Channel Mastery - Ep. 188: Liza Amlani, Principal of Retail Strategy Group

Retail Strategy Group

Speed to market in retail, leveraging technology in sales, covid-19, and more

featuring

In her career, Liza has worked with familiar brands including Holt Renfrew, Ralph Lauren Europe and Canada, Club Monaco, Nike, Walmart, and several others. Her experience encompasses brick and mortar, e-commerce and omni-channel in the areas of product creation, merchandising and go to market strategies.

In shifting to consulting, she played an integral role in Accenture's Retail Strategy group, where she was responsible for consulting with fashion brands and retailers, supporting several major business transformations across product creation, merchandising, speed to market and materials management.

Liza is currently the Principal at Retail Strategy Group - a consulting practice which helps companies in the retail space dramatically improve profitability. She is a respected voice on topics such as responsible retail and sustainability, retail diversity and inclusion, the future of retail and the urgency of technology enablement in merchandising, assortment optimization and demand planning.

show highlights

We are excited to have Liza Amlani on to discuss accelerating speed to market in the retail space, how to successfully address inefficiencies by limiting waste and using customer-focused digital technologies across channels in the retail space, and the importance of preparing for unprecedented events like COVID-19, and more. In a rapidly changing climate such as the one we live in, it is vital for companies to be confident in making swift changes to their business to ensure longevity.

Traditionally, companies debuted new products once or twice a year in conjunction with industry trade shows, but times are changing. Today’s consumers want new products to be delivered fast and within their timeframe, and they also want their products to be sustainable. As it stands now, legacy brands seem to face challenges in meeting these demands. During the pandemic, we also saw that many companies were unprepared for massive events that impacted production. With climate change, retail production will continue to be impacted in the future, so companies need to think ahead to meet these challenges. Join us to hear Liza's advice to retailers and other companies to help them be prepared for unpredictability and be at the forefront of the industry in a fast-paced world.

Kristin Carpenter: Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Channel Mastery podcast. I'm absolutely delighted to introduce Liza Amlani to you today. I feel like I found this incredible gem to share with you. She is the CEO and Founder of Retail Strategy Group and the content creator behind The Merchant Life, which is a very impactful and informative newsletter, YouTube and podcast channel. She's also considered to be the go to expert in merchandising, product creation and accelerating speed to market, which is something that I'm super excited to get into today. She specializes in apparel, footwear, and accessories, and focuses on the outdoor performance and fashion retail spaces. Welcome to the show.
Liza Amlani: Thanks Kristin, for having me. I'm so excited.
Kristin: I am too, and we're doing this right around the middle of April, 2022, because I know a lot of our listeners will potentially listen to this a little later in the year too. But I think it's important to put that timestamp in there because things are evolving and changing so quickly. We're right at the beginning of the second quarter of 2022. Before we jump in, I want to take note here that Liza is also one of RETHINK Retail's top retail influencers of 2022. So can we jump off there and then get into why you founded the Retail Strategy Group?
Liza: Yeah, absolutely. Just a little bit more of my background. I spent about 22 years, two decades of my life in merchandising, buying, planning and product development. I've worked all over the globe, spent a lot of years with Ralph Lauren Club Monaco and also worked on the other side. So for department stores buying multiple brands and one of the things I learned was that in all of those two decades that we were working the same way, still working in Excel, still planning. The fastest we could get to market was 52 weeks still doing it using 80/20 rules and 60/40 for assortments. So keeping that in mind, I actually shifted into consulting in 2018. Accenture, Canada scooped me up as I moved back from the UK and they hired me as their merchandising and Softline SNE because they didn't have anyone from the industry that truly understood product creation. Now that was my first red flag in why I started my own business. I spent a lot of years with Accenture working for a large, let's call them performance brand based in Portland. I'm sure you could guess who they are. Beautiful campus, stunning, stunning place to be, and a place where innovation was very fast moving and super fascinating to me. So the type of projects that I worked on were around materials development and being more sustainable and how we create product, but also how do we get faster to market and giving more time back to our designers, our merchants, our developers in being creative and getting closer to the customer. So think about the Excel that we use today and all the different tools across category. So streamlining some of that. What I learned from all of that was with these big consulting firms that I really had this competitive edge because I understood product creation. I had worked on the shop floor. I spent my life designing and creating assortments and spending a lot of time with customers. What I learned is that because big firms don't have a lot of people like that, so the clients would gravitate towards me because I understood what they were going through. And I understood what the entire point of creating product was. It's to delight the customer.
