Discover the transformative potential of personalized digital gifting in enhancing customer experience, with insights from Govalo's CEO, Rhian Beutler, on how their platform is leading the charge in this domain
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(upbeat music)
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- And welcome to our next session with Rian Voitler.
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Rian, how are you doing today?
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- I'm doing so awesome.
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How about you?
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- Yes, I'm super excited to talk to you.
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I know we talked beforehand and I'm glad that you kind of
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found the time for us to chat, really appreciate it.
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Let's just go right into it.
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So first, I don't want to introduce yourself.
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I think you have earned so much.
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You've been in the community for so long.
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So please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit
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about the balla.
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- Absolutely.
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So my name is Rian Voitler.
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I've been building Shopify apps for north of a decade.
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I co-founded Ventov, which is a series of apps,
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SEO manager, order lookup and clocked in.
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I'm the executive chairman or chairperson or chairwoman
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over there and I am the CEO and co-founder
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of the Co-Volo where we are reinventing
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the digital gifting experience,
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which just goes to show, I'm old
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and have been around for a minute.
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- You're not old at all.
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Let's, I'm fine with it.
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I'm leaning in.
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- Let's not, yeah, let's not.
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Lean in though, that's a good point.
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So let's start, actually let me actually ask,
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is it always been in the Shopify ecosystem?
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Have you ventured outside the Shopify ecosystem
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or has it always been in the Shopify?
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- In terms of entrepreneurship,
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I have only ever been in the Shopify ecosystem.
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So I took a very big bet alongside Josh Highland years
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and years ago, Ventov, which was then called New Leaf Labs.
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We had to change the name for legal reasons,
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was actually mentioned in Shopify's SEC filing.
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So yeah, we've, it's been helpful.
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- Was it an educated, was it an educated guest
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to go with Shopify?
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Or was it really just a bet and it just hit?
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- So, well, at the time we did some agency work
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to supplement our SaaS because we didn't have enough revenue
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coming in and we're like, how else can we get revenue?
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Service work, which I 10 of 10 don't recommend,
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but I'm so glad agencies exist.
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So I was doing a lot of service work,
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including migrations from Magento and whatever.
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And back then it was like legacy solutions.
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I remember one was a Yahoo, so much cost,
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so much cost.
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One was like a Yahoo shopping migration.
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Night nightmare fuel.
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It's the first and last time I ever saw Yahoo shopping.
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And it was as bad as it sounded.
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So we were all in on Shopify from the very beginning.
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I cut my teeth there, I say, growing up, working in retail.
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And it became very evident, then it became a banker
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after undergrad.
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And it became very evident where the market was heading.
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It's as we become more digital, as everybody has a phone,
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as, and you and I probably grew up in a time
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where we had Nokia bricks in a dream, right?
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You were T9 texting, and we couldn't have even imagined
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that this is where we would have been by now.
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But it was pretty obvious, I think about 10 years ago,
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there was no way for retail to move forward
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in a meaningful way without making commerce accessible
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everywhere.
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So.
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- I think we got some people just tuning in
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because I heard the word T9.
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And I haven't heard that word in a very long time.
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- But it almost makes me think of like,
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I don't know why I'm thinking about this,
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but also the game Snake that I played 24/7 on my phone
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that I'm pretty sure I was the champion
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around the house of.
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- Probably, also it was the only game.
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- Yes, yeah, I guess it was the only game I could possibly.
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- And it was free.
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So it was like Minecraft on, or not Minecraft,
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minefield, do you remember the minebusting game?
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It was not every computer.
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- On every computer, yeah, yeah.
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I had no idea how to play that until like,
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as I got older actually, I was just like,
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oh, I just keep that close.
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- Yeah, you just keep dying.
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That was like, that was like, that was my major way.
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- That was the actual game.
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- Yeah.
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- Okay, so let's move on to the first question I have about
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your knowledge about gift cards.
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So if I can ask you, if you were to generalize merchants today,
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would you say that like, okay, everyone understands
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that there is this gift card platform
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and most people are utilizing it,
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and it's now about like really excelling
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and try to figure out different ways
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to utilize gift cards in a company?
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Or do you think you're still early on
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where you have to, your business have to sell
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a whole bunch of merchants to just use something
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like a wallow as a platform for gift cards?
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- We're still selling people on the Y.
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And it has a lot to do with the fact that Shopify
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is basic function, I love Shopify,
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but Shopify's gift card functionality is garbosh,
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shall I say, and it has been for a long time.
