Unconventional Retail Comes To Uncorked
Industry leaders share their philosophies
Uncorked Studios welcomed Portland-area retail innovators to the studio last week for a panel on Unconventional Retail, organized by Portland State University’s Center for Retail Leadership.
Uncorked founder and CEO Marcelino Alvarez moderated the panel, which consisted of a broad spectrum of key players in retail. Alvarez was joined by leaders from regional high-end grocery (Mark Law, COO, New Seasons Market), global sports apparel (Rebecca Kinman, Senior Manager Retail Concepts, adidas), boutique coffee culture (Jon Perry, VP of Retail, Stumptown) and a direct-to-consumer CPG startup (Patrick Triato, Founder and CEO, Goodwell).
The discussion ranged across multiple topic areas, from relationships with disruptive frenemies who might move into direct competition (e.g. Amazon) to strategies on buying versus building key software and engineering-related elements to the customer experience.
Some highlights:
Jon Perry, VP of Retail at Stumptown, on a culture of innovation and autonomy:
I started as a barista, 19-year-old Jon, and I always wished at that point someone would have listened to me. I had the answer. So I promised myself as I came up through leadership that where there was an opportunity, for a channel, I’d make sure I’d ask all the questions that somebody could have asked me.
Barista Council informs almost everything we do. We now have a seasonal beverage program, and Jeffrey Morganthaler at Clyde Common puts these things together. And that whole program came out of one of our baristas, who was like, ‘Hey, our drinks are a little bit boring, they’re a syrup and something. We have all these rad bartenders in Portland, why don’t we ask one of them?
We’re tight with Jeffrey, so we asked him, and some of the things that he’s creating that we are then executing. It’s led to things like house-made syrups, where everything is made in-house. I would have never come up with that idea. But ask baristas, they’ll tell you.
Patrick Triato, Founder and CEO, Goodwell, on prototyping and testing ideas:
My background is product design and development, so we have a very product-centric mindset where it’s all about versioning, and you start out with a couple versions in 2D, then take it into 3D software. We’ve got a lot of ways in-house to make things, the CNC machine, we’ve got the 3D printer, and the tools to make it in-house in real time. We test it out as much as we can and we get to a certain point of fidelity and we get some samples made, some functional samples, and then do user testing, and then from there it’s taking it to market.
Things like Kickstarter changed our business incredibly in the last year, we came out with the battery-free powered toothbrush. People were asking us, can you make an electric toothbrush without a battery. And as a sustainably focused company, we asked ourselves, what’s the most sustainably-focused powered toothbrush out there, and the answer was there isn’t one. So we’re making one. And that’s been an incredible challenge, it still is, we’ve yet to produce it. It’s fully CNCed, every single part of the 47 parts on there. It’s a real joy to me, it’s the most fun part of doing what I do.”
Rebecca Kinman, Senior Manager Retail Concepts at adidas, on prototyping:
We’re taking cues from our consumers, hearing exactly what they want, and starting by getting designs in front of test groups and focus groups and athletes, and seeing if that resonates with people. Then we go into prototype phases. The testing process takes a long time, and it’s really intense. There’s a lot on the line for things that people wear, so you have to prototype. That process can take years. It’s tricky. Our entire team, our Future team, is dedicated to seeking new materials or new ideas in footwear and apparel, helping make athletes get better at what they do.
In my own world, building out the retail environment, anything I put in a store I’m testing beforehand, whether it’s a light, or a drawer pull, or a fixture. I’m building it out and prototyping it, usually locally, so I can test it. A lot of times we’ll have people from adidas or team members come out and test things, for example, we’ll ask them to sit in a chair, and we’ll really give things a good kick before we put them out into the market. Prototyping and testing is a huge part of what we do
Mark Law, COO, New Seasons Market on local community as a differentiator:
The regional food economy and the communities that we operate in are the lifeblood of who we are. We spend a lot of our energy and focus making sure we sit inside the community that we’re deeply embedded in, and that covers a lot of area in terms of the product mix, the seasonality, and the look and feel of the store. Hiring people that live in the community, that know the community. I think we have a lot of stores in this area that have been around for almost 19 years, and so we don’t take it for granted because every community is different and every community is changing.
We want our stores to be a place people want to hang out, where people want to see their neighbors and want to see their friends. They want to try food from their local areas that’s a celebration of the season. We also take that very seriously. You can’t miss the berry season in Oregon, or the arrival of Oregon tuna. People are connected with those producers, and people are connected with the land. It’s a lot of responsibility, and an enormous part of what we do.
