meghana's Profile

Great point! I’m not sure if the brands have access to the data since as far as I know, the brands are commoditized on the platform – ie, customers differentiate on style, fit, colors vs. brands. The brands Stitchfix uses are typically up-and-coming or relatively unknown, giving the platform a bit more leeway than it would have with better established brands

I’m just happy to see innovation in this space, finally. I do believe that retail is moving towards a hyper-personalization space made possible by perfect fit scans and 3D printing. It’s a shame to me that it took so long for this sort of innovation to come to the lingerie space and I wonder how long it will take for it to become mainstream. I, for one, will be waiting.

Hi Megan, great post. One thing that strikes me as super useful from this data is not just the specific event prediction, but the general life-stage prediction. I think correctly identifying the life-stage of your customer is far more valuable than any single event. This helps you track the customer throughout their buying journeys and hopefully predict the next one. For example, though I’d coupon for unscented lotion, I’d also start retargeting with infant formula so as to drive the behavior I want when the baby is actually born. A month or two after, I may push infant clothing or even makeup / supplies for the mother. A few months after that, 1st birthday party supplies. And so on and so forth.

Great post Andrew! I think your predictions about Netflix’s future challenges are spot-on – I think that if they continue to produce high-quality and addicting content, however, you hedge against losing other contracts with fully-owned shows. TBH, I think that’s the route they should double down on in order to completely shelter themselves from competitive threats (ie only using other content to drive eyeballs / signups and then getting people addicted on owned content)

hi megan what a cool topic to choose! i think it’s a great intellectual question. in my opinion, tinder doesn’t face a lot of the pressure that other platforms may face. that’s because the users aren’t engaging in transactions and multi-homing has 0 costs to both sides of the platform. because tinder and other dating apps require minimal effort (or at least that’s how i would think about it), users can freely bounce between apps while still contributing to supply or demand on all platforms. so i think tinder actually thrives with healthy competition, as they make the total market bigger and making dating apps a more legitimate space in general.

hi daniella great post – i was so excited to read through it. you’ve nailed a lot of the issues that ebay is working through right now, particularly in regards to its fundamental model – what needs to be changed and what should be preserved? spinning off paypal due to market pressure has added a lot of pressure to the business model because a loss of top-line growth / revenue as well as control / power with sellers.

you’d be surprised how important the heritage auctions part of the business really is, especially in niche verticals such as antiques, collectibles, and art. the live auctions market alone, for example, is a significant business opportunity that resides in the margins of what ebay has to offer. but at what point does that drive ebay into irrelevance or else cannibalize our image as a modern ecomm player?

the real question we’ve struggled with lately is what you touched upon – the issue of buy it new / buy it now. my current boss, devin, was convinced that that buy it now was the best strategy for ebay about 4 years ago. we launched a huge initiative that involved partnering with retailers (the anti-amazon contingent), seeking out n-1 inventory (new, last-season inventory, or else liquidation) and using these efforts to supplement the buy it now program.

the truth is, it was a huge disaster. ebay’s brand reset was confusing to the customer and ignored what ebay was fundamentally good at – surprising at delighting a “treasure hunter” buyer rather than appealing to the run-of-the-mill eComm shopper. in those few moments, we lost our way.

devin’s now focused on selection and breadth and i think that’s the key to ebay’s future. we dont see amazon as a competitor at all, and rather, are focused on providing the best and most comprehensive selection possible for our buyers

hi sonali, great post. i love thinking about craigslist and especially enjoy craig’s eccentric behavior. i think he’s a crazy genius!

in the long-term, my money is on craigslist for a few reasons:
1. early entrance – because craigslist essentially reinvented online classifieds, it till date benefits from embedded network effects that few can compete with (trust me, we @ eBay tried, even having had financial stakes in Craigslist)
2. company structure – because craigslist is still run out of craig’s home in the inner sunset and isn’t a corporation (.org). craig has openly said he doesn’t care about profits and wants to simply provide the best service for the economy. it’s very hard for corporations with shareholder and internal pressure to compete with a mission like that
3. hyper-local connectivity – the hyper-local market is something a lot of people have tried to crack (nextdoor, kijiji, etc) – though some have achieved success in particular markets, having an international hyper-local network is extremely difficult if not impossible. because craigslist has been able to achieve this down to the neighborhood-level through its early entrance, it offers an unparalleled service to its local users

Ravneet, great post. I’m curious about Sephora’s long-term omnichannel strategy. I worry that their storefronts are more and more becoming showrooms that simply drive online replenishment cycles. Since their offline locations are typically in high foot-traffic / volume retail spaces (ie, expensive leases), I wonder how essential this offline presence really is and if the capex could be significantly reduced with smaller or fewer stores. I agree that it’s an essential part of the experience and enhances brand stickiness / deep engagement – I’m just wondering about the ROI.

Hi Ian, great post. One thing I’ll add is that a major driver for this election was earned media – ie, the unsolicited sharing and distribution of content. The biggest takeaway for me about the psychographics play was that it enhanced earned media way more than Hillary’s demographic play. Because his talking points were so specifically targeted to behavior and ideologies, people felt more connected to his message and thereby more likely to share and identify with it publicly. The demographics targeting didn’t lead to this kind of personal affiliation. This very well could have led to fewer people identifying closely enough to Hilary to distribute her content and eventually, bring them to the polls.

Hi Nupur, great post. I have a different view on this – i worked with TRU quite closely when I was running the Toys division at eBay and believe that they’re still a major player because of the nature of their offline business. Though certainly they don’t have the logistical infrastructure in place for a serious challenge to Amazon (and they were bitten in the back by both Amazon and eBay at various points in history), they still provide a unique and immersive offline experience that drives the business, especially at the holiday time (scarcity, lack of time, etc). This automatically drives their online engagement despite the clunky interface. Children and thus parents actively want to go to TRU to spend time in their store which then drives a lot of brand stickiness. The important point about TRU is that they still have a substantial market share and all they really need is a flip of the switch with online (Shopify, etc) to make up for lost ground. I think they’re definitely behind, but have an easy way to catch up

Hi Nupur, great post. I have a different view on this – i worked with TRU quite closely when I was running the Toys division at eBay and believe that they’re still a major player because of the nature of their offline business. Though certainly they don’t have the logistical infrastructure in place for a serious challenge to Amazon (and they were bitten in the back by both Amazon and eBay at various points in history), they still provide a unique and immersive offline experience that drives the business, especially at the holiday time (scarcity, lack of time, etc). This automatically drives their online engagement despite the clunky interface. Children and thus parents actively want to go to TRU to spend time in their store which then drives a lot of brand stickiness. The important point about TRU is that they still have a substantial market share and all they really need is a flip of the switch with online (Shopify, etc) to make up for lost ground. I think they’re definitely behind, but have an easy way to catch up