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If you are seeking new ways to increase your ROI on marketing with your commerce platform, or you may be an entrepreneur who wants to grow your team and be more efficient with your online business.
Talk Commerce with Brent W. Peterson draws stories from merchants, marketers, and entrepreneurs who share their experiences in the trenches to help you learn what works and what may not in your business.
Keep up with the current news on commerce platforms, marketing trends, and what is new in the entrepreneurial world. Episodes drop every Tuesday with the occasional bonus episodes.
You can check out our daily blog post and signup for our newsletter here https://talk-commerce.com
Brent Peterson (00:03.438)
Welcome to this episode of Talk Commerce. Today I have Ian Rowan. He is the CEO of X-HOPPER, coming all the way from England to marry old.
Chicago. Ian, go ahead, do an introduction for yourself. Tell us your day-to-day role and one of your passions. Yeah, thanks, Brent. It's great to be here in Chicago. I have to say I really do love this city. It's a fantastic place. And I'm really honored to be at this event today. Yeah, I'm the CEO of x-hoppers. We are a retail communication provider to give associates more power in the store through intelligent AI, giving them alerts, et cetera, as to things that are happening in store so they can be reactional and hopefully,
increase sales, reduce crime, and provide a much better customer service. And passions, anything else out of? I love my soccer, as you would call it here, but football. Yeah, I'm a big football fan. I follow my local team, Coventry City. I'm a season ticket holder. go there with my eldest daughter, who's also a fan, so I go along with her to every home game. I ran the London Marathon in 2019. We saw, is it Fullerton? Fulham, Fulham, yeah, that's right on the
Yeah, they're right on the cottage. So the season before last, they had an impeccable record in the league that we're in. And we scored a third of the goals that they conceded in that year. We had a really good year against them, but unfortunately we didn't get promoted.
Well, we can talk about soccer later. So tell us a little bit about X-HOPPER. Tell us, X-HOPPER, maybe your background. So I've been working in communications for 30 something years now without giving away my age. Traditional communication, I've seen lots of change during that time. Over a couple of years ago, we've seen within...
Brent Peterson (01:46.664)
existing customer base an opportunity to do something very niche that could solve a lot of issues for retailers. People talk about the future of retailers online that I firmly believe is within the brick and mortar stores and if you look at the high street as we call it in the UK the malls that you have here in the US you'll see that people do prefer to actually go feel touch those products. There's nothing I can't get delivered tomorrow in the UK I'm pretty sure it's the same here within the US but people want to see those tangible goods they want to feel it they want the customer service
that goes along with that. And they're the tools that we're enabling retailers through communication, through some of the advances in amazing AI technology. We're able to really empower the associates, the store staff, who are the lifeblood of many retailers, to give an even better customer service, to be able to answer every question, and really help the customers as they want to be engaged. So you're helping the person at the point of sale to make some decisions on how they can treat the customer or general...
Exactly, yeah, so we do some smart things with a technology called computer vision. So we look for negative and positive gestures of a customer in the store or a person within the store. A positive gesture could be something like I call the meerkat head raised look around from side to side, which is a clear visual indication that that customer is looking for assistance. And if you approach them at the right time and offer them the assistance, they're more likely to purchase something within the store. So you're helping them complete their customer journey.
you approach somebody at the wrong time, like I'm sure we've all gone into a store and you get greeted at the front door and somebody says, you want any help today? We all go, no, I'm just looking thanks because we don't want to be sold to. So we look for key indicators in their customer journey that we can identify through a technology called computer vision to say this person is ready to be sold to. So we help them at the right time and hopefully increase the success. And we've shown that we can increase success like that with 35 % increase in sales against certain goods.
Brent Peterson (03:50.498)
Yeah, who we're approaching. Yeah, so we asked the store associates with ex hop as a recoup to their headset That's radio wire free headset using a technology called decked. So it was a cordless technology We send alerts nudges into those headsets to say now is the time to go and serve that customer The associate would then double tap the headset to say they've accepted it And not only does that tell everybody else that's on got a headset on that somebody else is dealing with that that customer inquiry It also allows you to report on how quickly your
staff are to respond to people, what the wait times are at certain times of day so you can get some analytics to say, okay, we can see that customers need more help on a Thursday afternoon and we don't have the right amount of staff to deal with that because we're seeing a pattern. So it allows you to identify the patterns in that as well. But we also look for negative gestures. Somebody putting something in a pocket, in a bag, in a stroller. We will say somebody's just placed an item in an area where it shouldn't have been placed and go and offer them assistance. I think that's the nicest way of doing it. Don't confront them. We don't want anybody to be put in danger, but just go and say, do you need
Brent Peterson (04:58.672)
And is this something that's, I mean this is new, is something new, is it something that's beginning in the UK or is it something that's come out of the US?
