Jason: Welcome to the Json and Scott show this episode is being recorded live from grocery shop in Sunny Las Vegas on September 30th 2025,
Jason: I'm your host Jason retail gee Goldberg and as usual I'm here in person with my co-host Scott Wingo.
Scot: Hey Jason welcome back Jason Scott show listeners and welcome to a live episode I checked and this is the first live episode we've done in 3 years believe it or not and I think we were at a shop talk together.
Jason: Yeah time time flat you know we're coming up on our 10 year anniversary and we used to do these live at these events all the time and then Scott got too busy and fancy to come to the events anymore so welcome back Scott.
Scot: I'm back I'm back in e-commerce and we're excited to have a live guests with us here on the show for the first time is ECT
Scot: Chopra she is the cdio of Elf Beauty and I was telling her I have 2 dollars 26 and 18 and they were you have made me a rock star.
Ekta: No there you go.
Scot: And they had very specific questions I I knew we will not be asking around various things so.
Ekta: Uh I'm happy to do a Q&A with them.
Scot: You have huge fans out in my house.
Ekta: Thank you for having me.
Jason: And Scott's trying to pretend like it's on behalf of his daughters but he's really a fanboy.
Ekta: I'm sure I'm sure.
Scot: I love new brands and love talking to them so excited to have you on the show.
Ekta: Yeah well thank you for having me.
Jason: Yeah and fun fact ecta and I are going to do a a panel at grocery shop tomorrow.
Ekta: That's right.
Jason: And so so that will have already happened probably when listeners are listening to this so if you read that it was by far the best panel in the history of grocery shop you you are in on the origin story.
Ekta: There you go this is how how it all started.
Scot: And the big big thing to watch for is Jason changes his socks based on the mood of the panel so earlier today he was wearing his uh yeah this is an odd.
Ekta: Oh my is whoa okay there you go and tomorrow.
Scot: During his Sam's Club socks so I don't know if you had any elf socks on you he will wear those tomorrow so.
Ekta: Oh shhh I I couldn't get it I'm so sorry.
Scot: Dang it all right.
Jason: Yeah I am I'm not above pandering and.
Ekta: Uh I I do have a lip gloss though a lemon.
Scot: Oh yeah.
Ekta: 11 lip gloss.
Jason: I I may or may not be you know wearing uh an elf sunscreen right now that my wife.
Ekta: Ah that there you go.
Scot: And if we hear Jason's lips are particularly shiny and glossy then we know what it was.
Ekta: There you go.
Jason: Yeah yeah uh so active before we jump into it I I have a feeling listeners have already stalked you on LinkedIn,
Jason: but you know you you have a senior role for 1 of the the coolest digital brands out there like how does 1 come to that sort of role can you tell us a little bit about how you you came to your path.
Ekta: Yeah I mean I think coming to elf was really sort of
Ekta: I would say very lucky because I was just in the middle of looking for a new job I had my career where I worked for women's fashion accessories
Ekta: private equity and then you know I took a foundation job because I was going to start my family and boy oh boy it was so slow and then,
Ekta: I was like I'm screaming.
Scot: Committee meetings.
Ekta: Oh my God I wanted to like go back to retail consumer goods somewhere where I it's really chaotic and reached out to my investor community and they recommended somebody recommended else and,
Ekta: you know that was 10 years ago.
Jason: Uh well you say lucky for you I would say lucky for Elf but did they sell you a bill of goods did they tell you it's a oh beauty is a super simple thing it never changes it just you figure out an equation and you just run it for 10 years right.
Ekta: Yeah when I came it was like basically was the year 2016 January 4th is when I started and that was the year when they went public in September and it was brought in to like really sort of set them up from a technology perspective,
Ekta: and it was just I fell in love day 1 like crazy chaos everyone's working just just an amazing brand and just the origin is just amazing so.
Jason: Very cool now I have a feeling a lot of our listeners are very familiar with elf but for for a few of Scott's fans who may not be um would can you kind of give us the the the bullet on on elf and and where you guys sit in the Echo System.
Ekta: So I would say we are a bold disruptor with a kind heart that's sort of how we what our Persona is and if I think about
Ekta: elf started 2004 and that's the year when Facebook actually
Ekta: you know launched so our origin story started with the shama brothers who started selling 1 dollar makeup online and digital was e-commerce at the at that time but
Ekta: to sell makeup for $1 online at that moment in time was very disruptive,
Ekta: so this that's where sort of the disruption is in our DNA testing and learning is in our DNA we always like to say is Zips first,
Ekta: phase first because you know we always want to be the first to meet our community wherever they're going our of course we are multi-generational as you said 18 years old and 27 years old,
Ekta: but we also have I met somebody in Barcelona on my vacation and she was in her 60s and she said oh my God I fell in love with elf because my daughter loved elf and I started using the same makeup so it truly is a multi-generational
Ekta: brand.
Jason: That's amazing and just to ground folks 2004 is 2 years before Mr jobs like went into his back pocket and goes oh and 1 more 1 more thing.
