Shoptalk Fall Exclusive: Narvar’s Role in Retail Innovation & Post-Purchase Intelligence

Hello everyone, this is Omnitalk Retail.

I'm Chris Walton.

And I'm Ann Mazinga and we are.

Coming to you live from shop Talk fall in Chicago and the Windy City.

Yes, it's a beautiful day here today.

It's a beautiful day.

We got the expo hall in the background and before we get started today, we want to say thanks to our partners who are making shop Talk falls 2024.

That's what year it is.

Coverage possible.

First off, Microsoft.

Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization to achieve more.

Learn more about how together tech and people can realize the promise of AI responsibly at aka Ms.

Alat Microsoft.

That's aka Ms.

Al a T Microsoft and Narvar.

As the leader in post purchase intelligence, Narvar empowers retailers to drive revenue, reduce costs and streamline operations, all while delivering exceptional customer experience.

You can stop by booth L 45 or visit them@narvar.com dot.

And speaking of Narvar, you can also stop by their booth and talk to the gentleman in between and myself.

And that is David Maureen, the vp of customer strategy at Narvar.

Welcome David.

Good morning and thanks guys for having me.

You're right there.

We can see the narvar team right there.

So if you see us today, you stop by the Chris has mentioned that we're just right in the mezzanine, right looking down on the Narva booth.

Go stop by there.

We've got some great people to talk to.

But David, I'd like to start a little bit with you and explaining for our audience if they're not familiar, your role and what Narvar is.

Sure.

Well I think you Kristen did a nice intro for me on Narvar.

Thanks.

But my role is really closely tied to that.

So one of the things that I feel is really, really exceptionally different about Narvar is the broad set of retailers we work with today.

We work with over 1500 retailers across the globe.

Wow.

And what we can do with that work is really how I feel we can bring a lot of value back to the market.

So a lot of what I focus on is how do we work with those retailers, understand what's working, what's not working.

Infuse trends that we see in the wider retail industry.

Infuse trends that I see within our business and really make sure that we're kind of packaging that all together, bringing out best in class, best practices, thought leadership, strategic guidance, really to up level the industry as a whole.

I think a good example, I was just writing an email before I got here with a client who was asking about whether or not they should be charging for return policies.

And what does Narvar see?

That's a great question.

And being able to share back with our partners, what are we seeing?

Over 58% of retailers are charging for return shipping at some point in time.

Examples comps is a really qualitative way that we're able to give back to the industry and be not just exceptional post purchase experience from features and functionality, but really the whole end to end conversation.

Wow.

58% and growing.

Yeah.

Wow.

And you get that level of data and insight that you can share back with your clients too, at a broad level, that's pretty interesting.

Okay, so if there's one thing you want to get across to the shop, talk attendees here over the next three days about Narva, what is it?

Well, you meant I've talked a little bit about the qualitative side of what we call our network, but I think the other side that we're really excited to lean into over the next 12, 24, 36 months is what we like to call Narva network intelligence.

Okay.

So really thinking about how do we quantify and use the data side of all of the information we have across those 1500 retailers to really provide better experiences, whether that's more intelligent, estimated delivery dates to better set expectations at the time of checkout, better personalized experiences as customers wait for their package, or better manage return policies dynamically while protecting against risk and fraud.

So all different ways in which we can really harness the power of our data and use it across the industry to, one, make customer experience better, but to also help retailers save costs.

David, what are examples of some of those things that you do, like when.

So from a retailer perspective, like describe, click into that for us in terms of like, what are examples of how you bring that to life for them?

Sure.

Well, I think we've, well, Narva has long had our first product on our platform, which is what we call promise.

Okay.

I like to call it the Amazon product.

Cause I think Amazon was the first company to really do that broadly and well with consumers.

Okay.

Which is set a better estimated delivery date at the time of checkout.

Tell them when to expect it.

Exactly.

Yeah.

But in order to do that, it is now.

Yeah.

Right.

In order to do that now with high precision and high accuracy, it takes a lot of machine learning and a lot of data to really look in real time.

And historically, what do logistics networks look like?

You know, how long does it typically take a package to go from New York to San Francisco via FedEx ground or UPS economy.

And Narva is in a unique position given our twelve plus years of working with retailers across, across the globe, integrated with over 450 carriers and using that data intelligently to be able to ride real time, high accuracy, estimated delivery dates, one, better set customer expectations.

Two inherently drive conversion.

But then what we also see is that if we can offer high precision and accuracy, it also gives retailers the ability to play around with that date a little more interesting.

So maybe they want to be intentionally aggressive by one day, right?

Potentially.

Cause maybe one day isn't a big deal to drive conversion.

But how?

Maybe it is in the holidays though, right?

Yeah, exactly.

100%.

Times change.

Urgency and anxiety change based on time of year.

Absolutely, yes.