much like the vitamin store I'd say within the US, they've got around 800 stores. They have to be experts to be able to give advice on the homeopathic remedies that they sell. And they wanted a communication tool that allowed customers to be served even when they weren't an expert within that branch. So they can use things like QR code, scan a QR code in store, and it will find me a sports nutrition expert across the whole of their estate, even if there isn't one local. So we've had some great success in the UK. We came to the US,
Brent Peterson (06:07.572)
And do you see a difference in shopping patterns from an English shopper to a US shopper?
Brent Peterson (06:20.472)
shows that people want to go to an environment that feels safe. They want to go into an environment that's got the goods that they want. And they also don't want to get the customer care. Like I said before, there's nothing I can't get tomorrow. But I want to go to a store because I want to speak to an expert. I want to speak to the guy that knows everything and that can help me touch and feel that product and make it tangible for me. And I'm assuming this is, the data is of great value to the retailer or the merchant to use and
besides the real time data, do they use that for post follow up for...
Trends and even I can think about you can look at Google and can see how busy it is. This is a real time Yeah, they can so we do real time but obviously that data is there forever right and they could do reporting on it to say this is what the store looked like on this day compares stores against each other See how one store and the stack in one store are comparing to another store even regionalized So it's great to have that data I'm of the belief that don't do it if you can't measure it is pointless if you can't produce Measurements or KPIs to go against what you're doing then you're never going to know if it's an improvement
or not. So everything we do, we provide a tool to measure it as well. So we try to measure success in every way.
Brent Peterson (07:40.172)
I'd say at the larger retailers, think they've got a firmer understanding of the level of theft that they're seeing. I'd say at the smaller end, it's much harder for them to realise the theft that typically they know retrospectively when it's an item missing on the shelf and somebody within that store will say, we've had six today, we didn't sell any of those, where have they all gone? Bigger retailers have a better understanding of their stock because they've got better technology. But I'd say that's the biggest difference between the retailers is that's where we've helped them is being
to identify that stuff's been going today rather than tomorrow when they realize we had six hours. Outside of the real-time customer feedback, I think is fantastic, it's such a great solution, then the shrinkage, is there other data things or other things that help the retailer?
Yeah, so similar things that we do as well as we train our solution on the customer's product range. So it's like chat GPT, but it's not a public version. So a chat bot that we interact by human language on the headset. So I'm gonna double tap the headset and I can say, I've got a customer with me, where's the nearest store that's got this product in stock? So imagine you're in front of me now, Brent, and you wanna buy something off me, and I don't have it in stock. And I can say, just double tap one second, sir.
Okay, I know where that item is. And then I can actually say, connect me to that store. And I can speak to that store and I say, I've got Brett Peterson with me at the moment. He's gonna come across and have this item. Can you have it ready for him? It'll be there in 20 minutes. So it's those sort of things as well. And that knowledge on demand doesn't just come down just about stock availability. We can take everything on the product set. So what's the country of origin? What's the energy consumption of this product? Anything you need to know. Any reason why somebody wouldn't complete their purchases the way I like to describe
it we can make sure they've got the answers for it because today somebody's buying habits might be different to tomorrow and you might have the best trained staff in the world but today it could be an invasion of a country it could be the effect that palm oil has on bees you don't know what somebody's reason is to not buy tomorrow but the more informed your staff can be you can make sure that none of those buying decisions are there anymore. Yeah it makes every associate an expert in Absolutely yeah and it also allows for micro learning right so every
Brent Peterson (09:58.21)
time they've double tapped and asked a question, hopefully a bit of that information sticks in. So they're learning on the job as they're going along with little tiny bits of micro learning rather than sitting them in front of a learning management platform for days and days on end. It's progressive micro learning on the job.
