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We're data nerds. We do a lot, a lot of 1P research,

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and we've found that 45% of shoppers,

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they value recommendations in store based upon their online purchasing history.

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Now,

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the final trend I'm going to hit on is this notion of channel flexibility is

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driving purchasing decisions. So again,

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back to our being data nerds, we pulled just in this example,

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prior one was global, but 1,000 customers in the US.

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And we know that 70% of them said that they are likely to shop a retailer when

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they're able to buy online and return in store.

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So the flexibility in the policies that you

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have and really thinking customer-first,

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how can I remove friction are causing consumers to change how they're allocating

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dollars across brands. And what are we all in the business of?

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Winning market share. So right now,

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customers expect more than ever.
They want personalization.

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They want convenience. They want speed. In many cases,

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they want to be treated like a VIP or in luxury, a VIC.

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And the only possible way you're going to get there is if you have a unified

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data set. Now payments, they're a rich set of data. It's the where,

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it's the why, it's the how. It even has the shipping address.

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And it's the foundation for the customer experiences that you want to deliver

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now.

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And it's also so critical to the customer experiences of the future that we're

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going to get into shortly.

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And so I like to frame everything right now is that what I love about retail and

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being, I would say,

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a student and also a black belt consumer is retailers are being

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faced with the challenge of how are you moving at the speed of culture because

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your consumer is.
And so as you go through this content today,

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I want three things to keep in mind is one,

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what can you do to continue to elevate the customer experience?

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Because we know that bar is going up. Two,

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do you have consistency across channels? You might not. And it's okay,

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but the important thing is, is you bridge and narrow that gap real fast.

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And the last piece is how can a partner help you?

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Partners can help you accelerate the speed and just get there faster and

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smarter. And so with that, I want to bring out Shayna Green,

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director of retail experiences and partnerships at Indochino,

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so you can hear directly from a Stripe user.

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Welcome, Shana, to your first Stripe Sessions. We're so delighted to have you.

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<v 1>Thank you. I'm happy to be here.</v>

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<v 0>Okay. So for those of you that don't know Indochino,</v>

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Indochino is just a delightful customer experience overall,

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but what it is it, a suiting brand primarily.

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And you've been around 20 years, you innovated in this space,

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you were the first to deliver really suiting personalization at scale,

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which is really remarkable. And we've had a 12-year journey with Stripe. So,

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for those that don't know it,

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I know I personally know it because my husband's brothers used it for our

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wedding. Can you tell us a little bit about it?

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<v 1>Yeah. So Indochino, we are all custom made to measure.</v>

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So the way the process works typically is you'll schedule an appointment,

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you come in, you look at fabrics, you choose customizations,

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we take your measurements and your orders show up at your door within a couple

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of weeks.

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<v 0>I love it. And so you get to pick out the trim and the fabric and all the</v>

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detail. And you all are almost at a hundred stores now. So again,

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this is a business that is really operating at scale now.

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<v 1>Yeah, absolutely. We stick with our customers in all of their major moments.</v>

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So yeah.

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<v 0>Now, it's very interesting.</v>

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We had a long discussion yesterday about how we think about channels and the

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interplay between online and in-store. And you are very,

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very thoughtful in your approach.

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<v 1>Yes.</v>

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<v 0>Can you share just a little bit of like the behind the scenes?</v>

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How do you think about the two channels complimenting each other and also

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knowing like you started online first?

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<v 1>Yeah, you're right.</v>

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We did start online first and really our channels don't compete with each other.

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They are here to support each other. There's an ebb and flow.

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We recognize that the customer will start online to do their research,

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find out where do I go? How do I do it? What do I do? How does it work?

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And then they end up in a showroom where we can take them through that full

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cycle and that full process and measurements and customize and all of the IRL

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stuff, right? Yeah. To look at the fabrics and all that kind of thing.

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And then they'll end up back online again when they're ready to purchase again.

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So it's just a full-circle complement.

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<v 0>Every channel,</v>

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it's serving the overall customer experience and doing it in a way that's unique

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to that.

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<v 1>Yeah.</v>

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<v 0>So if I look at Stripe loves to celebrate our users.</v>

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And when I look at this 12 year journey, it makes me really, really proud.

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We started in 2014 with you. Can you share a little bit,

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as I mentioned earlier, you were an online brand that scaled.

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Can you give a little bit about the origin story and your experience with

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Stripe?