Ekta: 1 more thing just just 1 little thing.
Scot: Yeah and I've always read the forward facing camera which came 4 years later from the iPhone launched somewhere in there it like totally changed the makeup game.
Ekta: Oh yes of course yeah there you go.
Scot: Would take selfies so yeah huge game changer so it's great time to be in the makeup game it is.
Ekta: Perfect for Instagram and you know yeah there you go the filters.
Jason: Yeah yeah um and so I'm assuming that day 1 the the $1 Cosmetics that was predominantly a direct to consumer.
Ekta: That is correct that is correct.
Jason: Play but that's not your situation today today you're you're really an omni Channel.
Ekta: We are we are 20 80% almost our business is still distribution and international and the rest 20
Ekta: direct to Consumer what has changed is that in the past 5 years we've gone from Elf Cosmetics to now
Ekta: where of Cosmetics elf skin well people key soul care which is our Alicia Keys Brand natorium and now Road skin with Haley Weaver
Ekta: so our portfolio has just grown so the umbrella is off Beauty.
Scot: Jason is Hailey Bieber's biggest fan.
Ekta: I really there there you go and there you go.
Scot: Whoa nice he's all about the road.
Ekta: Rude.
Jason: Is for listeners that can't see aren't watching the video version of,
Jason: um uh ELCA has a super cool iPhone case uh that is actually holding.
Scot: I thought it was a battery at first.
Ekta: No
Scot: It is the lip gloss holder.
Ekta: That is right.
Jason: Web bomb in in the case so it is always ready which I I have.
Scot: Jason super jelly.
Ekta: There.
Jason: Yeah yeah yeah yeah I've I've figured out when my wife's birthday present now.
Ekta: There you go.
Jason: Honey I hope you're not I know you don't listen to my podcast so you're fine it's fine it won't split.
Ekta: Maybe today she will.
Jason: Yeah well more likely like her friends listening to the podcast will out me to her,
Jason: uh I I tried to convince her that she should really get a gaming laptop for her her birthday but that didn't seem like she was very excited about it either yeah.
Scot: That that's 1 of those that sounds like a gift more for you women are very good at sniffing that out.
Ekta: Yeah yeah.
Jason: If only there was some way that the computers could get smart enough that you could just kind of have a dialogue with it and it could suggest a birthday gift.
Ekta: Uh there there you go Chad GPT right.
Jason: Um and so so you think about your tenure career and we're we're you know at the launch of Facebook Instagram's not a thing yet we're,
Jason: were predating the iPhone,
Jason: and today I really think of beauty as sort of a digital leader that's often been a first mover and and you guys in particular are usually 1 of the very first Brands out with,
Jason: all these sort of new touch points and so I'm I'm sort of curious like,
Jason: is that just part of the brand that whenever there's something new you feel like you have to be there and maybe some of them will hit some of them will miss or or like do you now have data that that's,
Jason: where your your customers are and you need to meet her where she is like what goes into the calculus of you know as we record this ched gbt announced instant Commerce 2 days ago,
Jason: so I imagine if there there probably already were a bunch of conversations about if and how you guys would lean into something like that like.
Ekta: Absolutely I would say first and foremost it's less about being on a platform but more about where is our community and making sure,
Ekta: wherever our community goes we are there for them so it started with the Tik Tok,
Ekta: you know almost like 5 years ago and there was it was just a thing and then we knew we wanted to lean in and it starts with hey let's just test and learn we don't know anything we're just going to jump in
Ekta: and then we got signals and the signals told us our community
Ekta: is starting to move there so then we partnered with movers and shakers which is now part of stag wall basically and what we ended up doing was they brought their expert
Ekta: expertise on Tik Tok shop the New Gen Z they need a platform really well and we leaned in and we had the biggest campaign on Tik Tok from a beauty perspective
Ekta: at that moment so I would say that it's all about going with our community is,
Ekta: we know it's not day 1 we might not know anything but once we get signals we lean in.
Scot: Are you seeing them on chat chat just like yeah I don't need to know any signals but.
Ekta: 100% yeah.
Scot: Cuz all the data I look at the survey data says you know like 800 million active users half are doing some kind of shopping but then if you look at the demographics it skews um largely younger and and kind of into that demographic sweet spot for you guys.
Ekta: Exactly I mean even if like fun fact I mean I'm a lifelong learner and recently I've been spending a lot of time with like house searches changing is our content showing up on search as we
Ekta: had a brief discussion about AEO SEO Geo right
Ekta: all of that is changing so I'm really grateful to have an amazing team they've been doing this work for almost a year now
Ekta: all our content we're trying to get it ready so it is
Ekta: showing up on chat gbt on perplexity and all the new you know AI engine so we we do try to stay ahead
Ekta: because we know our community is going over there it's a lot of work and it's just at the beginning and the fun fact that I learned was an average search is like,
Ekta: 6 words right it could be show me something right on Google right like it it would be very simple but if you go to chat gbt average is 23 words,
Ekta: I am this tone I want this ingredient I want something in you know for skin or I want a routine so imagine the amount of content Supply changing
Ekta: need it is incredible so it is a lot of work that we started to do but it's a lot of work ahead that we still have to do.
