I would start a movement that inspires people to explore different countries and cultures. Exploration of culture leads to an understanding of our differences and enthusiasm to see others flourish and succeed.
As part of our series about the future of retail, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dedrick Boyd.
Dedrick Boyd is an international e-commerce strategist and the founder of TechSparq (www.techsparq.com). Dedrick has been at the center of e-commerce for over 23 years where he’s architected and built marketplaces, e-procurement, B2B e-commerce, and B2C e-commerce systems. With his No-Wasted-Motion philosophy, Dedrick brings a true focus on solutions that elevate the customer experience without getting tech-widget-happy, to increase market influence, market standing, and profit for his Fortune 500 clients.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
I grew up in poverty and rampant violence in the projects in Birmingham, Alabama. Even though I made it out and became successful, I was unhappy and struggled with depression until I was 30. I was working as a technology consultant and one day I decided to leave it all and take care of myself. I changed my life and decided to pursue lifestyle brands in this transitionary time.
With this new focus, I began to grow my company and establish a brand that was on the leading edge of the innovation curve.
That focus led to my mission of helping lifestyle brands reach new customers, build deeper relationships with existing customers, and create captivating worldwide shopping experiences.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
I never believed in the notion that we are only 6 degrees of separation from anyone else until one day, my wife walked in with a twinkle in her eye. She told me that one of her good friends knew someone who had a personal relationship with a major influencer. We had a proposal on the table with a company owned by that very influencer. I was dumbfounded. Never in a million years would I have even thought that we had a common connection. Forget 6 degrees of separation, we were only 3 degrees away. Amazing.
Are you working on any new exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?
We are currently working on an immersive commerce platform. At its core, it will bring humanity, culture, and community to the online shopping experience. Many lifestyle brands fail when trying to break the barrier between digital and real-world shopping. The lack of true human connection on the internet is the barrier. But there is a way to create a personalized & immersive online shopping experience that friends can see, hear, and enjoy together from anywhere around the world.
The platform is commerce-first, but it will quickly expand to offer people a place to hang out, network, and build deep relationships. This is notoriously difficult to do in a 2d digital experience or on social media, so it’s our aim to offer a place to develop real connections in this increasingly digital world.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful, who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
One of my earliest experiences occurred when working at a coffee shop as a teen. The shop owner was busy in the back cleaning up a spill. He had napkins, dustbins, the mop, you name it. When I saw him on “all fours” scrubbing, I offered to do it for him. To which he replied, “I’ll never ask an employee to do something that I’m unwilling to do.” That has stuck with me, even to today. Bob Teasdale had no idea how powerful that statement was, but it has been ingrained in my DNA ever since.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I am bringing goodness to the world in two ways. First, by helping lifestyle brands share their products with the world, I know there’s an opportunity to spread joy. Lifestyle brands have a way of elevating how people feel. Some people use physical goods to show off, but to me, it is not about broadcasting. How you feel is paramount and when you feel good, you are in alignment with who you really are. Secondly, and more personally, I want to help the next generation of leaders establish a new way of thinking and understanding. My goal is to help establish a great foundation so they can do amazing things and I’ve publicized the core of my personal consulting methodology as a free training for high-school and college-age students.
Ok super. Now let’s jump to the main questions of our interview. The Pandemic has changed many aspects of all of our lives. One of them is the fact that so many of us have gotten used to shopping almost exclusively online. Can you share a few examples of different ideas that large retail outlets are implementing to adapt to the new realities created by the Pandemic?
The Pandemic has forced retailers to evaluate the digital customer experience. According to Salesforce research, 80% of consumers say the experience of buying is just as important as the actual product. In response, retailers have added technological advancements to the online-to-offline journey. Innovations such as buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS), augmented reality to view in your space, ship from store, and Livestream shopping were all introduced in a matter of weeks. Historically, these advancements would have taken years of meticulous planning. Lastly, some large retailers have begun selling online and offline store space for ads from ancillary industries.
The supply chain crisis is another outgrowth of the pandemic. Can you share a few examples of what retailers are doing to pivot because of the bottlenecks caused by the supply chain crisis?
Retailers have become incredibly creative in how they deal with the supply chain crisis. Early on, some adjusted the SKU mix by reducing variety to boost quantities. As the crisis has lingered, retailers have taken additional steps such as bypassing distribution hubs and shipping directly to stores. Others have converted some outlets into “dark stores” to combat decreased foot traffic while making good use of their on-shelf inventories and proximity to consumers for higher traffic locations.
Additionally, some retailers have simplified the assortment and packaging processes so that supplies can make same-SKU full-pallet shipments to a hub or distributor-consolidation facilities. This tactic places more emphasis on shipping speed in contrast to product variety at a time when many consumers desire adequate supplies of critical items as opposed to a wide assortment
How do you think we should reimagine our supply chain to prevent this from happening again in the future?