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<v 1>Yeah. So in 2014,</v>

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we recognized that we were looking for additional ways to serve our customer.

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Accessibility has always been a core tenet into our brand and into our ethos.

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And so with that comes flexibility in payments and options, right?

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So we needed more methods available.

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And so we laid that foundation online, obviously,

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and then in 2020 with buy now, pay later.

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<v 0>Yes, you were very early in the buy now, pay later. Yeah.</v>

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I remember in early 2000s,

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even pre-COVID preaching that buy now, pay later will be table stakes.

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And you were actually one of those that made it table stakes and core to

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the brand.

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<v 1>Yeah. Our customers are mainly millennials and Gen Z.</v>

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And this consumer group really,

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really looks for just accessibility and how can we make it easy.

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And that was a big thing that we saw our customers were looking for.

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<v 0>And you did it fast.</v>

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<v 1>Yeah. Like four days, we were live.</v>

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<v 0>That whole, oh, this long integration. Nope. Myth busting.</v>

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<v 1>Yep.</v>

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<v 0>Now,</v>

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what I often see is with brands that started online and then they expand in

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store.

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You have a very sleek website and then you want to bring that sleekness and

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beauty in the checkout process to the in-store.

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And so you have actually a very stark from and to.

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So I'd love to unpack that with you.

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<v 1>Yeah. So really when you're thinking about the customer, for us,</v>

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I always think about it as I have two customers.

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I've got an internal customer and an external customer.

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So my internal customer is my team. Those are my employees.

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Those are the people who I need to make sure that they are set up for success to

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be able to sell this product and sell this experience.

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And then you've got your external customer, obviously,

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this is your consumer and we need to make sure that every single journey and

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touchpoint, everyone is set up for success.

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So these readers are super user-friendly and it's just a seamless

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experience. Historically, we shop on iPads in-showroom.

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And before we had just readers that connect with microphone jacks and just a

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clunky-.

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<v 0>Prone for error.</v>

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<v 1>Lots of error opportunities and stuff like that.</v>

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So being able to implement readers like this,

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it just really has been able to streamline and elevate that process.

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<v 0>And then when I look at your omnichannel experience,</v>

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I put my former brand GM hat on and I see, wow, this is just a beautiful,

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elegant cross-channel omni experience.

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But what's under the hood is really the financial infrastructure.

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When we look at what's under the hood, I ask retailers often,

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what is your experience with Stripe once you get it implemented?

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And what's your usage of Stripe on a day-to-day basis?

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<v 1>I don't. I don't think about it and I don't think I should think about it.</v>

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That's really the most seamless,

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most integrated payments process is what it should be. It should be invisible.

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It should be behind the scenes. It should just be doing its job.

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<v 0>Yes.</v>

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We always talk about invisible tech and that's when you know you really get it

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right is because it just works.

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So often in conversation I have with retailers,

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they're very curious about approach to rolling out,

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particularly it's a rip and replace in the hardware.

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And you were able to do it across your entire fleet at once.

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And so I would love to just share some tips and tricks and best practices you

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have from that process.

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<v 1>Yeah. Knowing your audience, right?</v>

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I think it's important to take a look at how you're training your team,

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how you're setting them up for success,

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making sure that learning behaviors are accounted for.

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Everybody learns differently, the different materials, send the hardware early,

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let people touch and feel it, get used to it.

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And then by the time the training comes out and you're ready to go live,

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it's just, "Oh, I'm used to this already." Great.

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<v 0>So it wasn't a heavy lift on the training front,</v>

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which is always of someone in the field management role.

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It's absolutely critical.

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<v 1>Yeah.</v>

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<v 0>It's back to the two customers.</v>

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<v 1>Exactly. Absolutely. Just being connected I think is the most important part,</v>

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right?

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<v 0>Yeah. And then it's one of the pieces that I like to celebrate,</v>

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my favorite thing about my job is getting to celebrate our users.

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It's that you have now taken the online principles of buy now,

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pay later, and you have incorporated that into your in-store experience.

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So can you talk us through that most recent journey?

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<v 1>Yeah. I mean, as we've said,</v>

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we've been offering online buy now pay later through that channel for a while.

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And as of recent, we're like, "Okay, let's expand it into showroom,

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make sure we can better unify that experience." So we've been able to roll out

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it in showroom with Affirm and it's just been a really easy process.

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They can go through the flow right during the appointment flow.