Scot: As a manager you've got these things that are not changing fast and then things that are changing fast I imagine even on the product the the physical product side you have that too,
Scot: how do you manage that is there 2 teams that manage that or do you have like an incubator piece and then a,
Scot: you know this is a platform that's not going to change how how do you manage that those 2 different speeds.
Ekta: Yeah I would say that elf speed is a tagline everybody wears proudly,
Ekta: because you know if I compare ourselves to like the big you know sort of Beauty Brands and so forth,
Ekta: they have a lot of people they have the muscle power we are almost 1.5 billion dollars with 650 people,
Ekta: we are very productive with what we do everybody has to have the test and learn culture
Ekta: Need for Speed is part of our culture and doing that as quickly as we can with no red tape is part of our culture so I would say that
Ekta: throughout the organization of speed is a thing,
Ekta: and so it's not 2 different things everyone when we know that we have big campaigns we all come together and if we have 1 thing that we say is 1 Team 1 dream,
Ekta: people say it as a cliche I say we do it we do it loud and proud in the organization.
Jason: Do you do you actually think that that your your size which you're obviously not small,
Jason: but your your size for the the amount of business you do is a is a potential advantage that you you you have less sort of institutional silos you have less innovators dilemma and I imagine in some of these
Jason: these bigger more established companies that have been around for decades that jumping on on these new opportunities is more challenging.
Ekta: 100% And I think that is 1 of our superpowers and it starts from the top our CEO tangam mean his whole thing is we,
Ekta: we no matter how big we get we have to be able to maintain our it's day 1,
Ekta: and there's a word that are my CMO always sort of talks about its social and it's a Japanese word it is about like
Ekta: day 1 like how do you start you're like a lifelong Learner in in literal meaning so for us that is something that we start from the top,
Ekta: and really sort of embedded in our culture through and through.
Jason: Yeah I feel like there's some bookstore in the Pacific Northwest that I feel like is into that whole day 1 day 1 culture too yeah I don't I don't.
Scot: Sadly they're not they're not really.
Ekta: Ivan not anymore.
Scot: There's something that like when you when you get to 2 or 3 trillion it kind of breaks down.
Ekta: I'm I'm sure.
Scot: We call that a high class problem.
Ekta: Yeah and that is something that you know if you talked about what keeps us up is like how do you maintain that culture because the bigger you get,
Ekta: now we are expanding in international we went from just being in US offices to we have an office in London we have an office in India we have an office in China so as the culture scales,
Ekta: and you know your company scales how do you like maintain that in your DNA it's a challenge.
Jason: For sure so you you already breached the topic of of AI and obviously Scott's chomping at the bit because he he thinks it's going to be a thing I the jury's out.
Scot: In a skeptical just like he he was about Tik Tok and everything else.
Jason: Yeah and and for sure retail media Networks,
Jason: there have been feuds on the podcast about.
Ekta: I have I've heard them I've heard them yes yes not news you guys are the ogs.
Jason: I I yes what we lack in insight and value we we make up for an age,
Jason: but so I actually want to go back in time a little bit before the,
Jason: at the topic of AI was the dower like way back in the day there was this thing called like social and influencer,
Jason: um which obvious I'm being sarcastic but is obviously super important in in the beauty space so you you mentioned Tik Tok shop who also is going to be on our panel tomorrow so that'll be.
Ekta: Ah there you go.
Jason: Uh but before they even did Commerce
Jason: I would have argued that like it would the the Advent of these social media networks and and in the United States at least in particular Tik Tok have been super important because the I think about 2006,
Jason: or 2004 rather mom is taking her daughter to Macy's and they're having their first cosmetic experience and they're discovering those cosmetics,
Jason: at that that vendor provided display in Macy's um,
Jason: I'm not going to be too too mean but like not a lot less people are going to Macy's to discover cosmetics,
Jason: and my hypothesis is people are probably not discovering l,
Jason: the first time at that shelf that before they ever get to the store they already know the elf is what they're looking for because their favorite micro influencers have already talked about it on on the,
Jason: Tik Tok so and and you guys were were an early sort of mover in in that space and I imagine it didn't happen by accident like did you like was that something that you had to evangelize for people to really sort of
Jason: lean in and I I can imagine like everybody's like oh man it's it's these celebrities we have.
Ekta: Yeah.
Jason: Hire all these celebrities and and you guys really you know we're very successful at building an army of of influential people that weren't necessarily all celebrities.
Ekta: Yeah I would say that when we did the campaign there were many celebrities that did our hashtag song but we didn't pay them,
Ekta: there is a virality that comes with Tik Tok shop and I was doing more than influencer it's the content creators it's the you know somebody who's,
Ekta: first it was like it's for young people know I'm on Tik Tok and by the way I have 32 1,000 followers I'm no way a gen Z or a millennial but I think.