So that's one of the many examples of how we're really leaning into the idea of network data and network intelligence to build better products and better experiences.

Well, it's interesting because obviously a big theme of Shop Talk fall 2024 is really around unified commerce.

And I.

You've already mentioned some ways that Narvar is participating in that that I didn't know before.

Like I knew Narvar as return logistics and figuring that part out and the confidence that I have as a consumer in knowing if Narvar's on the case like they'll be, my package will be returned and get to the right place quickly.

But you talked about data that you're collecting that you're able to share because you have 1500 retailers in your network.

I think the other part that's really missing from the conversation is how it's important for consumers and for retailers to be thinking about post purchase in a way that they probably haven't before.

How does post purchase kind of play into this idea of unified commerce?

And how is Narvar kind of uniquely positioned to help retailers and brands with that?

First, I love the term unified commerce.

I'm not sure if I've heard that yet.

Unified commerce, really?

I mean, I think omnichannel was like the word of ten years ago, then it went away, now it's back.

Yeah, sure.

Sometimes hate that word, sometimes love that word.

Oh my God.

Oh my God.

You're on omni talk.

Just the word not.

At least you're candid.

I think unified commerce is a really, the one thing I like about the word omni or sorry about unified, is that more so?

It is not about all channels.

It's about customers feeling like it's one channel.

And I think unified commerce does a really good job of explaining, explaining that whereas omni, I think, feels a little bit more wide.

Yeah.

And I think it really touches on the question as well, which is first post purchase is now a critical part in the overarching customer journey.

Right.

Maybe ten years ago when Narva started, it was an innovative, nice to have.

Where we are today is I think most retailers agree to at least some extent that the post purchase set of the customer journey is really one of the most critical in order to retain a customer with immediate satisfaction, which leads to loyalty.

Totally.

As we think about the world now, post Covid, people are going back to stores.

Consumers want to have that connected experience.

They want to have one experience with a retailer, no matter if they start online, finish in a store, start in a store, finish online, search on an app, do a bopis pickup and then a home pickup return because it doesn't work out for them.

And so these things are all now, I think, starting to be increasingly connected.

And how do you think about every step of post purchase, physical and digital, in a connected world?

Right.

Yeah, that's true.

I mean, before it was like you go to the store, what did you buy?

Where's your receipt?

Like all these things.

And now it's really become much more simpler.

I mean, especially with the narva experiences that I've had at Lululemon and some of the other major retailers, too.

So we brought up holiday before.

Yeah, you know, we kind of teased it before.

What, you know, big time for the retailers, big return activity as well.

What do you have any big announcements coming up?

How are you guys looking at the holiday season?

Anything you want to share with our audience?

Well, I think what we see always is holiday shopping starting earlier and earlier than ever.

So consumers also self report that they've started their holiday shopping, in many cases already.

So we start to see that buy in cycle more.

More than anything, I think you've already touched on it is going to the holiday is really, how do you set expectations?

What is your, what is the cutoff time to get free shipping, guaranteed to be by date?

Right.

If something's going to go wrong, how do you make sure your customers know so that they can make other choices?

Talk about return policies.

How do you make sure you're really clear about what your holiday return policy is and how you take part in it?

As I mentioned, and we talked about consumer urgency and anxiety is an all time high during the holiday season.

So how do you use better communication, better expectation setting to really reduce that anxiety with customers?

And I think what we see then is that customers who engage positively on holiday will come back after the holiday season because of the great experience they had with that peace of mind, with that trust, with that expectation.

Yeah.

Holiday is more important than just the immediacy of this season.

I'm curious, too, as you look at cross retail more broadly, are there any action steps that retailers take in addition, on the post purchase side that is kind of adaptive to the season to try to make that process easier for their consumers?

Anything you see?

Yeah, I think one really flexible return policies during the holiday season is so they're highlighting those more, highlighting them and making sure, I mean, returns is all about peace of mind.

Right.

And if you're giving a gift, buying early, but giving a gift at Christmas and it doesn't work out, you want to make sure that your gift recipient also has the peace of mind to return.

So I would say that's probably the biggest operational change that we see in post purchase during the holiday season, is wider return windows, potentially more flexible policies, maybe lower cost, all because retailers really are embracing the idea that holiday gifting is a big moment in time, but that the time period that's related around gifting is much longer and getting longer, as we just talked about.

Yeah.

And it's a great time to earn loyalty.

Exactly.

That's an interesting point that we've never talked about before.

So that's wonderful.

All right.

Well, thank you so much, David Marin, for being here.

Narvar, your team, for making all of our coverage today at shop talk fall possible again.

You can check them out down below at booth L 45, right?

Yes, yes, L 45.

And Chris and I will be back with so much more coverage today.

We've got lots of interviews coming up from Walmart, Macy's, american freight and more.

So stay tuned.

And until then, be careful out there.

Thanks Keeman all right, I.