Kristin: And then that's why-
Liza: That's why I started my firm.
Kristin: Cool. If I could jump in for a second. I always look at it almost a like a conveyor belt, and in your case you said, what? Was it 52 weeks or?
Liza: Oh yes. 52 weeks is standard.
Kristin: Right. Obviously, in our spaces, everything has been historically tied to a trade show and preseason orders and getting those goods manufactured. It has been challenging for legacy brands to think with speed in mind, especially when they love to pat themselves on the back as technical innovators. But it doesn't matter. Today's consumer is so, I think, they're very predictable in one way. They want new things and they want them fast and they want them on their timeframe. Honestly, in looking at direct to consumer brands coming in, they've fed that beast even more and legacy brands through COVID obviously realized, "Wow, I really need to be growing my fans and consumers for all these channels." You founded your company during COVID, correct?
Liza: I did in November.
Kristin: Okay. Tell us about that.
Liza: As you do, you start something new during a pandemic when no one is leaving their house.
Kristin: Why not?
Liza: But the beauty of that I will say is that because we all went digital 100%, I had a lot of opportunity to put my voice out there and get in front of people and just say, "You need to rethink the way you're retailing right now because the customer is evolving. We are shifting the way that we have to engage with the consumer. It has to be seamless across channels and DTC brands are winning right now." And at that time, they were. Allbirds, Glossier, so many brands, even a lot of brands that were acquired and now have failed, right? There's a lot of great stories that have come out of the pandemic, but a lot of learnings. And that's where I really focus my POV on, especially during 2020 November when I started my firm, I was like, "You know what, we need to think about sustainability. We need to think about innovation." But if we give merchants, planners, creators the right tools, they can actually have time to do that. And that's really what I focused on and why I started this firm.
Kristin: Isn't it interesting? With the onslaught of material innovation, we actually have a lot of new tools for the back of the house too. With your company, you obviously are offering all of these different facets of retail insider experience is how you put it and then you help your clients in the retail space, dramatically improve profitability and increase organizational effectiveness. And to me, that reads get to market faster and more profitably. So I would love to just have you talk about, number one, what is the RETHINK Retail Top Influencer award? I mean, here we are in April of 2022, you already have won a really big award. Like tell us about that. And then I'd love to get into how you help brands.
Liza: Yeah. The award is just such a great and wonderful surprise because sometimes I think, am I the only one listening to what I'm saying and preaching, but that's absolutely not true, which is great to hear. They really recognize the fact that there was a merchant speaking up about redundancies and inefficiencies and things like the line plan and that we actually plan for markdowns. Things that were just so opposite of what customer values are today around sustainability and what we see in the media around overdevelopment and overproduction and what's happening with the climate. Those impacts, I talk about a lot because I think that there's always a way to do things in a more efficient, effective, but also responsible way, especially around product creation. And I think that's what really got RETHINK Retail's attention, which I'm so grateful for because I don't think we talk a lot about folks from the industry talking about inefficiencies in the industry. I'm like, this is going to be the way that I'm going to change retail.
Kristin: Oh, that's interesting.
Liza: Yeah. I wanted to talk about the things that all of my merchant and planner friends are going through still to this day that they're buried in Excel, or that we're planning things reactively in terms of shifts in consumer behavior. If we think about what happened at the beginning of COVID where stores were suddenly closed and we couldn't even get goods through the Suez Canal, I mean, those are things that we should be preparing for proactively. And of course, in hindsight, everybody's going to say that. But how do we really do that? Like let's stop talking about it. Let's actually figure out how we can do things. And that's, I think, what gives me that edge is I talk about it.