Ekta: So it is it is a platform that brings a culture which moves at speed of swipe to life and,
Ekta: it is constantly changing and now shop has already changed it in many ways the accessibility and that impulse buy you know,
Ekta: and even the different types of creators is it live is it you know you're doing live shopping are you doing engagement what are you doing and the type of creators that are showing up,
Ekta: authenticity is what really really is important and I do think that,
Ekta: it's also blurring the lines between Affiliates and commissions that you use to pay and so forth so
Ekta: Tik Tok has changed this whole landscape altogether and and for us it's now how do you sort of adapt to this Creator economy and I think that's,
Ekta: what we call connected Commerce now in many ways is it's not just like what happens there but the Halo impact that happens to the full ecosystem.
Jason: Yeah and what's been interesting to me is here here in the west the that that Creator economy has been super important and that's where the,
Jason: the demand the discovery was happening and that's where the desire was happening early on in in China commerce was also happening,
Jason: not so much here right like there were all these early you know Facebook Shops and and all of these different pilots and you know there was all these these interesting debates like gosh,
Jason: China just ahead of us and it's a time machine and it's going to get it opted here or is,
Jason: fundamental differences in the in the markets but then you've mentioned Tik Tok shop a couple times like in my mind Tik Tok shop was really the first social platform to sort of,
Jason: very successfully break through in that,
Jason: and really kind of shorten that cycle from from desire to fulfillment because so many people are buying,
Jason: and I'm I'm curious do you like in your mind is there a is there an obvious reason like what did Tik Tok shop do to sort of unlock that that Commerce where a lot of their their predecessors had not been successful.
Ekta: I would say it comes down to because it started as not shopping right it's it it was influencing shopping but it wasn't shopping
Ekta: because we were the first Enterprise brand to integrate with Tik Tok shop as well so I would say that they really fixed
Ekta: they they fixed the plumbing,
Ekta: I call myself plumber sometimes because there's pipes that if they're not connected and your consumer experience is fragmented they're not going to come that's why I don't think Instagram shop could ever do what Tik Tok shop,
Ekta: and that's because they really focused on these authentic connections building that connection authentically with the consumer but then ensuring that,
Ekta: they didn't didn't just launched shop you know sort of in a
Ekta: haphazard way it was very well thought out there is a platform for creators there's a platform for the brands how the checkout happens they take every single thing into account,
Ekta: the very open to doing unique things for Unique Brands so I think it's a lot about how much thought that they have put,
Ekta: into the platform that's why I think they they're more successful than any other Commerce platform.
Jason: Yeah yeah and I I do have a hypothesis that it had to be Brands like you that that would have been the first movers because you think about it you know the,
Jason: the more established cosmetic brand of that time we're not direct to Consumer right like they were all wholesale Brands and,
Jason: the they were they were investing in Tik Tok as a as a brand platform and as a media channel um but then suddenly when this new thing Tik Tok shop you know arrived suddenly you needed,
Jason: a fulfillment arm and you needed to do new complicated things like set a price and.
Scot: Or partner with retailer and they weren't really into that you know they were like I just want to sell on my site I don't want to sell on Tik Tok I want the traffic.
Ekta: And what you know people still underestimate the Hilo impact of Tik Tok on the broader ecosystem,
Ekta: it's that consumer that sees a video and wants an impel impulse Buy,
Ekta: then they want to they love altar they want to use their Awards and some product launches in Alta like there's a big influence that comes from there.
Jason: Oh I totally agree and I actually think people underestimate the value of Tik Tok shop because they,
Jason: because it does have transactions they look at their transaction volume and they say well the ROI is the the net income on on those transactions and that is absolutely a a major contributor,
Jason: all of those those Tik Tok shop Impressions like I you know for every 1 of those that results in a transaction I'm sure 10 of those result in a consumer in an aisle at,
Jason: before uh yeah.
Ekta: We see those spikes every time something goes viral on Tik Tok shop for us we see this bike not just in our direct to Consumer but overall,
Ekta: that week is amazing
Ekta: so I do think that that is a big big factor and how that changes with the algorithm and you know sort of what's happening with the company but I I think it's still a major influence on the consumers shopping Behavior.
Scot: You guys are selling so many places do you spend a lot of time thinking about attribution because I imagine,
Scot: so so I'm of the the the world that it's just like unknowable so so you just kind of have to look at big trends like spikes and things Jason believes you can have a CDP and plug it to a thing and track everybody.
Jason: As per usual Scott Wilding this character.
Scot: I like to put words in the mouth but uh there are a set of people which may or may not include Json that think you can spend enough time and get 90% of the way there and that gives you where do you guys fall on that Spectrum.
Ekta: I would say that you know we do have a CDP we also have a very Omni Channel loyalty program we don't care where you buy as long as we can maintain that relationship we have almost 6 million members,
Ekta: they can shop anywhere they can scan their receipt and they can reward however they want they can get venmo card they can get you dollars they can get PayPal they can get Amazon card.
Scot: So I can double dip for all all you folks listening.