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<v 0>And for those that are not familiar,</v>

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it's just a simple screen and your checkout flow on the Stripe Terminal reader.

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So it's a really simple UX.

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And so congrats on getting that rolled out. Yeah.

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The other piece that, coming from a retail background,

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we like to talk about what are the metrics that we obsess?

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What are the metrics that matter?

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And we're all in the pursuit here in this room of how are we maximizing and

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driving LTV?

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And so two of the metrics that you and I kind of talked about at breakfast is

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just like this notion of like constantly driving AOV,

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which the buy now pay laters help, and then driving repeat purchase.

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Can you give us a little bit of sense of like what's the behind the scenes of

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the brand take on these two metrics?

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<v 1>They're paramount, right?</v>

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It's the most important thing that we pay attention to.

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So if we can make sure that that experience is seamless at the beginning,

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then it just makes it that much easier for the customer to come back and point

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and click. So for us,

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we are addressing our customers for a lifetime of moments and those moments

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follow them throughout their life, right? So that keeps them coming back.

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And I think being able to connect all of those dots at the beginning is super

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important.

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<v 0>That's really the beauty of unified commerce.</v>

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And you all have remarkable repeat purchase staff, which I won't share,

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but impressive.
So wanted to just wrap up with being

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really, really,

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really proud of this journey and just thanking Shayna for coming here and

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sharing your story with us. Truly a delight to work with you. And we,

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with that, would love to also welcome our partner Eric Shea to the stage.

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Eric, you and I spend a lot of time together,

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maybe more time than you would even like.

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And we spend a lot of time actually on agentic commerce,

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but what we have found is that all the principles that make one ready for

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agentic commerce and those, not the digital natives,

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but truly enterprise retailers that are moving fast,

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they unified their commerce.

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And so it was actually really fitting that we go back to the fundamentals.

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And the fundamentals are, you can't go to,

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I always go back to my retail analogy all the days at Nike of like,

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you can't go straight to the cherry on the top,

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okay?
You've got to build the foundation of the cupcake, add the icing,

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and then get to the cherry.

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So I want to go a little bit tactical on just the cake portion to make sure

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everyone has a really strong understanding. And first,

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I want to start with a little bit of a myth busting of, I mean,

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we've been talking about unified commerce for how many years and it hasn't

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happened yet, but we are pretty convinced that it is because

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I believe AI is going to finally unlock personalization at scale.

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<v 2>Yeah, absolutely.</v>

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And I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding that and misconception

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that we all have to have our perfect data and fully connected systems to

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enable unified commerce and anyone who's been in retail for any amount of time

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knows we've been on that journey for decades and I have bad news.

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It's not ending anytime soon. We're going to be working on that for a while,

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but that does not mean we can't create some of these amazing unified commerce

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experiences that Shayna was talking about. What it does mean is one,

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we are leveraging AI to actually accelerate that data and connection journey

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with many of our clients to get there faster with better and cleaner data at

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the right time. And then two,

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it's really also about working backwards from the experience that you want to

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create for your customers and really understanding what's going to drive value

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for them and then working backwards to really understand what data and systems

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you need to enable those kind of experiences because we can't do everything all

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at once.

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<v 0>Yeah.</v>

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So it's like very often it's just depending upon the size of the enterprise and

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how you chunk it out and roadmap it,

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but just the notion of it's not a one-and-done. Now,

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where do you find retailers most concerned in pushing back around, "Hey,

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I don't want to disrupt business operations," because we all know as retailers,

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we have to continue to drive transformation,

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yet you got to keep the lights on and keep the business running.

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So not interrupting. I'd actually love to hear from both of you on that.

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<v 2>Yeah, maybe I'll start. In retail,</v>

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almost all of our systems are mission critical,

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whether that's a planning system from our merchants, an online commerce system,

347
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or of course our stores, our associate point of sale and clienteling tools,

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of course payments, those have to run for us to do business.

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But at the same time,

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we're forced with this tension that customers have higher expectations than ever

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before of how we are working with them,

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that we know them across all of our channels,

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and that means we need to modernize and we need to modernize at speed.

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And so some of the techniques we found really helpful is number one,

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being able to digitally decouple your systems. Essentially,

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think about driving the car while changing out the engine.

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You can still get the data,

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get the system connectivity while you're modernizing those systems.

359
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And in many times when we're transforming clients,

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we're actually doing many systems at once.

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I had a recent global client where we modernize 17 systems all at once,

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and we're using a lot of AI to make that happen as well.