Kristin: Well, and also like get up and go. It's not so much, when you say efficiency, I think everybody who's operating thinks about speed. But in today's world, efficiency also means less waste. It means creating a new process or updating systems in a way that not only enables you to be more nimble and faster to get in front of the consumer with new innovations, but it also enables you to control the amount of waste. Talk with us a little bit more about that. When you come into a brand, because you touch so many points, as I said, the conveyor belt. It's like the way my brain works, so forgive me. But it's like the idea is the beginning of the conveyor belt and the market or the consumer launch is the end and there's all these things along the way that have to happen to that concept or idea. And so, we don't have to use that terrible analogy that I have in my mind. But like when you go into a large brand, you touch a lot of different team members, frankly. Some of them may not be used to working together and some of them might feel a little suspect because they've been awarded for doing their job in a certain way for awhile, or maybe that's why they were recruited. How do you bring people together towards this goal where it's a win-win for them individually in their roles, also for their brand and also for the consumer?
Liza: Well, from the strategy perspective, just bringing everyone together in the same room at the same time is not something that happens a lot. You might see it at concept in the beginning of a season or before you even start thinking about the season, but then what happens is retailers sadly love to work in silos. I mean, we don't really love it, but that is the way that retail has been working for hundreds of years. What we need to do is break down those silos so that we start having teams talk together at the same time because if you think about how product is created, designers will go from concept to let's say a milestone in the calendar showing teams what they've come up with, but if they don't have sourcing and costing in the room or someone from a sustainability standpoint in the room to say, "Actually let's put some guardrails in place so that we're not developing 7,000 zippers for this season instead of just the 10 that we're going to use." And this is happening across different parts of product creation, whether it is materials like trims, like I said, the zippers, but it's also happening at the stage where we're working with our factories. So tech packs are being created for things like short sleeve and long sleeve where you don't need to actually do that. Product is being sampled and iterated multiple times when it doesn't need to be. Digital tools are not being used where they could save a lot of people time.
Kristin: And that's something that maybe some of the people around that table are familiar with but there might be a lot who are not. And what you're trying to create is like a new shared process where they all have buy-in.
Liza: Exactly. And the fact that we're bringing people into the room that are learning from not only other categories or other processes, it encourages diverse ways of thinking and thinking about product in different ways. So a sourcing and costing person is going to think of product creation in a very different way than a merchant would, than a designer would, than a developer would, than a salesperson would. So when we think about creating product, if we bring everyone together in the same room, we're creating efficiencies in terms of communication and conversation. And then when you start partnering with factories, instead of drawing a line between buyer and vendor, you're actually working together, even with the right digital tools to make life a little bit more simpler and less complicated. You're cutting out a lot of miscommunication and a lot of iteration. So that's just one way. I think redundancies are a whole other way to reduce a lot of that calendar time. And then enabling digital tools. I think that is something that I preach a lot about.
Kristin: And I imagine you're probably working with some brands that from the outside, you don't have to name names, but from the outside, they're probably considered to be pretty forward thinking, well funded, have all stars on their teams. And yet there's still a lot that you go in and kind of clean up and reorganize with efficiency and faster getting the product to the consumer in mind.
Liza: Yeah. And I think it really does come down to putting the customer in the middle, because once you do that, I think that shifts your mindset from the start of concept. And then as you think about the customer through not only design and merchandising, but you start to collaborate with them before sampling, you're already reducing a lot of that guesswork when it comes to assortment optimization. And then of course, talking samples. Samples take so much time, resources and so much money. So just thinking about, okay, what are other ways that we could review product, test product? You can do a lot of that at factory with factory partners that you trust. I think that not only reduces time, but also it empowers your vendors and your factories to work with you because they also want success.