Ekta: Exactly so for us it's really important that,
Ekta: you know we don't want to restrict our consumer we want to give them options and then we want them to give give them a reason,
Ekta: to come to our site and that could be experiences it could be special launches it could be what we do with beauty Squad it could be special products that we drop and things like that so I would say that we
Ekta: probably you know we have to be mindful of the retailers needs wants and desires,
Ekta: but that's why we try to take a neutral stand of you know our consumers,
Ekta: all the options that they want and those options are just increasing with what's happening with shopping in general so.
Scot: And uh feel free not to answer this do you guys sell directly on Amazon in like a third-party kind of model or is that all a first-party kind of thing or it's not on Amazon at all.
Ekta: And no we are on Amazon we are big on Amazon so I would say that definitely first Party 1 p and this relationship goes back since the origin when we started selling
Ekta: but around 4 years ago we really Amazon is everyone all the retailers don't you know really particularly care,
Ekta: appreciate and uh so it also took a lot of
Ekta: organizational change management to gain PE get people's Buy in tell them via Amazon was important and what we can gain from it and when we saw the numbers with the focus well they've been,
Ekta: skyrocketing so.
Jason: Yeah so I feel like Scott's been very patient and chomping at the bit on the on the AI.
Ekta: AI topic yes.
Jason: Yeah so so you've gone through these multiple iterations and we we did social influencer and then we did social commerce and you you guys basically I won't say or I'll say it for you you dominated all those platforms,
Jason: um and so now we have the robots and Scott is of the opinion that is going to put all of those old things out of business that we won't have websites anymore and uh we won't have stores anymore and it's.
Ekta: Alright Mama yeah.
Jason: Scot wingo and Marc Andre and a robot selling everything.
Ekta: There you go there you go there you go.
Scot: And so 1 1 thing that's interesting about AI is there's kind of 3 buckets that people are investing in there's there's kind of infrastructure so the creation of your products and you guys are a lean team so I imagine you're already using it,
Scot: augment that that that's like a Hallmark of that and so there's like efficiency pricing and back office kind of.
Ekta: Mhm mhm.
Scot: And then there's kind of things I call below the homepage so better search.
Ekta: Yeah mhm.
Scot: Recommendations maybe make the Loyalty program smarter then there's the stuff above the homepage which is the channels and you know should you know how do you optimize your products on the answer engines what do you guys you know,
Scot: what what can you say is going on there and and what are some interesting things you think about and all those buckets.
Ekta: I would say the first 1 that we already spoke about like search how search is changing and how you show up on these new newer platforms,
Ekta: content content content so I would say our number 1 Focus has been very much around that,
Ekta: the second bucket is around with the existing platforms that are coming out with AI capabilities we are turning them on to just learn because that content then needs a supply chain,
Ekta: right every uh we serve every eye lip and face well that's a lot of eyes lips and face that's a lot of content.
Jason: Twice as many eyes as.
Ekta: There you go so then how do you.
Scot: And when you say platforms that's like meta having AI.
Ekta: Exactly or if it's having like we.
Scot: Or on Amazon Rufus or all okay.
Ekta: Exactly so turning on those capabilities for personalization,
Ekta: um and then there are things that we're testing on ourselves so we created a product called aluer and that was when Chad GPD just came out we were like okay,
Ekta: what is this saying we want to learn and we just learned by doing so we ended up training all our social comments for the past 5 years we built a product on Amazon's bedrock,
Ekta: you know sort of platform and essentially it has now been trained that 90% of the comments are autogenerated by AI but we have human in the loop so the community manager
Ekta: still has to make sure it's you know good it can go out there but it's reduced their time greatly right so it depends on we're testing and learning in all different areas whether it be experienced,
Ekta: whether it be you know sort of showing things up better more personalized to them or showing up on the engines that are now going to be the future like perplexity and chat gbt.
Scot: Do you ever feed it back into product development where you.
Ekta: We're starting to so I would say that is something that we're starting to look at we've you know we started with hey let's just build and kind of learn and then we went into all right these platforms are coming out with their,
Ekta: things like every everything is an AI but is it really an AI so we leaned into certain partners that we felt were truly you know AI
Ekta: they were not just like smoke and mirrors like fenticonazole
Ekta: it's not 1 thing it's multiple different things that we're testing because this landscape is changing so much.
Scot: Yeah now I've seen some retailers again you know the organizationally they'll have like a separate AI team like a chief AI officer and stuff and but I noticed on LinkedIn you've got kind of like you know your title and then bar AI so it seems like,
Scot: pulled into your orbit more than like a separate thing.
Ekta: Yeah so.
Scot: So do you see it cutting like is it cutting across horizontally across everything or is it like a vertical.
Ekta: Horizontal across everything I am you know I just happen to enable it I would say that just like when you think about,
Ekta: there's AI generative ai agentic ai the different forms and AGI like all of that Journey at the very first there it's data,
Ekta: you think about data data is currently is in tables you have to turn data into a dialogue,
Ekta: that's cataloging knowing what your data is where it is tagging it like that's a lot of Plumbing work,
Ekta: and then its Integrations how do you then integrate seamlessly so you can capitalize on the Big Value you know generative AI use cases.
