TECH

Truly Contactless Payments

The future of contactless payments could be in the palm of your hand. Literally. 

Yesterday, Amazon brought Amazon One out of stealth mode. It’s a checkout experience that allows shoppers to pay by scanning their palms, an ideal payment method for impatient customers, germaphobes, and the choreographer from Bring It On:

• The first time a shopper goes to an Amazon One terminal, they’ll scan their palm and enter their credit card info.
• On every successive trip, they'll hold a jazz hand over the terminal to pay. 

At launch, Amazon One is only available at two cashierless Amazon convenience stores in the Seattle area. But Amazon hinted that more are on the way. Expansion will start with Amazon-owned stores; Amazon said it’ll eventually sell the tech to third party retailers.

Biometric metrics 

The palm-scanning tech arrives just as retailers are embracing a hands-free experience in stores. 

• 67% of U.S. retailers said they now accept no-touch payments, in an August survey by the National Retail Federation and Forrester Research. 
• U.S. shoppers’ adoption of contactless payments tech has increased by nearly 10% during the pandemic, per a Mercator Advisory Group study.  

Amazon One uses “biometrics,” which Emerging Tech Brew describes as “the science of digitizing biological identifiers like voice, eyes, gait, and face.” Biometric payment methods are relatively rare in U.S. retail, thanks to privacy concerns and high costs of adoption. 

Speaking of privacy...Amazon said palm scans are safer than other forms of biometrics because a photo of a handprint can’t identify a person like a selfie can. Not that said handprints will be leaked, Amazon claims, because it’s housing Amazon One data in a cloud-based, encrypted server.

• Potential retail partners won’t have complete privacy: Amazon will still collect data about where shoppers pay by hand, per Recode.

So retailers that want to shorten shoppers’ store visits by 0.005 seconds have a choice: Are they comfortable sharing consumer data with Amazon, or should they settle for QR codes?

SUSTAINABILITY

Something Borrowed, Something Banned

Retailers unveiled a fresh round of sustainability efforts this week. No animals were harmed in the making of this recap. 

Material bans: Items best described as controversial are on their way out of two major retailers... 

• Dick’s Sporting Goods committed to removing single-use plastic bags from all stores by 2025, joining an alliance with CVS, Target, and Walmart. 
• Nordstrom pledged to stop selling furs and exotic animal skins by the end of 2021, due to customer feedback.

Upcycling and recycling: What’s old is new again, again. 

• Nike will display special icons on items made with 50% or more recycled materials. In online pilots for the badge, purchase conversions increased by 3x.
• Asos released a 29-piece “circular” collection, aka items that are made with reclaimed materials. It’s barely a dent in the 85,000+ products Asos already sells, but the retailer said it’ll bring circularity into additional lines.

Read between the linens. Retailers’ sustainability initiatives are as much about signaling to eco-minded shoppers as they are about the environment: 43% of shoppers said they planned to spend more on “sustainable” brands in thredUP’s 2020 industry report.

SPONSORED BY SAILTHRU

Raise Raised Their Game—Your Turn

Raise, the world’s largest online marketplace for discount gift cards, makes it easy to save money.

And thanks to Sailthru, they just increased their conversions by 10x.

In this case study, Sailthru lays out how they helped Raise raise their game. By developing and implementing a cross-channel personalized strategy with the goal of growing and retaining its membership base, Raise was able to:

• Elevate its customer acquisition strategy.
• Develop a welcome series that boosted purchases.
• Use mobile to nurture customers.
• Finally defeat their grandmother in Scrabble.

And the best part, Sailthru can do the same thing for your biz.

Download the full case study and learn how Sailthru can raise your game.

E-COMM

Meet DTC Brands in the Lobby?

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been catfished by an “oversized” sweater that fits like a crop top IRL. The Lobby, a video-centric marketplace that launched nationwide yesterday, wants to solve that problem. 

How it works: It’s “QVC meets TikTok,” founder Abigail Holtz told Business Insider. 

• A roster of 40 influencers shares 30–90 second videos wearing items from The Lobby’s 30 DTC brand partners.
• When shoppers are ~influenced~ to make a purchase, they can add items to their cart without pausing the video.

Sounds familiar

There are almost as many digital fashion marketplaces as there are celebrity beauty brands (too many). A non-exhaustive list of virtual department stores includes Farfetch, Shopbop, Verishop, and Mytheresa. 

Those platforms built their brands around superior curation, but they’re UX Luddites. That’s given The Lobby and The Yes, an AI-powered shopping app, a way in. After all, modern shoppers want 1) ultra-personalized options and 2) interactive media. 

My caveat: New apps are also fighting the nascent shopping tabs on social media...and those platforms are light years ahead when it comes to consumer awareness. If The Lobby can’t come up with an elevator pitch that doesn’t involve another app, it might not last.

WHAT ELSE IS BREWING

• Retail bankruptcies are still rising at a swift pace, BDO reports.
• Reebok named its new VP, Creative Direction: Kerby Jean-Raymond, designer at Pyer Moss.
• Walmart is piloting a new store layout concept at 200 locations.
• Bed Bath & Beyond now offers same-day delivery with Shipt and Instacart.
• LVMH is countersuing Tiffany over their halted merger.
• A thread of the latest holiday sales event updates, because there are too many to type out here.

SPONSORED BY SQUARE

Don’t leave your holiday retail plan out in the cold. Online sales are expected to grow 18% this season, and Square Online can help you prepare your retail biz for the shopping blizzard. Whether it’s keeping your online and in-store orders in sync or using social media to attract new customers, it can all be done with Square Online. Get started today.

COWORKING

Welcome to Coworking, a new segment highlighting the best part of Retail Brew: you, the readers. Every Wednesday, I’ll use this space to introduce one of the many retail pros who subscribe to this very newsletter. 

First up: Laura McGinnis, the Director of Product Marketing & Strategy for Luggage & Apparel at Away.

How would you describe your job on a date? “I oversee product marketing for Away's luggage and apparel categories and get to work with some incredible business strategists, innovative designers, and inspiring product developers daily.”

What’s one thing we can’t guess about your career from your LinkedIn? “I began my career with a Fulbright grant in Uruguay, where I started a girls' soccer program in public schools that was later sponsored by Nike Uruguay. From there, I began a career in retail which was an unexpected transition.”

Brands you’re obsessed with (that aren’t your employer): “Serena Ventures, Fenty, Pyer Moss, Arc'teryx, Nike, and CUUP all spark my entrepreneurial spirit.”

One account everyone should follow: “15 Percent Pledge—increasing representation of Black-owned brands in major retailers is essential and long overdue.”

Want to be featured in Coworking? Fill out our quick nomination form, or share it with a friend who reads Retail Brew. 

SWAPPING SKUS

No theme today—just three very, very good reads. 

On small biz: This 13-part guide explores paths to recovery for local businesses battered by the pandemic. Unlike The Irishman, it gets away with going long. (Protocol)

On fragrance: Perfume is an old, predominantly white, boys’ club. Here’s a look at its exclusionary history, and an introduction to five leaders who are changing it for the better. (Allure)

On hidden messages: Remember Patagonia’s surprise “Vote the a—holes out” tags? Some upper level execs didn’t know they had been made until shoppers found them. (Esquire)

ICYMI

Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed.

• Small Businesses Aren’t Participating in Discount Holidays
• Boohoo Owns Up to ‘Significant Issues’ in Its Supply Chain
• Exclusive: How Lola Sold 10+ Million Products Through Walmart