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Recently they rolled out this like kind of customizing feature.
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It's still, it's, look, Shopify builds for 80%, right?
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That's why apps exist.
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We exist to fill things and make things more nuanced,
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build for plus customers, build for everybody
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and really fine tune and optimize the experience
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for the customer for the merchant, right?
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How do we get the most data to the merchant?
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How do we help give the customer
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the best possible experience?
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And so, you know, I'm still selling that concept.
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Not everyone's bought in.
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- Why?
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Yeah, why?
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In your opinion.
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- I think a lot of people, they tried the Shopify,
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the native Shopify gift card, and they're like,
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"Nah, it's not worth it.
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"It doesn't do anything.
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"It doesn't sell.
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"It's not a good experience."
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And they get rid of it.
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Or they just don't see the value in it.
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They're like, "Well, I tried it.
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"I tried it once.
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"It didn't work.
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"Therefore, I will never try it again."
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Like, that's a very common sort of thought process.
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- So interesting.
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It's so interesting to me because you look at just
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the vast amount of larger brands and retailers
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and what do they all have in common?
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They have gift cards in common.
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So like, it's proven,
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but you have the smaller merchants that then to your point,
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they're like, "Ah, it's just not working out for me."
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- Yeah, and then a lot of plus merchants get a little nervous.
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There is fraud exposure with gift cards
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because it's currency.
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So we mitigate that and then we recommend using
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fraud filtering apps to mitigate that as well.
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And then we have some customers who are massive,
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legacy enterprise brands,
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who also have had or currently have
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Blackhawk integrations and Blackhawk network
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is the boss of gift cards.
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Like, they are it.
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Like, if you walk through Target
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and you pick up a gift card,
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Blackhawk is powering that gift card.
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Almost 100%.
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And we actually built an integration with Blackhawk
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over to Shopify.
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So that way we can support those big enterprise
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and legacy merchants coming on over.
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So if someone brings like a gift card they got at Target,
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they can still enter in the code
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and it will work on their website.
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- Yeah.
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So, and I know you bring up this topic a lot
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and I wanna ask you on this session.
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It's about the psychology around discounts
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and gift cards.
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- Yes.
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- And so because if you think about it from the discounts,
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we just had Black Friday, like discounts everywhere.
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But again, gift cards, not as much.
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There's certain challenges there.
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Like talk to us a little bit about
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what your philosophy is around like,
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okay, if you're doing a discount,
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why not just think about it when you gift card perspective?
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- Absolutely.
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- And there's two kind of ways to do this, right?
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- Co-Sabella, who is one of our merchants,
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they sell upscale lingerie.
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They were doing, I believe it was a 20% off or something,
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but then it was like once you hit $100 in sales,
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we're gonna send you a $25 gift card.
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So you could also use it as a sweetener.
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And that's something we're seeing a lot of people do,
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especially around the holidays.
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How do we make a good experience
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where people expected to discount around holidays?
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- It's very uncommon to not give a discount,
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unless you are hyper luxury brand
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and you're like, I don't ever, you're Hermes,
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you just don't put things on sale.
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And was it one of those brands?
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You're kind of expecting some sort of a deal around BFCM,
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all year round, different story.
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I have that, that's a whole different conversation.
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Do you want BFCM, you kind of expect a discount.
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So then how do you get them to come back?
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'Cause you get the discount then, right?
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- Yep, yep.
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- I think sending a discount code for future use is
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blah, kind of like everybody does it.
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It's not very special, it's not very CX driven.
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Whereas here's a gift card for future use.
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Also, we have integrations with all the major ESPs,
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service providers, and then you can create flows around it.
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You can create all sorts of, you know,
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you can have really smart data.
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Say, oh, I know this person bought XYZ.
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Okay, I know they have $25 in their proverbial wallet.
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Guess what, people spend on average $40 more
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every time they use a gift card
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than their base gift card amount.
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Target them.
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- Yeah. - You just get them in.
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- Yeah, like, and I think I just want to call this out
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for those listening, like there's been a lot of sessions
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today where the common theme at the end of the session
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is that we should celebrate our customers more.
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- Yes.
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- And I'm just like, it's just bridging the gap to like,
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well, how can you celebrate your customers more
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is something like a wallow and gift cards.
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And that's one natural way to do it.
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And I know you're just going into it,
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but can you tell us a little bit about your integrations,
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for example, even with Clavio,
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where you can utilize Clavio to do just that,
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to celebrate your customers using gift cards.
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Do you mind talking to us about that?