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<v 1>You've really got to have a vision to do that though. I mean,</v>

364
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to be able to be running full steam ahead and still have all these

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decoupling happening just to get it all back together,

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you've got to have that North Star so that you know exactly where you're

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pointing to and what everybody is really rallying around to work together.

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And that sense of vision is, I think, super important as we figure out,

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how do we change the wheels while we're running a hundred miles an hour, right?

370
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<v 0>Absolutely. And then I think the last,</v>

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this is a question that is really kind of at the heart of,

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especially if you were at the developer or the keynote this morning, it's,

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you can't ...

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We know agentic is just truly the future of commerce.

375
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And I'd love to just talk about,

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there is a world where our chat last night is,

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how do we get to agentic BOPIS? And things like that where, what do I want?

378
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We were talking about,

379
00:21:10.570 --> 00:21:14.890
I would really like my cardigan sent to me that I want tomorrow that I forgot to

380
00:21:14.950 --> 00:21:19.830
pack. And that is a data. There's like multiple layers to unpack there,

381
00:21:20.150 --> 00:21:24.330
but that's actually where these two worlds of agentic commerce and the physical

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00:21:24.430 --> 00:21:26.390
retail experience come together.

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00:21:26.910 --> 00:21:31.550
And those that are already unified are multiple steps

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ahead. So Eric,

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00:21:32.630 --> 00:21:37.190
can you give me kind of where you're seeing this on the enterprise retail

386
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side and how you see this playing out?

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<v 2>Yeah, absolutely.</v>

388
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And I've had the opportunity to spend a lot of my time over the last eight to

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00:21:44.690 --> 00:21:46.290
nine months on agentic commerce,

390
00:21:46.730 --> 00:21:50.090
exciting new capability and customer experience we're going to unlock.

391
00:21:51.150 --> 00:21:52.650
But that said, I think one,

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00:21:53.050 --> 00:21:56.330
the clients that we see leading are the ones that had already leaned into

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unified commerce because they're adapting with their customers and they need to

394
00:22:01.090 --> 00:22:05.490
have that experience across all the channels. So they're more ready for it.

395
00:22:06.210 --> 00:22:08.990
But I think you make a really good point. I mean, there's a lot of retail.

396
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It's about the human connection and being in stores.

397
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And I think there's a lot of opportunity for us to innovate around agentic

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00:22:16.430 --> 00:22:20.210
commerce back into the store so we can have those great relationships.

399
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<v 0>Because the store is still where 70% of the volume happens.</v>

400
00:22:23.030 --> 00:22:23.863
<v 2>That's right.</v>

401
00:22:23.890 --> 00:22:27.210
<v 0>Which is critically important. And then Eric,</v>

402
00:22:27.550 --> 00:22:31.670
I would say we have an audience here where a lot of people sent only one or two

403
00:22:31.770 --> 00:22:32.603
from their team.

404
00:22:32.750 --> 00:22:36.590
And so what advice would you have for leaders in this room to take back to their

405
00:22:36.630 --> 00:22:37.463
teams?

406
00:22:37.590 --> 00:22:40.710
<v 2>Yeah. Maybe I'll start, and Shayna would love you to chime in,</v>

407
00:22:40.770 --> 00:22:42.930
but I'll start with your example actually at the front,

408
00:22:43.410 --> 00:22:47.810
where you talked about ordering something online and then being disappointed

409
00:22:47.870 --> 00:22:48.703
with the return.

410
00:22:48.970 --> 00:22:52.990
I think there is a little bit of back to basics of really understanding what is

411
00:22:53.070 --> 00:22:56.210
your omnichannel and unified commerce journey for your customers,

412
00:22:56.890 --> 00:23:00.670
where are there gaps, and then what data and systems do you need to connect?

413
00:23:00.990 --> 00:23:02.930
And that sounds pretty fundamental,

414
00:23:03.310 --> 00:23:07.370
but there's still a lot of opportunity in that space. And then two,

415
00:23:07.430 --> 00:23:12.270
I would say accelerate how you're working using techniques like AI to

416
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fix your data, build more connections,

417
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and get to that unified commerce baseline.

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<v 1>And to build on that, I think the</v>

419
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AI commerce and all of these agentic elements to

420
00:23:25.770 --> 00:23:28.530
it that are just going to elevate the experience and the user journey,

421
00:23:29.070 --> 00:23:32.230
they will never replace that one-to-one interaction that you're having with a

422
00:23:32.310 --> 00:23:35.910
human in front of you to buy that sweater that you're looking for, right? So-.

