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[Voiceover]: Welcome to the Checkout. We catch up with previous add to cart guests and ask them five quick questions to get to know them better and leave you with a little extra inspiration to get you through your Friday.
Nathan Bush: Today's checkout features Jason Greenwood from Greenwood Consult, where he helps B2B and D2C brands across Australia and New Zealand reimagine themselves for the digital age. He describes himself as a digital native, a futurist from way back and a consultant obsessed with helping businesses do e commerce. Right. Jason Greenwood, welcome to the Checkout. I feel like we know so much about you already from your LinkedIn, from your podcast, from your newsletters, but we're going to go to the next level here with five quick questions.
Jason Greenwood: Wow.
Nathan Bush: Number one, what is the weirdest thing you've ever bought online?
Jason Greenwood: It's not weird to me, but it'd be very weird to the audience. I used to fly competitive radio controlled helicopters and my very first ever helicopter I bought from an online RC helicopter store in Hong Kong.
Nathan Bush: Nice. You still got it.
Jason Greenwood: I don't fly radio controlled helicopters anymore, but yeah, I was really into that for about 10 years.
Nathan Bush: That's cool.
Jason Greenwood: Spent way too much money. Probably spent probably spent 50 grand on helicopters.
Nathan Bush: Oh gee whiz. Do you look at drones now and
Jason Greenwood: go, oh look, drones are super interesting. Just never got into them.
Nathan Bush: Fair enough. All right, number two, who is your favorite retailer?
Jason Greenwood: Wow, that's a tough one. I've probably got a few. I really like what Patagonia does in the market. They have been a market leader in the convergence of content and commerce for such a long time and they have such a social conscience that just really doesn't seem faked. And they've kind of had it right from their founding and the lifetime guarantee of their products and the recycling capability of their products and then the content that they made where they had a truck that went around America and visited people that needed their garment or their shoes repaired. As a whole content series, I just have really always liked how they've gone to market. So even though I'm not a Patagonia customer directly, because I buy a 10 to try to buy local and try to buy Macpac and Kathmandu, I just love how they've done commerce for a really long time.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, absolutely. It's one that just keeps coming up over and over again. Number three, which retail fad do you wish was history? I can't wait for your response on this one.
Jason Greenwood: Shitty Click and Collect.
Nathan Bush: What makes Shitty Click and Collect?
Jason Greenwood: So I say Shitty Click and Collect is Click and Collect. That masquerades is Click and Collect. But it's actually shipped to store. Yeah. So a lot of merchants, when they first try to do Click and Collect, it's easier for them to just make their stores a destination in the checkout and say I'll just have it shipped to the store. But then it's still going to take two or three days to get to the store for Click and Collect. And then they try to pass it off as true Click and Collect. I just think that that creates such a terrible experience for Click and Collect that they're actually doing more harm than harm than good. I'd rather see merchants wait until they have a proper distributed order management system in place and do it properly from storage stock, then do shitty wannabe Click and Click.
Nathan Bush: And what do you think is a minimal pass mark for time between ordering online and being able to pick it up in store?
Jason Greenwood: Well, in that true Click and Collect environment, it has to be same day. Has to be same day? Sure. Give or take a few hours. Maybe have a cutoff time at the end of the day or something like that. Well, if I, if I close at 6pm then maybe I have to place my order at least an hour before closing or something like that. But I think it has to be same day. Otherwise don't bother.
Nathan Bush: Absolutely. All right. Number four, can you recommend a book or a podcast that our listeners should immediately get into? Wow.
Jason Greenwood: I've got quite an eclectic mix of podcasts very intentionally, because I don't want to be in an echo chamber of just e commerce. In fact, apart from maybe yours, I don't really listen to any e commerce podcasts at all because I don't want to.
Nathan Bush: I like that. Maybe. Yeah.
Jason Greenwood: Yeah. Except for maybe yours. I don't go out there and seek out, but I seek out a lot of business and mindset podcasts. So I love Joe Rogan. I think he's absolutely Amazing. Listen to his podcast religiously. I listen to a lot of Kerwin Ray. I think he is amazing. Just talking locals here, obviously. Mark Boris, it's called the Mentor. I think his podcast is amazing. I really focus primarily on business and mindset podcast, positive mindset podcast. That's anything that can inspire me to be a better person as well as a better business person. Those are the things that I tend to focus on.
Nathan Bush: Yeah, nice. Cool. And number five, finish this sentence. The future of retail is.
Jason Greenwood: The future of retail is. Man, you're going to hold me to this. I know it depends on how far we're talking, but the future of retail is VR.
Nathan Bush: VR.
Jason Greenwood: VR.
Nathan Bush: Nice.
Jason Greenwood: Yep.
Nathan Bush: I knew you weren't going to say headless.
Jason Greenwood: No, I think the future of retail is VR. That's what I think.
Nathan Bush: Why is that?
Jason Greenwood: I think once VR gets to the point where it's matrix like and we can't tell the difference between physical and virtual, why would I get my car and drive to a physical store if I can feel like I'm literally in a physical store, but online and connected remotely like the holodeck of the Starship Enterprise? If I can basically have that type of experience, then there's no need for physical retail anymore because you can replicate that in such an immersive way digitally. And I think that AR is leading the way. And I think that both with wearables particularly, and that merging of online offline, even in our everyday life where we're going to be able to have AR glasses with overlays of information of everything that's around us, almost like a heads up display, like a fighter cockpit. I think that's kind of that immediate next step. And then I think we'll have VR bodysuits will be next. And then once you get beyond that, then you've got direct brain stimulation and brain implants and the whole nine yards. So Elon's obviously working pretty hard on that. So, yeah, Look, I think VR in the long term, say 10 years at least, plus maybe even 20 to 30 years plus, VR replaces physical experiences once it's good enough to where we can't easily distinguish the difference.
Nathan Bush: There we go. You heard it here first. Jason Greenwood, thank you so much for joining us on the checkout today. And go back and listen to the main episode if you want more of Jason's thoughts, especially around retailing in New Zealand. To hear more from Jason, jump back into episode 99, where we deep dive into the state of online commerce in New Zealand and get his tips on how Australian businesses can expand into the New Zealand market successfully. And in true Jason style, it's all done with no nonsense, straightforward advice. Enjoy. Thanks for listening and until next time, keep adding to Carpenter.