Scot: The the at my previous company Channel advisor we never really got into this Pim thing but now it's coming up all the time and knowing.
Ekta: Yeah.
Scot: And it's weird like I had a conversation today where they're like can you take the data that you guys you know we enrich your data and they're like can you put it back in the pin and I was like sure and then they said but we also use salsify for this other thing you know.
Ekta: Yeah.
Scot: Because I thought soft everyone I talked to that has a pimp they don't really use it.
Ekta: They did.
Scot: Have you figured out this pimp,
Scot: because it's a perplexing to me I don't.
Ekta: Uh it is still perplexing to me so what I would say is.
Scot: Maybe Jason knows it we'll we'll have to hit him up here.
Ekta: So what I what is working is syndication right like every retailer wants certain pdps in a certain way,
Ekta: so salsify or whether it be syndigo they all provide similar like you can Syndicate right but it doesn't S solve for in some cases the enrichment piece which is,
Ekta: so so critical it's how people are shopping and buying and that is evolving so it's very similar to what's happening with search and I think it's like how do you enrich it now for these AI platform,
Ekta: so
Scot: Yes to your point like people people kind of got trained by Google to search a certain way by keyword and now Chachi PT is training them to search by conversation and that's a whole another set of.
Ekta: Another sad altogether.
Scot: I don't know if the things that call themselves pims but aren't really pims are set up for that or not.
Ekta: Yeah yeah that's a million dollar question.
Scot: What do you think about pims Jason.
Jason: Yeah well it's a it's a tool and when properly deployed can be a useful tool for your point in the vast majority of organizations they probably have multiple pims and they're each owned by different stakeholders with different size.
Scot: But they'll say that we have 1 source of.
Jason: It's not a it's not a single source of Truth yeah it's rarely.
Scot: Understand that.
Jason: I would I would say other than like some very newish digitally native companies like the Pim is rarely the source of Truth you run you wrote a funny article on on LinkedIn saying like hey if your vendor is more than 10 years old they're probably not a native AI company,
Jason: um and in that in the same way all of these companies were doing business and had product catalogs for many years before they had a Pim so so the Pim became an and not a instead of,
Jason: um solution which is problematic and unfortunate.
Ekta: Yeah for sure.
Jason: I do think though like to me the,
Jason: it's it's a good starting point to think about oh man the ai's appetite for enrichment and um uh these these,
Jason: much more context um is much higher right and and we already weren't good at it like if we forget AI,
Jason: we all had bad product catalogs right and it's super easy to find bad examples in the,
Jason: if we think about the pandemic when suddenly everyone had to start grocery shopping online and grocery has this this unique problem we don't,
Jason: know the inventory when we're going to pick your product so we're always going to have out of stocks and have to do Replacements right so suddenly everybody's like writing software to suggest Replacements and,
Jason: The Replacements are comical how how bad they they were because our our catalogs like miscategorized things and and had gaps and so we're we're slowly getting better at that and now the the robot wants.
Jason: 100 times more attributes for better context so we're all trying to figure that out I actually think the problems even more complex than that because,
Jason: we knew what the customer wanted in her search and we we knew what Google wanted in its algorithm,
Jason: the robot is going to keep changing its mind every day and so it it's non-deterministic so so you go oh man,
Jason: I need a bunch more context for the kind of prompts people are typing into
Jason: Chad gbt today but then tomorrow when apple rolls out a new AI intelligence in its operating system and people,
Jason: like start sending it prompts in a different context,
Jason: it's it's going to want even different attributes so instead of thinking of this as a 1-time problem to be solved its,
Jason: now all of our jobs to to evolve it and resolve it every day on an ongoing basis for the rest of our life.
Scot: We call that job security High 5 yeah yeah woo we'll be doing this podcast forever.
Jason: It's job security for the 2 of you that actually do it,
Jason: I just talked about it so I.
Scot: You just add more slides to salt at some point you'll have like a.
Ekta: Yeah there you go.
Jason: Thank you for pretending I don't already have a 2000.
Ekta: It's constant Evolution it is changing every single day I started my substack just because I learned by writing and.
Scot: Poster what's your substack.
Ekta: So it is called AI chef and basically it is
Ekta: you know I I wanted to write about topics that as a public company you know of course I can test and learn but then when it comes to application of it
Ekta: I have to be careful I have to think about governance I have to think about how am I going to you know sort of build trust in the model how does it not hallucinate because Chad gbd lies,
Ekta: has a lot,
Ekta: right right you shocked right and and I think so I started doing that and through the process every week I follow okay what's what's happening and I do a tldr on it and there is so much
Ekta: changing so much changing constantly and it is a game of like hey you you got to focus on what,
Ekta: the price is going to be at the end of the day we know Commerce is now already conversational so what is the biggest impact well showing those search engines then if you have Shopify already,
Ekta: I think you enable that pretty quickly and if you don't then you better figure out really quickly how to enable that so I do think it's picking your battles on where you can focus because,
Ekta: there's just a lot that's coming out and some of it is still it's smoke and mirrors I don't think all is real.