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00:23:36.970 --> 00:23:38.170
<v 0>Or to bring me that top-.</v>

424
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<v 1>A human has to do that.</v>

425
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<v 0>That would look perfect with the pants that I wore to Shoptalk.</v>

426
00:23:42.530 --> 00:23:46.170
<v 1>Exactly. Exactly. A person has to do that. So all of these tools are great,</v>

427
00:23:46.570 --> 00:23:50.390
but they don't do anything if you don't invest in your customer experience.

428
00:23:50.670 --> 00:23:53.690
And I think that's probably the most important takeaway from it, for sure. Yeah.

429
00:23:54.150 --> 00:23:57.670
<v 0>I would say at the end of the day, we're all in the customer experience economy.</v>

430
00:23:58.470 --> 00:23:59.270
As I walk through,

431
00:23:59.270 --> 00:24:02.810
that was my kind of takeaway even walking through the expo hall and seeing the

432
00:24:02.830 --> 00:24:06.930
parallels between the retail and hospitality. But it's interesting.

433
00:24:06.990 --> 00:24:10.430
We started the story of me feeling like a stranger at a brand that I love and

434
00:24:10.450 --> 00:24:11.350
questioning my loyalty.

435
00:24:11.530 --> 00:24:14.310
I ended up walking down the street and bought the skirt from another brand that

436
00:24:14.370 --> 00:24:18.290
I love. So it's truly, there is that pragmatic allocation of dollars.

437
00:24:19.010 --> 00:24:23.550
And right now, what I believe, truly payments decisions right now,

438
00:24:23.710 --> 00:24:27.010
whenever I hear these are not strategic decisions,

439
00:24:27.110 --> 00:24:31.230
I get very spicy because they are actually customer and brand decisions and

440
00:24:31.250 --> 00:24:34.310
there is nothing more important than the customer experience.

441
00:24:34.370 --> 00:24:37.750
And particularly as you touched on is they remember their first and their last,

442
00:24:37.810 --> 00:24:40.150
and their last is the payments experience.

443
00:24:40.210 --> 00:24:40.830
<v 1>Exactly.</v>

444
00:24:40.830 --> 00:24:41.730
<v 0>And as we look through,</v>

445
00:24:41.790 --> 00:24:46.790
and I think what I love and probably everyone in this room and this stage,

446
00:24:47.230 --> 00:24:48.250
the beauty,

447
00:24:48.910 --> 00:24:53.410
and I think it's both the risk and the energy in retail is the

448
00:24:53.530 --> 00:24:58.130
notion of retail as a world of constant reinvention where

449
00:24:58.690 --> 00:25:01.090
it used to be every 10 years there was a model shift,

450
00:25:01.490 --> 00:25:06.350
but now we're in a world where things are changing so fast and really

451
00:25:06.910 --> 00:25:11.370
what you can do is have the best financial infrastructure and then overall

452
00:25:12.230 --> 00:25:14.810
thinking about your architecture very, very, very thoughtfully,

453
00:25:15.190 --> 00:25:17.270
because if you don't have the basics unified,

454
00:25:17.410 --> 00:25:20.870
you're never going to be able to deliver the customer experiences of the future.

455
00:25:21.270 --> 00:25:24.410
And so the stuff that gets us really excited about like, how do we get to,

456
00:25:24.650 --> 00:25:25.190
in my world,

457
00:25:25.190 --> 00:25:29.850
that agentic BOPUS or that personalized experience in-store,

458
00:25:31.350 --> 00:25:34.070
you don't get to those without solving. And then more importantly,

459
00:25:34.170 --> 00:25:38.030
you don't want to have friction and turn that customer away because that's the

460
00:25:38.110 --> 00:25:41.710
exact opposite of driving LTV is when I walked out and I have to go to the Post

461
00:25:41.810 --> 00:25:43.930
Office to then return it. And then I-.

462
00:25:43.950 --> 00:25:47.030
<v 1>You forgot all about the time that you had before even were shopping there,</v>

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right?

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You forgot about all about the cute things you saw before you even got to the

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register.

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<v 0>Yes. In the two years of order history I have. So thank you all for coming.</v>

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Hopefully you're able to take some insights back to your team.

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Thank you for joining everyone. Thank you.