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- Absolutely.
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So we have a Clavio integration and Amisen integration.
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Oh my gosh, I'm gonna forget.
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We have so many integrations.
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We have an integration with Mesa.
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I don't know if you're familiar with them.
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They help.
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So they've been around for a really long time
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in the ecosystem as well.
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And they're an integrations tool.
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So we didn't have to build that integration,
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which was really nice.
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So through Mesa, who we've integrated with,
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they then integrate with Gorgias.
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So you can send an app, you can send,
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oh, I'm sorry, you're bummed.
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You know what?
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That was our fault.
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Gonna eat it.
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I'm not gonna give you star credit.
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Store credit and gift cards function the exact same
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for all intents and purposes.
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One though is like, here's a gift card.
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We're sorry versus here, here's a store credit.
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We're sorry.
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So there's that integration, recharge,
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bold, those integrations are for giftable subscriptions.
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- Yeah.
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- So how, and that, that's a really big retention piece, right?
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How do you gift a subscription to someone else
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and get all of their information
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and keep the giftors information?
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How do you segment that out?
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Again, go back to Klavio, go back to segmentation tools,
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make some really smart data-driven decisions.
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So those are kind of, I would say, our most utilized ones.
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We're working on some new ones in the new year.
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We have an integration with Blackhawk Network,
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which super stoked we're the first company ever
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to integrate with them over to Shopify.
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Not easy, but really glad we did it.
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Our kind of goal, right,
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is to be the stored value system utilized
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by Shopify stores.
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And so what the stored value system is,
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is it's like, you know those gift cards you see at Target
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and it's got like three brands.
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And so it's like a house of brands,
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where, so we currently support multiple brands,
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houses of brands, working in Glommert,
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it's a brands where you can get,
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they'll give a gift card at, and, you know, a pawn check out
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or various different things,
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or just for fun for your birthday.
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And they can then use that gift card at any of the brands.
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- That's really cool.
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I haven't heard about that.
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- It's very cool, yeah.
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Well, we're the only ones doing it.
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It's coming out of beta, which is why.
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Because you have to make sure,
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it has got to be rock solid before you ship that.
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So that is kind of bleeding edge where we're going.
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And I'm, yeah, I'm super excited.
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- And I think one other point to mention about this is that,
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you set up these sort of workflows,
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and again, I'll just use the Clavio example.
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Like you have constant reminders this fall too,
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that you can set up, if those that haven't used
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certain cards, right?
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And you can personalize that as much as you can,
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because you have the data around it.
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I think that's what's most fascinating is that,
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I've heard some merchants are like,
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"Oh yeah, we want to celebrate our customers,
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but we don't know like what to say or what to do."
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And obviously it comes back to data,
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but here is a great example of like,
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you can automate this entire flow.
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Do you have clients that do that?
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- Yeah, we do.
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And actually with Felix Gray,
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they did a A/B testing where you gave a discount code,
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I believe it was her birthday,
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and a gift card for birthday to see which converted better.
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And no surprises probably,
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but the gift card converts better in situations like that.
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- Yeah, it just for clarity, so I know,
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because I really am curious,
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is it only virtual or do you actually present
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physical gift cards and mail those to clients?
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Well, we started this virtual, no, it's not,
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it's actually, it's a roadmap question also.
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And also touching back really quickly on reminders.
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Reminders are critical for gift cards.
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People forget that they have them.
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I got given a gift card last holiday
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and I forgot that I had it.
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And then until I saw an email from the company that gave it
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to me and I was like,
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"Oh yeah, I got a gift card from them last year.
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"Where is that?"
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- Where is it?
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- Yeah, where is it?
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It's digital, I never got a reminder.
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And that's the thing,
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if you want people to come back to your store
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and spend more money,
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which is kind of like the whole goal of it,
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give them a gift card.
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Give them a gift card for like within a,
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not an affiliate link,
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but like, hey, bring your friend,
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you know, the normally like, get $10 off.
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No, give a $25 gift card.
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Why not?
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- And as a marketer too,
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it's like, I'll just share my experience.
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Sometimes you're like, we're emailing them again,
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we're emailing them again.
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And you almost feel this friction of like, okay,
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we've already kind of told them about some announcement,
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some announcement, we keep on emailing them
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and there's no engagement on it.
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But looking at it from a gift card perspective,
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you feel like here's value here
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and they haven't opened their emails
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or they haven't engaged with it yet.
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It's important as a marketer that they need to see this
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because this is really important.
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It's $25 or whatever that is.