To answer that question, it is important to understand the complexities of global supply chains and how they were disrupted by the COVID pandemic. Many companies design their supply chains, particularly their manufacturing and logistics systems to run at high utilization, in that they don’t have a lot of excess capacity in order to save on costs or resources.
A reimagination of the supply chain to prevent this from happening in the future should look like this:
- Companies should reassess their disruption mitigation strategies and be prepared to improve their resilience by sourcing from multiple suppliers in diverse locations, combining local and distant (offshore) suppliers that use separate infrastructures.
- We must establish excess or backup capacity that’s easily activated in case of a disruption.
- A deeper emphasis has to be placed on supply chain mapping to understand potential bottleneck risks beyond the first-tier supplier is critical for future success. Retailers need to understand from where their first-tier and second-tier suppliers source goods. With a solid mapping, retailers can work to diversity their supplier network and avoid a single point of failure within the network.
In your opinion, will retail stores or malls continue to exist? How would you articulate the role of physical retail spaces at a time when online commerce platforms like Amazon Prime or Instacart can deliver the same day or the next day?
In my opinion, retail stores and malls will continue to exist for the foreseeable future. However, they will need to adapt to compete with or work in conjunction with e-commerce platforms which are rapidly altering the retail landscape. More specifically, physical spaces will become more immersive and provide an elevated experience to customers. The blending of the physical store with a digital experience is the first step in creating a space for customers to explore products in IRL (in real life). This blending of physical and digital is also how customers expect to interact with brands.
Amazon is going to exert pressure on all of retail for the foreseeable future. New Direct-To-Consumer companies based in China are emerging that offer prices that are much cheaper than US and European brands. What would you advise to retail companies and e-commerce companies, for them to be successful in the face of such strong competition?
Businesses should shift and become experience-first in their commerce efforts. They should also look beyond price alone as the key value proposition because customer sophistication in their decision-making process continues to evolve. Especially as it relates to Gen-Z and Millennials. This group will quickly become the majority of shoppers, and they have a different set of values of which retailers must be aware.
A survey reported that 81.7 percent of Gen Z and 75.5 percent of millennials favor environmental sustainability. In addition, 78 percent of both generations believe brands should take a pro-diversity stance, and members of both age groups reported abandoning a purchase because the brand did not reflect their values.
Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a fantastic retail experience that keeps bringing customers back for more? Please share a story or an example for each.
When thinking about a fantastic retail experience these five concepts should be top of mind:
- It may seem obvious, but EXPERIENCE is the most important key. Customers expect a streamlined and consistent online & offline experience. Customers reward retailers that create captivating experiences and who are consistent across all channels. According to research by Aberdeen Group, companies with the strongest omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain an average of 89% of their customers, compared with 33% for companies with weak omnichannel strategies.
- Retailers must carefully consider the values of their customers and make every effort to align with those values. This is especially critical with the millennial and Gen Z age groups who are much more likely to patronize retailers and brands that align with their values, particularly in the areas of sustainability, the environment, and social causes.
- Convenience is another important factor that customers consider before making a purchase. Smartphones became big influencers of the omnichannel shopping experience for this very reason. Customers interact with brands when and how it’s most convenient for them. So, retailers should make sure they are convenient to their key customer demographic.
- It should be no surprise that customer service is a huge factor no matter the channel. Seamless customer service is reported by the majority of shoppers as critical to their experience. This is to be expected since so many desire consistency no matter how they interact with a retailer.
- Lastly, price is an important consideration. While price is not always the primary factor in determining customer purchasing decisions, with all else being equal, customers will typically pay less when given the option. On the other hand, elevated pricing can serve a purpose, especially as customers crave exclusivity, virtue-signaling, and the desire for uniqueness and rarity.
My particular experience is in the grocery retail industry, and I’m passionate about addressing food deserts and addressing food insecurity. Can you please share a few things that can be done by the retail industry to address the problem of food insecurity?
Food insecurity is such a complex issue, and the lack of fresh foods to so many continues to impact entire communities. From a business standpoint, omnichannel is an obvious solution for many grocers, and it’s growing in popularity. It allows for a much more robust understanding of demand and inventory. It also supports the optimization of supply chains, all while providing a better experience for shoppers.
We really believe in the idea that you can do good and do well. As we’ve already talked about, value signaling is very important to shoppers today, particularly Millennials and Gen-Z. There are all kinds of real-world benefits to having a better grasp on inventory, including massive cuts in food waste. It would be a true win-win for grocers to partner with local food pantries and even corner stores to share overstock and build community-based relationships.
Thank you for all of that. We are nearly done. Here is our final ‘meaty’ question. You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would start a movement that inspires people to explore different countries and cultures. Exploration of culture leads to an understanding of our differences and enthusiasm to see others flourish and succeed. When we gain an understanding of differences with a healthy respect for how those differences came to be, we are all better off. Plus, who doesn’t love good food?
How can our readers further follow your work?
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realdedrickboyd/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dedrickboyd/
Website: https://www.dedrickboyd.com
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Dedrick Boyd Of TechSparq On The Supply Chain and The Future Of Retail was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.