We call them the big sheds. So those sort of big sheds is very good because we can identify those gestures really easily. And I'm sure we've all been in a B &Q or a home base as we have in the UK or a big home depot in the US. You look for an associate and there never seems to be one around when you want them. Then you do find one and they go, I'm sorry, sir, I don't work on this department. I'll get somebody. And you sort of just left there in the aisle going, are they going to come back? Should have gone with them. What's happening now where you can eliminate that straight away.
can make sure that the right person is targeting the right customer at the right time. You just came out with a survey earlier in the year, Tell us a little bit about the data that you found on that. Yeah, so what we wanted to do is sort of give some retailers some more understanding of what we're trying to do, let the market understand that. And what we're trying to do is, obviously, theft is a massive issue at the moment. Shoplifting is on the rise.
every type of retail sector, so whether it's clothing, food, hardware, everybody's seen, think in quarter one this year was 23 % up on the previous year. And unfortunately a lot of the loss prevention measures that people put in place are a friction to the customer. Whereas AI isn't a friction to the customer. So if you're using a smarter way of doing your loss prevention, you're not putting it in the hindrance of a customer. And we did the survey to get an understanding
of what is it that customers really want? Retailers spend millions advertising their stores to say, come in and see us, and then we treat everybody that comes in that front door like a thief. You can't treat everybody the same. You can't invite them into your house and say, okay, come in, but I'm locking myself away. That's not what we do. So we should think of better ways, and we tried to do this survey to get a better understanding of how the last prevention that people are putting out there is impacting customers, and really why they're going to storm in the first place.
Brent Peterson (12:13.2)
has the survey yielded.
Brent Peterson (12:21.166)
It's something you're.
I was quite surprised on some of the results we got. I can't believe the amount of people that have actually seen first-hand people stealing stuff within a store. And actually when you look at the data that goes along with that, 50 % of the people actually choose where they go based on how safe they feel within the store. So if we've got five out of eight people, 61 % witnessing crimes first-hand, but 50 % saying they want to go somewhere where they feel safe, then if you're not doing something to eliminate that crime that's happening within your store,
then people aren't going to come to your store. it's seeing those sort of results that was quite shocking. And I would like to continue doing these because people prioritize where they shop and we want to make sure that we're providing a service. I love the High Street, you I love going out there. It's a thriving place and sometimes in Oxford Street in London, say you fill the buzz, it feels really nice to be involved in that, in those sort of areas. And I want it to succeed. And I'm sure most retailers do as well, Brick and mortar stores are probably their most expensive assets.
especially in some of the major cities around the world. We want to make sure that they're utilizing those assets as they should be.
Brent Peterson (13:42.83)
Well, we've actually got a really good case study. We provided a solution to a very small independent grocery store in a place called Tambi in Wales. They were losing £26,000 a year through shoplifting. Because it was a seaside resort...
Even there are local community store and normally local community stores know the offenders. But this town swells from 6,000 population to 60,000 during the peak season. So it's opportunist. They didn't get to see those people and for them, 26,000 pounds could be the reason to close the store. And we've actually recovered over half of that for them in the time we've had our technology in there. So it's been a massive case study and really, really successful. But it is for me, seeing the results for people where
It's very personal and you build a relationship with them and you see how it's impacted their life. It makes a real difference. That's a real nice story to be involved in. Yeah, what is your plans now for this next season? you have anything exciting happening besides the bigger brands that you're going to close here in the US? Well, hopefully we get those bigger brands. I think we have to focus around regional.
around calendar based events, right? So we've got Black Friday coming up. We want more retailers to be on board and have the solution because some of the stuff that we do is large learning model. You can't put it in today and it will work tomorrow. It has to have a time to learn and the algorithms are designed to look at things like clothing that the staff are wearing, the behavior of the particular shoppers in that store so we can get better results. You will get results from day one, but to maximize the results, we need a period of time to get it to learn. So yeah, just gearing up towards those holidays
to make sure that we are providing the best service at the right time for those stores.
Brent Peterson (15:37.738)
So obviously I'd like to speak to more retailers. XHoppers is a really exciting opportunity. But for me the excitement is what we can do for retailers. We've shown that with our technology we can reduce theft by 60%. We can increase sales against different products at 35%. We can do that across various industries. And we can actually pretty much eliminate training. We don't want people to go on trains, so we say we can half train. But I really urge people to go to xhoppers.com.
Have a look at some of the case studies we've got on there and some of the information Just get in touch or feel free to add me on LinkedIn as well and be happy to engage with anybody Thank you for having me Brent, thank you. Cheers. Was that good for you?