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And so you feel a little bit better honestly,
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intrinsically about getting this message out to them
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in a frequent manner.
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- Yeah, and you're not just like blasting
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in with the boring emails.
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You're like, hey, this email is a value at,
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this email is a value at,
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which is crucial because at some point you're like,
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please stop sending me emails.
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- So just to clarify,
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this is a roadmap question right now
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of what direction to go.
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- So we right now power true classics gift cards,
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which we're super excited about our partnership with them.
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- Very cool.
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- And we have taken on the challenge
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of providing them physical gift cards this holiday season.
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- Wow, actually good speaking news.
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- Yeah, it is actually breaking news.
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My investors are probably like,
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and this is the first time we're hearing about this.
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So, yeah.
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We were doing it, it's going really well.
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So we had to iron out,
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as with anything, right?
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We're still an early stage startup.
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So you're still at some point building the plane
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while flying it.
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You know the drill, you're in startups too.
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- Oh yeah.
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- Right? And you're like,
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and there's always like outlying things
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kind of like coming at you.
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And you're like, oh, I didn't think of this weird edge case
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that why is that an edge case?
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I don't know, but apparently now,
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anyways, yeah, we're powering two classic gift cards.
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- What's the, I mean, we can all make assumptions here,
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but what is it about a physical gift card
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that is just different than the virtual?
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- See, when I founded Gavolom--
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- Where is it not?
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What I found to give all of my thesis, my thesis in life,
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is that physical gift cards are going away.
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However, as long as physical retail exists,
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which is on the upswing especially experiential,
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and also there's certain demographics
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that give physical gift cards more.
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So the older demographic, boomers, older Gen X,
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they give and receive physical
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as opposed to millennials and Gen Z,
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we're like lawless, we're like whatever, send it to me.
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Like we don't care versus we're seeing people
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order like four to $150 gift cards.
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And like we also, you can see some gift notes sometimes
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and it's always like they're so sweet.
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They're like, I know you love this store, you know?
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And it's like, you're from their mom, love you mom.
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It's always so sweet, but it's kind of given us insight
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as to who the physical gift card buyer is.
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- Yeah.
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- Yeah.
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- But down line, we've got some cool stuff cooking.
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I mean, including that, we're gonna be partnering
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with some three PLs, obviously printing everything
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on demand is not a sustainable,
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it isn't right, you can't scale like that.
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But in the beginning, every startup, what's the rule?
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- That's what you do.
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- Do things that don't scale.
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- Yup.
18:18
- Prove your concept.
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- Prove the hypothesis, exactly.
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- So yeah, we're super stoked about that partnership.
18:24
- Yeah, that's cool.
18:24
Well, thanks for sharing that.
18:25
That's super interesting.
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- Yeah.
18:28
- Okay, so I asked you this earlier on,
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it was like, do you have thoughts around AI?
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And you do, so to set the stage there.
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But like maybe let me first ask, like,
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do you utilize any sort of,
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or are you thinking about utilizing these sort of AI
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today within Gavalo and its platform?
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- So. - Or is that not?
18:48
- Gavalo, no.
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- No.
18:50
- Ventov, yes.
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- Okay.
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- So at Ventov, SEO manager was actually
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the first ever SEO app on Shopify.
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And recently we rolled out,
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I'm not even sure what version it is, 5.0, I don't know.
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Anyways, there's a big challenge.
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This is also a CX challenge, right?
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You don't wanna direct a customer to your store
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and it's a broken page.
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And this happens a lot.
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It happens a lot in email marketing.
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It happens a lot in ad marketing, paid ad marketing.
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And so we have a AI driven 404 redirector.
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So, yeah.
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So it's like, hey, so as long as you toggle it on,
19:31
it will just be like, oh, they likely mean this.
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- That's fascinating.
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That's the first time I've ever heard AI
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be utilized like that.
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And well, I haven't really dug into the SEO space,
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but that makes a lot of sense.
19:49
- Yeah.
19:50
- And then it helps the merchant
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because you never want a consumer to land on a dead page
19:56
because it gives Google the signal
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that your site is not trustworthy.
20:01
And then of course it also gives the customer the signal.
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I can't count the amount of times I've clicked an ad
20:07
ready to buy and it's like landed me on a 404.
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And I'm like, who did this?
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I'm always, I normally send a message to the brand saying,
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hey, this is a dead link 'cause I feel bad.
20:20
They're paying money.
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Especially the small, small brands.
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You're like, oh, don't you?
