Welcome to Shoptalk, VTEX Dinner Exposes Hot Trends, Composability Necessity
Really enjoyed my time last night at the VTEX Executive Dinner and getting to meet everyone there. As a follow-up to Jordan Jewell appearance on the Watson Weekend, it was great to get a "live" preview of his "Do The Math" spreadsheet (which is now a Tableau app). I spoke at the beginning of the event about trends in the market including:
The emergence of AI in the customer funnel, including homepage and PDP pages. Later this year, your "quiz app" will seem quaint and oh so 2022.
The major Consumer to Manufacturing marketplaces like Temu and Shein and their affect on the US market.
Big get bigger. Continued growth of Amazon/Walmart has forced even other large retailers like Target to "zag" in a different direction and consider what to do with own brands off-platform.
Finally, a discussion about the practicality of composable commerce. Simply, in the Enterprise, it is table stakes. The hype you hear about how the time has passed for MACH is simply for the mid-market segment who was sold a bill of goods by an over-zealous agency.
The story is different in Enterprise. You have legacy, you have constraints. Large scale replatforms are mostly off the table except for niche scenarios like opening a new smaller brand, D2C nascent opportunities (i.e. it looks like an SMB), or one of your emerging markets.
I've written here that most retailers would rather gnaw off their arm than replatform, and I still believe it.
No one has the patience, skill, or (most importantly) the political capital for a 2-3 year replatform. (Yes it will always be promised in 18 months, but watch the clock time in the Enterprise and tell me I'm wrong).
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