Kristin: And obviously today, this was true prior to the pandemic, but it's really clear today that the brands that are normally sold in multi-brand retail entities such as REI or large retailers are also very much retailers. And they were before, for sure, but they have this mindset now, and some of them are going vertical with how they're distributing product. So talk with us about accelerating speed to market and why specifically that's important because I really think that whether a brand wants to admit it or not, that's a really challenging aspect of it. It does bring things in almost like the buy sell cycle, sample allocation. Like there's tons of things we could talk for hours about. But at the end of the day, it's like, is it about more product drops or is it about... Tell us what you mean by accelerating speed to market, because I know that a lot of my listeners will perk up hearing that.
Liza: Yeah, of course. When we talk about speed to market, we're definitely not talking about fast fashion. That's the first thing I have to clear up. A lot of people have those questions. Speed to market is really about getting faster to market by reducing some of the redundancies and inefficiencies in your calendar of activities that get you from concept to market. So that's what speed to market is. The way to do that is to be more mindful when you're creating product. Think of responsible retailing. Think about using materials that you've used in the past or not sampling basics because you already know that they're already proven in market. Now, a lot of this may seem very, oh, of course. Of course you can do that. And a lot of people do. But the challenges is that we haven't changed the activities that lead up to those moments. And thinking about the calendar and thinking about how we can change the way we use that timeline for creation around pacing product or not sampling everything or using digital twins where it works. And also using material libraries where things are all already approved. Things like trims and zippers. That's something that you can really build into a process, but you can also add guardrails to help designers and developers really spend more time creating, so the art part, and leave the science to automation and AR and even VR.
Kristin: Interesting. I could totally see how that would freak people out in terms of moving a lot of cheese around. Can you talk about, I know that your company is relatively new, but you've been doing this type of work for a while. And now that what you're doing in your consultancy, and your business is much more focused to like your specific experience, but is it a six month thing usually where you're... Because you know how people talk about that 52? Week 18, month, like... We have a very distinct way of book ending, a quote season, and lots of new designers we've worked with over the years at Verde are like, "Oh, no, this is launching, but it's really not my season yet. Mine will be in fall or whatever." So there is like a process of actually getting ideation in front of that consumer. But tell us what your process is in terms of like ballpark timelines, if you're going in to help with this efficiency and acceleration, what does it look like from start to finish?
Liza: I mean, it absolutely depends on what the current state looks like with the brand that I'm more working with. I think there's always room for improvement. I mean, we all learn every day and we should, right? Especially because the consumer is ever evolving, and we don't know what pandemic is going to come next, so
Kristin: Oh, don't even say
Liza: ...we have to keep learning. I know, I know. But I do think that the next and I say quotes because I don't know what else to call it right now is what's happening in the environment. And that's why we have to rethink the way that we are going to market, and be more responsible. So as we take time away from mundane tasks and rethinking the activities that we go to market with, we can spend more time on textile innovation or partnering with other retailers, and brands that are maybe way ahead of the game, and doing great things for the environment. So I think that material innovation is something that I truly believe that brands should be sending more time on. And in most cases, from a private label perspective, when we talk about material innovation, we talk about not only long lead time materials, but we talk about innovation as a whole other calendar, but really we should be working with it with our regular cal... I call it regular calendar, because some people call it milestones. Some people call it go to market, but it is your calendar for that season. And when we start rethinking the way we think about product, and the longevity of product, we really need to start thinking about changing the way we look at seasonality. And that's something that is a barrier right now, where we're working in pre-fall, fall, and then we're looking at holiday. And then we look at pre spring week. What if we looked at product as its lifetime value? Because if you think about the KPIs that we're looking at from a digital perspective, those KPIs should translate into how we're presenting product, and how we're creating assortments. We should increase seasonless versus increasing fashion every drop. And fast fashion is definitely giving retailers and brands a run for their money right now the news about Shein, and other brands that are fast, fast fashion. It's scary to think about how much product that they're creating, and if we could change the way we look at seasonality, we will reduce over buying, and over production.
