The Maze Group Newsletter - The Leap Day Edition

Welcome back to The Maze Newsletter, Leap Day Edition. 

We have a new website. Check out our content around clients like Coty, Forever 21 and Quest Diagnostics.

Events

• We’re attending Shoptalk and have an exciting event Sunday night at the Sphere with Ordergroove and Shopify . We'll also be at the Prohibition Bar on Monday night with Listrak . Contact us for more details.

In the news

• Salesforce had their Q4 earnings call yesterday. Annual revenue was up 11% to $34.9B. Commerce and Marketing is their slowest growing category at 9%. (CNBC)
• Ecommerce reached 22% of total retail sales in 2023. This is the highest ever and up from 21.2% in 2022. (DigitalCommerce360)
• Beyond Inc. will reopen Overstock’s online store in the coming weeks in collaboration with Shopify. (RetailDive)
• Macy’s - is changing how their stores look (more luxurious) and closing 150 underperforming ones. They will open 15 new Bloomingdale’s stores and 30 new Bluemercury locations over the next three years. (CNN)
• Wolverine saw a 20.8% revenue drop in Q4. (RetailDive)
• Carhartt launched their Carhartt Reworked site for resale powered by Trove . (ChainStoreAge)
• Dick’s is pushing their fast and hassle-free online experience in a new series of ads with Will Arnett and Kathryn Hah.
• Urban Outfitters - Dmitri Siegel has started as Chief Creative, Brand and Digital Officer. Many will remember his years at Patagonia.
• Qurate’s QVC and HSN see revenue fall while shoppable media among their rivals is increasing. (PYMNTS) 
• Warby Parker revenue was up 12% in 2023 and is looking to add 40 stores to their current level of 237. (RetailDive)
• Floor & Decor revealed flat earnings in Q4 and noted their ecommerce investments this year. (DigitalCommerce360) 
• Capital One is acquiring Discover (subject to regulatory approvals). This is a long way out to changing the Visa/Mastercard duopoly. (NBC)
• Tiktok Shops success story Sacheu Brands landed them in Ulta. (Beauty Independent)
• Thrasio, the once mighty ecommerce aggregator, has filed for Chapter 11. (TechCrunch)
• More than $100 billion in merchandise was returned fraudulently in the U.S. in 2023, retailers say, up sharply since 2020. Retailers anticipate nearly 17% of those returns will be fraudulent(!) (WSJ) 
• RFID has been around for decades. Now it’s becoming retailers’ best crime-fighting tool. Maybe the moment for it has finally come? (RetailDive)
• Loop has a full report showing nearly 4 in 10 shoppers admit to having either engaged in return policy abuse or fraud in the past 12 months.

Shopify

• Our perspective here is: “What’s in it for the enterprise?” In Shopify's case, there’s plenty. I wrote about it after their Q4 earnings report.
• L Catterton announced a partnership with Shopify, Klaviyo, LiftLab, Google, Meta and Tiktok to enhance marketing and e-commerce capabilities for its portfolio companies. 
• Wrote a report on 5 Emerging Tech-Driven Strategies for Multibrand Retailers.
• Commissioned a LinkedIn survey by Nielsen that found Shopify is the top-of-mind enterprise platform. Bobby Morrison reminded us of their $1.7B R&D spend in 2023.
• Modern Retail talked with Harley about Shopify’s enterprise strategy, including Shop Pay.
• Posted about how Shop Pay integrates with all platforms. It covers the what and how and also how it works in tandem with the Shop App. 
• Released a report: “Enterprise software does not have to suck.” Their words, not ours 😆
• Joined the Google Cloud Marketplace. Enterprise customers can now more quickly and simply deploy and manage Shopify on Google Cloud. 
• Announced a partnership with Mirakl. This is a first. It allows global enterprises that run on Shopify to easily add marketplace sellers into their operations using the Mirakl Platform.
• Announced a Manhattan OMS integration partnership. Nautica (SPARC Group) will be the first joint customer.