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- That's so nice of you.
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I mean, honestly, it's like when someone has something
20:28
on their face and you just don't say anything,
20:29
you let that person like,
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- Yeah, you have to say,
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you gotta say it. - You gotta say it.
20:33
- Small businesses, it's like,
20:33
we're not, I'm not a billion dollar company.
20:36
- Exactly.
20:37
- I'm a human.
20:38
- That's fascinating.
20:39
I actually really like that use case.
20:41
I might use that myself over here.
20:45
Okay, so then outside of that,
20:47
any thoughts and opinions on,
20:49
guys, let's just like think about
20:51
the entire shop of my ecosystem.
20:52
I feel like every week there's another tech company,
20:55
either that's like, hey, we've integrated this AI technology
20:59
into our current platform and so forth.
21:01
When you see that, are you kind of like,
21:03
oh, this is probably bullshit.
21:06
Or are you excited about that?
21:07
- Yes, no, I'm not excited about it.
21:10
I, like AI is not new.
21:14
Google has been writing the playbook on AI for years, right?
21:18
One of my areas of expertise is search.
21:21
So I've been hanging out with LLMs and,
21:25
and as Google has been building,
21:30
I've been following along with their AI progression
21:32
and it is wild and right,
21:34
I believe it was yesterday or two days ago
21:36
or by time of listening, maybe a week ago,
21:39
they just released Gemini.
21:41
Gemini is gonna smash open AI into the ground,
21:45
rest in pieces.
21:47
And that's just part of how it goes.
21:49
I mean, Altman still gets to be a billionaire.
21:51
So like, that's awesome.
21:53
But I don't know that I really feel like
21:56
we're at the beginning of AI.
21:58
And I think everyone's like, this is revolutionary.
22:01
This isn't new.
22:02
Not yet.
22:04
- Okay. - It's fine.
22:05
It's a cool tool.
22:06
- So, hold on.
22:09
I just want to dig in really quick on that.
22:12
Like what, so, or maybe just clarify,
22:15
you're so bullish on Google over something like open AI,
22:19
just because like they have years and years of experience
22:24
ahead of something like open AI.
22:27
And you, from that perspective, you're like,
22:29
they're just gonna take it over.
22:31
It's just a matter of time.
22:32
- It's just a matter of time.
22:34
It's just a matter of time.
22:35
I also think that chat GPT,
22:39
drive it, right?
22:40
It's very formulaic.
22:41
You can always really tell if someone's written something
22:42
in chat GPT, especially if they haven't really edited it.
22:44
It's always a mess.
22:46
And if I can tell that with my eyes,
22:48
I'll tell you what, Google's Algo can definitely tell.
22:52
So I believe there's been this ebb and flow
22:55
with search for years, right?
22:57
People back in the olden days,
22:59
you could put literal white text on sites
23:03
to make them rank better.
23:05
You could put keyword stuff in tags to make.
23:09
You could do all sorts of stuff.
23:12
And then Hummingbird came out, I think in 2013.
23:17
And that was the beginning of this revolution rank brain,
23:20
which was Google's like first of all,
23:22
Swayay in AI 2016.
23:25
And it has been nothing but up since there.
23:28
So they started, they rolled out rank brain really quietly.
23:32
And you can see like in the start,
23:33
you start looking at like something's going on.
23:36
And they use neural matching.
23:39
They've been doing this for so long.
23:41
I'm not saying open AI is not doing cool things.
23:44
I'm just saying I feel like Google has been sitting there
23:47
with their hand in their pockets being like,
23:49
cute, cute, cute, cute, cute.
23:50
OK, did they learn anything?
23:51
Interesting, we'll learn from what they've learned.
23:54
Also, we have this.
23:57
Think of how many searches they have.
23:59
I know.
24:00
Saved.
24:02
It's limitless.
24:06
So that's my thought.
24:08
Google will own us.
24:10
Yeah.
24:11
So I want to hear your perspective.
24:15
I'm just going to go out.
24:17
What about AI chatbots?
24:20
Does that frustrate you when brands are like,
24:22
it's called just an AI chatbot.
24:24
And there's really no human at the end of the day
24:26
that you're talking to.
24:28
It's also like, is an AI chatbot that different than a regular chatbot?
24:37
I don't think so.
24:40
I couldn't tell the difference.
24:42
They're formulaic.
24:43
You're like, oh, here I am talking to a chatbot.
24:47
La, maybe in a year, maybe in five years,
24:50
maybe it'll be really great and trained up.