Kristin: All right, I have to bring this up and I know you're going to have something brilliant to add to this, or maybe we can play it out a little bit. But I know a lot of our brands look at seasonality, and that milestone calendar has been in place for a long time. The entire or get together calendar for the buy sell cycle, marketing strategy, everything we base that on assumptions we've had about the consumer, and now we've seen in real life over COVID how they respond in a crisis situation. And we also know that some of the behaviors that they learned over COVID, and how they've solved problem, and for themselves will stick. And so there's two sides of that spectrum. One side is they want exactly, as you're saying, like less waste, more environmentally friendly solutions, they want to buy things from brands that mirror their own values. And they're very well aware of the problems that we have around sustainability, and climate, et cetera. That's just one thing. I'm not saying it's everything. But then the other side of that is the fact that consumers, and media, frankly, have always thrived on what's new. What's new. So, I'd love for you to kind of dive in a little bit on this concept of seasonality, which I think is so interesting. And let's talk about it a little bit with the consumer perspective, tied to that. How realistic is it for us to think that we have to continue to come out with new, new, new, like for our consumers who just love our brands, and love to follow everything we do? I mean, you're a consumer. I know that you experience this too. So let's talk about that like from the consumer perspective.
Liza: I don't think we need to make rash decisions around seasonality. I think that we need to rethink how we look at core versus fashion and add seasonless in there so that we're not recreating the wheel every single year or season, right? That's part of the conversation. The other part of the conversation is from a profitability standpoint, where we always think about year over year sales or month over month. And like you said, that's kind of, actually, it doesn't even make sense right now because we can't compare this year to last year, to the year before we can compare post pandemic to pre pandemic, of course, and during the pandemic. But I think it's all related, right? Because of course we live in a capitalistic world and we're out there we want to make money. We want revenue. We want to make a profit. We want great gross margins. But because the customer is ever evolving, of course we need newness. I'm not saying we don't need newness. There are brands that are all basic, and they do very well, which is great. But the fact is that consumers are fickle. We are, right? We want newness. And that's okay. What I'm saying is if we increase seasonless, even from a style perspective, and you maybe adjust colors or you update parts of the material, or even components of how you create the material to be more sustainable, to have a long lifespan, you're going to increase the sustainability metric on that product that was created. And that's
Kristin: ...that is, do you mean lifecycle analysis when you say sustainability metric?
Liza: Yeah. That is part of it. Yeah.
Kristin: Okay.
Liza: So, even when you use natural fibers versus something that's created out of petroleum, we know how one breaks down versus the other, or how long one lasts versus the other. And I think that's also part of your sustainability story and your own carbon footprint. So, these are things that, like you mentioned earlier, are important to the consumer, and that should translate into how we create product because the consumer has more awareness than they've ever had before. They have more visibility into why it's important to have transparency in the supply chain. Why we may want to track, and trace where our product comes from. And just with what's happening still in China with the Uyghurs and how terribly people have been treated, that aligns with people's values and consumers will read about that. They will question and hold brands accountable to, why are you creating product there? And that actually doesn't align with my values because I don't believe in how people have been treated or how you're, I don't even want to go into greenwashing right now, but how you're creating your denim, or how much you're polluting the water in that country. And I think all of that is coming into light for consumers today.
Kristin: Absolutely.
Liza: And we're questioning, we're holding brands accountable. So I think that can absolutely get ahead of what the media may uncover, what consumers may uncover, because we do have a responsibility because we're the polluters, right?
Kristin: We’re also champions for their values because they don't see the government institutions creating the change they want to see and they're going to push us to evolve more quickly in that way.
Liza: Definitely. Which I absolutely love. I think that we should use our voices. I was at Shop Talk last month and it was great because there was a section on merchandising advancements in merchandising and the chief merchants of Sephora, REI, and I'm blanking on the other brand, but they were all there, and they were talking about the 15% pledge. They were talking about representation in their assortments. And it was wonderful to see how they're now looking at private label development that truly represents the customer to fulfill what the customer needs from a diversity, and inclusion perspective. And I just love that, because that's also part of the conversation. So sustain is absolutely part of the procreation story, but so is representation from a diversity inclusion, and equity point of view from a representation standpoint from a merchandising assortment.
