The changing role of retail stores & more!
December 10th 2024
For this week’s issue, I’m changing things up a bit and sharing a grab bag of some fun commerce tidbits that have caught my eye, and then a re-introduction to me and Curious Commerce.
Things I’m Curious about Right Now
The changing role of the retail store
In a past role, my team and I launched Ship from Store, which turns retail stores into mini fulfillment centers shipping online orders, boosting the economics of a retail “box.” More generally, many retailers are thinking about how to value physical retail in a context where dollars are shifting online. This Black Friday, store sales stayed mostly flat, while online grew - this makes the question more urgent for brands. I noticed two recent things that got at this dilemma.
This fascinating Tiktok video summarizes the economics of a boutique retail store in NYC and shares just how much revenue is required per day to breakeven. Watch the video - it’s A LOT. If we want our beloved local stores to stay open, they need our support. And, they need to be constantly thinking about ways to diversify their revenue streams - selling online, hosting in-store events, etc.
On the other hand, one of my favorite brands, Hill House Home, shared that since opening their Charleston boutique, ecommerce sales for the city jumped from the #32 ranked city by sales to #20 (thank you
for capturing this screenshot from founder Nell Diamond’s IG stories!).
This is a common phenomenon in our industry (known as “halo effect”), and points to a major benefit of retail presence - the stores serve as billboards, driving brand awareness. I’ve observed a growing level of distrust in “Instagram brands” that market to us only online, driven by the prevalence of drop-shippers who have dubious quality and manufacturing standards. For brands like Hill House that command a high price point, the ability for consumers to see the store in-person imbues a sense of legitimacy, even if they don’t go inside to shop. Nell Diamond, the founder of Hill House, is a great follow for behind-the-scenes content on brand building.
Distribution “white space”: Elf beauty selling in Dollar General
Walk into Sephora and you’ll see just how crowded the beauty industry is, with lotions and potions for every part of your body - even your butt (I’ve actually heard really good things about that cream). How are beauty brands finding ways to stand out? One underrated approach is in distribution - where the products are sold. I love this move by elf to expand their presence at Dollar General. From the announcement:
“Dollar General has a stated strategy of serving the underserved, with 80% of its stores serving markets of 20,000 people or less. With this launch, we hold true to our mission to democratize access for consumers who otherwise wouldn’t have the best of beauty, particularly in rural areas, which have traditionally been served by only the major legacy brands.”
This also reinforces one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my career: You are not the target customer. With many executives living in urban areas and shopping at high-end stores themselves, it can be all too easy to overlook opportunities to reach beauty lovers all over the country. I love to see brands explore partnerships like this.
Preventing returns with smart messaging on the product page
I’ll admit I can be a bad ecommerce customer. My number one sin is ordering the same item in multiple sizes and then returning the one that doesn’t fit. Apparently 37% of Americans have also done this, so I don’t feel too bad! However, this is terrible for brands, as returns are extremely costly - as I’ve written about before, retailers lose up to a third of revenue to returns, and return rates have increased 95% in the last 5 years. Oof!
While ordering the same pair of pants in two sizes for my husband, I noticed J.Crew gave me a friendly nudge - hey you! did you know we offer free exchanges? While this did little to dissuade me from continuing my purchase (sorry), I can imagine it’s often effective. I like that this messaging is dynamic and only appears when users have added multiples of the same item in different sizes to cart. This avoids needless clutter on the critical product detail page. I’ll keep an eye out to see which other retailers are trying similar tactics.
Re-introduction to Curious Commerce
I currently lead growth product marketing at Estée Lauder (a part of our Online organization), but I’ve worked in a variety of consumer categories and functions over my career. I’ve sold everything from jewelry to pasta sauce to women’s workwear as a brand founder, marketer, operator, product manager, and strategist. I’ve always loved consumer, and ecommerce specifically, because of the blend of art and science - we get tons of data on every click a person makes online, but at the same time, there is so much human emotion behind why we buy. Our purchases and preferences are driven by who we want to be and what types of lives we want to build. I am endlessly fascinated by people and why we do things. That’s why this newsletter covers a wide variety of categories and brands.
I live in Brooklyn with my husband, son, and miniature dachshund, Leo.
My current role (product marketing) is fun for me because it blends a bit of everything I’ve done before and requires constantly getting into the consumer’s shoes while also wearing a business hat and a technologist’s hat. I don’t share too many details here about my 9-5 because of privacy considerations. Plus, it’s more fun for me to write about other brands that I don’t spend all day laser-focused on.
I initially started Curious Commerce in 2020 when I was transitioning away from my startup, Keaton (women’s workwear ecommerce) and moving back into corporate life. I wanted to capture the lessons I learned as a bootstrapped startup founder and share my passion for consumer and ecommerce. In the early iteration of Curious Commerce, I spent a huge amount of time researching and writing, and with the amount of time I was spending, writing started to feel like a chore when stacked on top of a full-time corporate role. Over the years, I’ve kept observing and reading things that I want to share with the world, so the idea to bring Curious Commerce back has never been far away.
I’m currently on maternity leave after having my son, who is now six months old. As we all know, this is a notoriously chill period of time (ha, ha). Mostly at nap time, I’ve re-engaged my adult brain by jumping back into writing. I’m returning to my full-time role at Estée Lauder later this month. I’m excited and nervous! My maternity leave has given me the space to reflect on what I want to accomplish with Curious Commerce.
A fun outlet and community: Writing is fun for me - and I want to keep it that way. That means the format of this newsletter might shift from week to week and the subject matter might lean heavily into my hobbies (fashion resale, birdwatching, all things outdoors). I want to write about things that I find interesting, and focus on things that you all, my readers, want to learn about.
A source of creative ideas outside the 9-5: Corporate life has a way of sucking me deep into a world of highly specific initiatives and OKRs that cause me to lose track of what’s going on in the broader world. I think it’s important to keep a high-level outlook - What interesting site features are people gravitating to? What channels are growing/shrinking? How are people actually using AI to shop? Henry Ford was famously inspired by the meat industry in his invention of the assembly line for the auto industry. Writing Curious Commerce is a forcing mechanism for me to remain inspired by other industries and categories and share how those insights can be applicable in a variety of commerce contexts.
A way to explore “portfolio career” opportunities: During my MBA, I encountered the idea of a portfolio career and it really resonated with me. Basically, it’s the idea that instead of having your entire professional identity staked on a 9-5 job, you have other endeavors in your portfolio that ebb and flow and make up a broader professional identity. I would love to dip my toe into things like (manifesting here) co-owning a boutique retail store, angel investing, teaching business classes to college students, running a niche ecommerce business…and who knows what else. The good news is that I have colleagues who do all of these things, so I know it’s possible. As I start to explore some of these ideas, I’ll write about it to articulate my journey and bring y’all along.
My Content Diet
Here are a few things I’m reading/listening to and enjoying lately:
I’ve been reading everything from
and loved her recent post on niche merch - a topic I also want to explore from a business POV in a future newsletter. I love merch as a personalized gift idea for the holidays that’s affordable and often supports a great cause.I really enjoyed
’s recent pieces contrasting Madewell’s challenged new direction with Gap’s promising comeback.Recent events in November have unleashed my inner public policy wonk. To brush up on my knowledge ahead of any political conversations with relatives, I’m obsessed with Kathryn Anne Edwards, aka keds_economist on TikTok. As a former graduate-level Econ TA, I can attest that these videos are pretty much what was taught in our public policy program but in a short and easy-to-understand format. I like that her takes are balanced and empathetic to all points of view.
Stay Curious!
I’m so excited to discover your writing, Melina!