24:52
But right now, what are you going to do?
24:55
Like, how is it?
24:56
Yeah.
24:57
Is it that you know that you're not talking to a human?
25:02
And it's like, come on.
25:04
Or is it that you're really not getting an answer that you're--
25:08
if you actually got an answer from an AI chatbot,
25:10
would that change your perspective of it?
25:12
Or is it really like, hey, I want a human to human interaction
25:15
here.
25:16
I don't want it to be talking to a machine.
25:18
And maybe in old fashion, but I want a human to human interaction.
25:21
Yeah.
25:22
I don't want an AI-- oh, recently, I was at code,
25:26
a box conference conference.
25:29
And there was a person up on stage talking about their company,
25:35
and they have virtual girlfriends and virtual boyfriends
25:39
and virtual friends.
25:40
And I lean over to my friend.
25:42
I was like, this is dystopic.
25:45
I hate this timeline.
25:46
Get me out of this timeline.
25:49
Like, no, no.
25:53
I've met you in the front row being like, no.
25:56
I was like-- I was behind a reporter,
25:58
who was like, you know, febberishly, like, typing.
26:01
And I'm just there.
26:02
And I'm like, oh my god, why?
26:06
Not cool, guys.
26:08
So, you know, just because you can-- this is a thing in software,
26:12
in general, just because you can build it doesn't mean you should
26:16
build it and go read "Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep?"
26:21
And just think about that.
26:24
I will.
26:25
You know?
26:26
That's what I think.
26:27
Every time people are like, what about this?
26:28
I'm like, go, go read this book.
26:30
And then I feel like you will be anti-AI.
26:33
And I just want to say that, like, as a host, I don't want--
26:37
like, I am not one way or the other.
26:39
I want to understand people's perspectives.
26:41
But I appreciate this because I've heard-- and people here will hear
26:46
other sessions, and there are a lot of technology focused individuals--
26:50
Yeah.
26:51
I mean, obviously, I'm talking to CEOs as well, too.
26:53
With technology companies that are like, yes, these AI chat bots will
26:56
completely change, revolutionize the entire space.
26:59
But you also have to understand everything as a pendulum.
27:02
And it's going to swing back and forth, I think, at one point or the other,
27:06
where it's like, people want a human to human touch.
27:10
At least there will be moments and times that that is sincerely needed.
27:15
And I don't think, to your point, people should forget about that.
27:19
Right?
27:20
And we see this regression or this pendulum swing in other things as well.
27:24
So right now, records are becoming increasingly popular.
27:27
And that talk about physical media, those things are huge.
27:31
Yeah.
27:32
And-- but it's a lot of gen-- a lot of gen Z is like, oh, but I don't want to
27:37
just endlessly listen to this giant Spotify playlist.
27:40
I want to listen to this one thing, and they like the ritual of it all.
27:44
And it's also if we think-- I think you should always think about e-commerce
27:47
as it-- as physical commerce.
27:49
Like, merchandise your store well.
27:52
Make sure that you feel welcome.
27:55
Make sure it feels good and warm.
27:57
And if I go into a store and I had like a little robot greet me,
28:01
I'd be like, I hate this and I need to leave.
28:04
Versus a person greeting me.
28:06
Now, if nobody greets me, I'm angry and I leave also.
28:09
Because I'm like-- I guess I'm like a-- like a carer and about that.
28:13
Because I'm like, say hi to me!
28:15
They're like four of you.
28:16
And what of me?
28:17
I agree.
28:18
Let's go-- this goes-- it goes full circle to like, you're having discussions
28:23
about physical gift cards, right?
28:24
When you initially were like, ah, like, it's probably all going to be virtual
28:28
when you started, right?
28:30
And now what comes around goes around and maybe-- maybe this is a good kind of
28:36
discussion around, okay, yeah, human interactions.
28:39
Like, that's not going to go away.
28:41
Yeah, and I don't think so.
28:43
We crave it.
28:44
I think you're right.
28:45
I think you're right.
28:46
I think you're right.
28:47
Well, what is TikTok, if not that?
28:50
That's the next session.
28:53
Let's not go there for me.
28:56
Well, let's end it right here.
28:57
I think we can wrap it up.
28:59
Oh my gosh, but you just brought it up.
29:00
A really interesting topic.
29:02
Reim Poitler, thank you so much for your time here.
29:06
And I wish you all the best at the end of the year and movie for the next year.
29:11
Thank you so much.
29:12
Thank you for having me.
29:13
Thank you.
29:14
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