Kristin: And then how does this look at retail itself, whether that's digital, or physical, because obviously that's... We're seeing more, and more retailers are controlling that story. The brands are not going to be able to come in, and be like, here's my shelf tucker, here's my takeback box. The retailers are really wanting to have their own point of view, and brands accentuate that. They don't control that anymore. So as we're moving forward into this new world and that channel is obviously growing more, and more robust as we're seeing every day in the headlines around just physical retail coming back, but also just very, very, just remarkable digital experiences for retail. I'm curious to know how this has reached into that part of the channel. The work that you do.
Liza: Yeah. I mean that... That's a huge...
Kristin: The work that you do.
Liza: I mean that that's a huge question and I love it because there's so many ways we could tackle that. The first thing you said was physical or digital. And I think that's where a lot of brands are, they're still kind of living in that space where we're either this or that, but at the end of the day, you are how the consumer views you as a brand. So think of yourselves as... Some people are not even using omnichannel anymore, but that is exactly what it is. It's unified. All the channels that your customer sees you and engages with you in, it should be looked at the same way, in a sense where this is how the consumer sees you. They see you as a brand. But I think it's important to look at everything with the consumer lens and that's really what I'm trying to say. Is that the consumer sees brand, they don't see channels. So retailers should look at it the same way, because that experience and the way that consumers engage with you matters. And I will tell you that even this week I posted on Twitter and I walked away from a brand because I just was so frustrated with the digital experience and I had such a great experience in store. So I was all for this brand. It's sustainable, it's needed. It's localized in terms of manufacturing and all these wonderful things. But the digital experience was just so complicated and frustrating that I'm just like, "Nope, moving on." And that just tells you that there are so many brands out there. There's so many retailers out there. So if you do not make changes and rethink the way you're retailing and align with what your customer is looking for, meeting them in the right place at the right time with the right product, then you're going to lose the battle with retail.
Kristin: Well, and I guess my question also, it has to do with how consumers are seeing the work that you're doing. You're improving efficiency and as a byproduct of that, the sustainability story is improved. And oftentimes, that can be a really difficult thing that a brand can use to differentiate itself if it loses control of the story at retail. So I'm wondering, are you helping brands think through how to make sure the consumer is aware of what you're working on with the brand? Or is it more, let's give the customer the benefit of the doubt. They'll go online and research if it's important to them. I feel like it's really important to include that in the story and maybe it comes through in certifications or life cycle analysis or one of those metrics. But I think that the consumer might need to be shown this at the retailer.
Liza: They will. Yeah.
Kristin: That's what I'm curious about.
Liza: Yeah. I completely agree. And I think that transparency and visibility into practices is so much better to manage versus the opposite where suddenly it's revealed that the brand that you love is not aligned with your own values, whether it's from ethical production to sustainability and responsible retailing, or how many touch points the product has. Because people are downloading apps right now and looking online at things like Sourcemap to see what their own personal carbon footprint is because it's important to them. And that would be an interesting thing to look into is how many apps are there now, because there's a lot more than there were in the beginning of 2020 when I had taken a look because it's important to customers. So these things are being created to help customers understand the product journey because that's important to them. And it is important to them and they have so many more choices than they've ever had before that they don't need to buy with you.
Kristin: I think that it's... I could summarize a big part of how you help brands by saying, maybe in the past, the customer journey has been... Or sorry. The product journey has been either heavily influenced by legacy or treated as a process and a system within a company. And you're elevating that to be a point of differentiation for a brand. You're really looking at a granular way at the whole process. And by the time that you and the people you're working with inside the brand are... Since like a completion point, it is, wow, this has happened. And it really does actually improve the brand profile. It doesn't have to be tied to a specific product introduction. It's like, we are doing things more efficiently and are sustainable, and this is what we've done or whatever. That to me is really exciting because it takes that back of the house and it turns it into something that differentiates a brand during a super competitive time.