Scot: This is a super basic question but when I talked to a lot of retailers and Brands they're kind of hung up at the lowest level so so usually it's either it's an or and maybe even an and so either the legal department is so freaked out by AI,
Scot: they've said absolutely no Ai and then they told the IT department or the IT department on their own or they use like cloudflare 1 of these types of things,
Scot: they've defaulted to no Bots um.
Ekta: Yeah yeah.
Scot: So I found a lot of retailers that are really big Advocates at the top of the chain can't even get off you know basically the the
Scot: the 1 yard line because they're they're they're legal and or their it Department won't let them off to how did you convince them that this was an okay thing.
Ekta: I think it goes back to elf is a different kind of a company,
Ekta: it's a cultural thing it's a mindset for us it is not and we started with the mindset of Learning and Development we want everyone in our organization to be a prompt engineer,
Ekta: they must learn how to prompt and it's not just for the company it's for also,
Ekta: their careers people's org structures are going to change what people do is going to change the pipeline I,
Ekta: art what keeps me up is because I have a 11 year old daughter I think of like how do I get her ready for this because there are jobs that are going to,
Ekta: be not there for the young kids so how do you build a a a pipeline for them and how do you get them in those skill sets where,
Ekta: you know they will have career so I think Beyond just my you know the work I do but also the generations to come how do you impact them.
Scot: Yeah Jason would tell you join an advertising company.
Jason: Yeah we're we're immune to all.
Ekta: You are so immune.
Scot: Someone always needs a Super Bowl.
Jason: Cuz I I'm sure none of these AI companies are mostly focused on replacing us.
Jason: Uh yes yes I yes I feel like um the.
Ekta: The Consulting.
Jason: Team has has more problems than,
Jason: I do think it's it's like Mark Zuckerberg is like main keynote now.
Ekta: Is I'm going to get rid of agencies.
Jason: I'm glad you heard agencies I just heard pooboo says,
Jason: um no it it is interesting though I I do think you know you mentioned you have an 11 year old I have a 10 year old um Scott's kids are all like 40 so,
Jason: no not not quite empty nesting.
Scot: We get started younger in the south.
Jason: The it's interesting to see the world through their eyes though,
Jason: because like my son he is 100% convinced that Alexa knows the answer to every question that he.
Ekta: Everything oh my gosh.
Jason: A day does not go by that he doesn't ask her something and I go she's not going to know that and then she answers and makes me look like an idiot.
Ekta: Answers yeah.
Scot: It's because you upgraded all your 900 devices to Alexa plus and now she's twice as smart.
Jason: Yeah we are actually recording this on a new Oxo launch day so there's I I uh yeah I have 4 new x's on pre-order right now.
Scot: Wow okay I missed all.
Ekta: There you go there you go.
Jason: We'll do another pod on the new.
Ekta: It's amazing how that generation teaches us how to I mean the latest is like even on the trends have you heard of 67 that's the latest trend.
Jason: No enlightened me.
Ekta: 767 it's a song that just came out in I believe,
Ekta: I don't know the full story in Australia then because of Tik Tok and the virality became a thing so now every school teacher is like,
Ekta: kids are like 6 7 6 7 and it's the latest meme is 67 and I don't know what it means I think it's like a little bit of this and a little bit of that but.
Jason: I'm going to I'm going to do a perplexity.
Ekta: But it's like a big thing right now 6767 and I'm like what the hell is 67.
Jason: Like 1 Trend ahead of me I'm still everything is uh Demon Hunter.
Ekta: You know demo K-pop demon and oh my gosh.
Jason: And I I actually had some PTSD on the show floor because someone used it as their walk-on music yeah and that's it's playing on an infinite Loop in my house.
Ekta: Oh they did oh my God.
Scot: Yeah they're coming on The Tonight Show tonight or tomorrow night.
Ekta: Oh wow okay no I can't read.
Jason: Fictional band coming on.
Scot: They're gonna have the old yeah the the cartoon or the.
Ekta: Yeah that's awesome yeah I can't wait.
Jason: Yeah so is AI like everything we're going to be thinking about and talking about for the foreseeable future is there anything else on your radar screen that you think is sort of interesting for the future of Commerce that maybe people aren't talking about enough.
Ekta: I would say that it is right now ai is top of my I it's not a it's not,
Ekta: like a moment in time this is a generational change I don't even know how vast how it is very accelerated,
Ekta: I frankly I couldn't tell or predict what's going to happen all I know is,
Ekta: change is not like coming changes here just with whatever is going on so it's how quickly can you adopt to it so I obviously culture is moving at at the speed of swipe,
Ekta: and it truly is with AI so AI is very much top of mind but the other contradiction to that would be,
Ekta: just uh how do you still keep it with humanity and with the human in the loop you know,
Ekta: so I think that's that's a a big challenge for the organizations to figure out too because this is where org design and you know sort of the future of Workforce also gets impacted.