Liza: Exactly. And I think what 2020 did was it did put planning in the spotlight because we were left with excess inventory. We were left with inventory stuck at ports, and that put planners in a position where they've never been in before. They were noticed. People understood that, okay, you know what? We need to invest in planning because if we don't have planning tools that incorporate data analytics or any sort of AI, then how are we going to get ahead? We have to change the way we're working. And this is where technology is so important. And I will say that a lot of brands don't even know where to start. And I think that's where things like the Merchant Life Newsletter and the YouTube channel, and all the things that I talk about on LinkedIn and Twitter, I try and put out that information because I want retailers and brands to rethink the way that they're doing things and just start having the conversations.
Kristin: Exactly. And it's oftentimes, people see that their jobs might be in danger if they raise their hands saying, "Yeah, I could learn something new here." They were hired to bring perspective and experience. And it's so challenging because they also have to be on the leading edge and managing risk in a whole new way for these brands that they work for. And that can be scary, I think. But at the same time, I think we've all adopted failure as part of progression over COVID and I hope, hope, hope that that mindset among executive teams will remain in place because that's really where I think innovation and speed to market can be most affected is just be okay with failing now and then.
Liza: Yeah. And to be honest, I think we've all failed, especially seeing what happened in the pandemic, where there was such a shift and such a bottleneck, and what happened with the supply chain and the chaos that it brought to getting goods into stores and online. But it also made us realize that, especially when we talked about DTC brands earlier, that they were just winning at the start to the pandemic, but now that they've scaled, they've lost some of those fundamentals in retailing and now they have to learn how to do automatic replenishment or learn about seasonality where it makes sense. I've seen many core brands go under because they didn't have these fundamentals in place. So it is important for retailers to still adhere to what they've been doing in the past in terms of those traditional retail fundamentals. Those KPIs still exist. It's still important to see sell through. It's still important to look at our gross margin, but it's also important to see what other important KPIs are coming into play post pandemic and learn from what's happened in digital and learn from what's happened in physical stores. And of course what's happening in Meta right now. And all these new flashy things that are coming up and may be here to stay.
Kristin: Oh my God.
Liza: Being adaptable and flexible is so, so important.
Kristin: It is, it is. And I would love to, and I knew we were going to go long, because we have so much to talk about, I'd love to have you back on. Just I think that you bring such an interesting perspective and it really does touch every type of brand who would tune into Channel Mastery. So I'd love to have you back. Tell us where my amazing audience can learn more about you.
Liza: Well, there's a few ways. If you want to be entertained, definitely add me to Twitter. I review lots of brands as I'm shopping because I'm also a consumer, but I put out a lot of tidbits on there. LinkedIn, for sure. You can find me at themerchantlife.com, which is where my newsletter is. I have a YouTube channel also Under The Merchant Life and Retail Strategy Group for the consulting practice. And of course you can email me or message me. I'm always around and I love to talk shop, so definitely get in touch.
Kristin: Great. And I'm sure that your social is listed on all of the web properties that you just said.
Liza: Yeah, absolutely.
Kristin: And we'll have those in the show notes, everyone. Okay.
Liza: Awesome.
Kristin: It was so great to have you. I literally feel like we just scratched the surface. So you are going to have to come back and I feel like maybe we could have you on with a couple of our shared friends for next episode and stay tuned everybody on that. But I just really feel like you're bringing a very, just a revered energy and a great new perspective. And we're so, so happy that you were able to join us on the show here today. And I'd love to just make sure that we're continuing to work together because I think brands really need to hear what you have to say. These teams really have such a great opportunity together to be leveling up together like this.
Liza: Yeah, I completely agree. Thank you so much for having me and definitely, we could definitely talk for hours.
Kristin: Thanks so much. All right. More to come everybody. Okay.