Scot: Yeah do you think you'll have like an AI influencer is that something you guys would would you work with an AI influencer would you create an AI influencer.
Ekta: We never say never but I I don't know if that's in the books right now but I think if it begged something where it was something that made sense for either a campaign or our ethos then we would.
Jason: Yeah I do think something sort of implied in your your human in the loop thing is is I think super important is is this it's it's an old cliche concept but this notion of customer centricity,
Jason: like 1 of the battles I suspect we're going to see play out in all of these AI engines is they're all going to want to,
Jason: own the world and the customer data inside of their walled Gardens right so we you talked about hey Google got 6 words in their search and now we're getting 20 words in the prompt,
Jason: the the bigger problem is the the results that that prompt gives you aren't based just on those 20 words they're also based on the complete historical memory that that,
Jason: that agent has of everything and and I I strongly suspect that all of these big AI owners want to keep all of that memory.
Ekta: 100%.
Jason: In their wild Gardens in a in a sort of similar way all the retailers want to keep all the first party data.
Ekta: In their world Gardens.
Jason: About their customers and like we didn't we didn't.
Ekta: And I want to keep everything in my booty Squad program.
Jason: Absolutely and we we didn't poke on that but your beauty,
Jason: is a really clever way of you getting taking some of those those first-party customers of your wholesale partners and having them become first-party,
Jason: data for you and in that in that same way I do think 1 of the big,
Jason: challenges and opportunities in this agentic future is for you to say hey we can't just be satisfied with chat gbt having all this memory about what's important to the beauty shop or or,
Jason: or Microsoft or whomever that that part of your Charter is going to be to know as much about that that customer in,
Jason: inside the walls of your organization.
Ekta: 100% and that was no different than when we started talking about customer data platforms and having that golden record and knowing where your consumer is shopping and what are they doing and I do think,
Ekta: 1 of the ways that we've been able to do it is through our loyalty program our loyalty program is
Ekta: is sort of the heart and soul of how we connect with the consumer and what information they trust us with and then our job is how do we then activate,
Ekta: you know that um.
Jason: Yeah it it is interesting because obviously,
Jason: wealthy programs have been trendy for a long time I would argue there was the there was kind of a saturation point when when everyone had the exact same mechanics in their program and.
Ekta: RN and burn yep.
Jason: Yep and and you know the average consumer had 40 you know widgets in her wallet and and it was the efficacy was sort of diminished um but it does feel like,
Jason: wilty is having a moment and that moment is a lot more bespoke than it used to be.
Ekta: 100% then how do you it's about it's evolved into just hey I get rewards to
Ekta: experiences and where I am and what I like to be treated with how do I you know I could be in concerts and do you put money in their coinbase wallet versus,
Ekta: you know geolocation gives them something that they can go hunt for you know it's like how do you gamify it in many ways so,
Ekta: if you don't have a good loyalty strategy for the,
Ekta: Creator Commerce connected Commerce then it's just a earn and burn program similar to everybody else.
Jason: Yeah well I think that may be a a great final point to leave it on um you've been super generous with your time I know you have a big beach party to go to to tonight.
Ekta: Oh yeah oh sure sure yes yes yes I do.
Jason: To be well-rested for our our panel in the morning.
Jason: To go shopping for some elf uh elf Beauty socks.
Ekta: It sucks or I do have the lip gloss ready for.
Jason: I I will I will gratefully accept the the lip got,
Jason: like 1 amendment I do have to add because in case Skynet is listening um I just want to point out that it was you not me that said that chat jbt lies and I,
Jason: I I welcome our robotic overlords and I.
Ekta: It hallucinates it's hallucinates let's just say that.
Jason: Hi I'm I'm entirely teasing but this has been a fascinating conversation we'll have to come back in a year because it's all going to be different.
Ekta: That absolutely who knows if we exist.
Scot: And you mentioned your substack AI shelf um is that just AI shift.com or you go to substack and search for AI shf C agf.
Ekta: Yeah and or actor Chopra and you'll find it.
Scot: Awesome and then uh do you publish your like are you a Avid LinkedIn writer or and we now know you're on Tik Tok so so there's that um where else do you would you like to direct people that want to follow.
Ekta: LinkedIn is Professional Profile substack is more learning I'm learning it and I'm in fascinated by you know sort of how people engage.
Scot: Learning in the open.
Jason: Yeah I will put links to all of that in the show notes,
Jason: and hopefully listeners found this show super valuable and the way you could reward us if you did is you could jump on the iTunes and leave us that that 5-star review we're we're coming up on on 10 and a very.
Scot: We need to we haven't had a review in like 9 years so we need some more.
Ekta: That's right that's right.
Jason: Ever since my mom stopped dreading it's been it's been a little.
Scot: Caught that she was review spamming so,
Scot: way like half our reviews Echo thanks for taking time out of the busy shows and everything to join us we.
Ekta: Thank you thank you for having me great conversation.
Jason: Yeah yeah uh and and thanks very much everyone and until next time happy Commerce.