PlayAbly Podcast Episode 7: ShopTalk Fall Recap

In PlayAbly Podcast 7: ShopTalk Fall 2024 Recap, we chat with Seema and Angelo from PlayAbly, fresh from their ShopTalk Fall experience. They share key highlights, including engaging conversations about gamification, exciting trends, and unique insights from their meetings with top brands. Seema discusses the growing demand for gamified shopping experiences, while Angelo reflects on how PlayAbly’s personalized games stood out in the crowd.

Missed the event? Catch up on the latest trends in eCommerce and gamification! Check out more about PlayAbly at PlayAbly.AI and explore the next ShopTalk event at ShopTalk.

Tune in for tips on building strategic partnerships, improving retention, and how gamification can revolutionize your customer engagement. Don’t miss out on the buzz—join us at ShopTalk Spring 2024 in Las Vegas!

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Transcript

PlayAbly Podcast 7: ShopTalk Fall 2024 Recap

Kajal: [00:00:00] Okay. We're back with the next episode of the Playably podcast.

Joining us today is Seema and Angelo from our team. They have just returned from Shop Talk Fall, which was on last week. Talked to a bunch of people, went to everything, saw everything going on, and we're reporting for everybody who wasn't able to join. welcome Seema and Angelo. We'd love to get your insights on Shop Talk Fall.

First of all, how are you recovering? 

Seema: Thank you for having us. It was so busy and I can't believe how tired I was afterwards, but I'm excited that I went. 

Angelo: I'm glad that we were also vaccinated and we got our flu shot and our COVID shot before. 

Seema: There's a lot of togetherness.

one thing I loved about shop talk is how many experiences they had for people to be together. There were before, and after events but they also had, meetups, you could talk to people around all the food. I've eaten a lot of danishes lately. it was nice because [00:01:00] that's where you really connect with people in those small conversations. 

Angelo: I also thought of ShopTalk was that they offer some of the conferences you have to pay for but with ShopTalk they make their meeting platform available to everyone.

that gives brands and vendors a chance to connect with each other. It's all double opt in. they have a huge meeting room. it was a great way to, find people that you're interested in and meet with them. 

Seema: Yeah. And also talking to people, the way the meeting room is, in Vegas, I'm hoping that everyone who listens to this comes and sees us in Vegas, there's even more tables.

there is all of this chance in between getting to your table, because it is actually hard to find your table, to talk to people on the, big corral. I chatted with a lot of people in that section as well. There's a lot of chances to connect with people how you want 

So you can be in a talk, Angelo and I are working all the time. So we didn't get to see every talk, but, there was a really great one that, called to us about gamification, you can sit and listen and then afterwards talk to people about the same topic you can talk to people at a table, at a one on one session, in the hall, lots of [00:02:00] talking.

Kajal: So the gamification it's great to see you PlayAbly's vision for gamification. aligning with the trends. That were discussed here at shop talk. was there anything that really stood out to you from that? 

Seema: I think one of the things that was really striking to me is that before talk, a lot of people came to us and they had wanted shop with gamification, but we didn't have any resources So a lot of people were thinking of it before that talk and chatting with us, but then after the talk, scores of people came up to us.

what struck me is, they were talking about how gamification empowers people to feel like they're winning at shopping, basically, I would say that's true. The one thing I would add that I didn't see in that talk, but we do is that we do it in a human centered way. It's a user experience design that is very much based on personalized data. we take it one step further and personalize it by brand.

Angelo: Just to put on what Seema said, we did have a lot of people come up to us. After that [00:03:00] gamification talk, which is great because it's always great to have other, thought leaders in the space also spread the gospel of gamification.

It was funny we talked before how, the brands that we talk with, always have these ideas like, Oh, it'd be really cool if we could have this sort of interactive experience. or game. when we would talk to them, I'm like, please meet Seema, She's the one that makes all your dreams come true.

I'm just a numbers guy. 

Seema: Then when they'd ask me, how much does this cost? I'd send it right back. 

Kajal: That's great. Tag team effort. Were there other gamification companies that you saw on the floor? 

Angelo: it was funny 

Seema: because ShopTalk had games on the floor? it would have made sense. They had an arcade section. with some amazing odd things. I couldn't actually figure out. I was sit dancing with another dude.

Some vendor, had a thing where you could use your brainpower to open a safe. We never figured out how the game worked. It was very perplexing. They had laser tag. and other games. in the exhibition.

So I thought it was so interesting that none of the other vendors were doing gamification, which is great to be ahead of the [00:04:00] curve on some level. Though a lot of brands said they were trying to do gamification on their own 

Kajal: with spinners. 

Seema: Yeah. I had a lot of people talk to me about spinners, a lot of spinners.

A lot of them are using SMS to encourage people to upsell. But not in a systematic way. And also, I'd ask them, do you know what people actually want? Have you looked at your data? And no, I would say, Angelo, you're the data person. Do you feel like anybody looked at their data?

Angelo: No, one's ever looking at their data. Sometimes people do look at their data, but I think people don't look at it in the way that we're looking at it in terms of who is your existing audience and what are the ways that you could take the insight that lives in the database and how can you build interactive experiences to get those audiences to engage?

I think what struck me, in these one on one meetings was that people had, requested to meet with Playably because they were interested in how they could use gamification as a retention mechanism. We went with one brand, they sell fireworks, and so they mostly sell to wholesalers. she was basically asking, a lot of the business is transactional they can count on July 4th, these special occasions, [00:05:00] the wholesaler's gonna call their account rep and then they'll put in the order.

And for her, she's what are some fun ways that they can keep the brand top of mind so that the wholesaler is thinking of them, not just when they need something, I think games as a retention tool and games as a way to.

surprise and delight your customers, when we show them the admin calendar demo, people really like the idea of making a digital admin calendar accessible to those who couldn't purchase a physical admin calendar for whatever reason. 

Seema: Yeah, I think that was definitely one of the big things, like this sort of surprise and delight was a big thing customers wanted from us.

the other thing I, thought was so interesting, is that so many people have products that are hard to understand. We'd be on the floor and it's like, what do you sell? And they're trying to explain it and they couldn't even explain it. And they were sometimes even the founder, they're so good at the product they're selling, but they're not necessarily good at selling it.

So they're good at making it. They're good at finding the fit for the product you need, but they can't explain it to you. And they certainly can't. Explain the benefits. we would show them some of our games. Some of our games are definitely more [00:06:00] education based and they were like, yes. often they were telling us the hardest thing they have to tell their customers or get their customers to understand, to buy it. And we're like, oh, that's easy because so many things are much harder to say out loud than just do. And I think that was a big trend. People are like, wait, you could do this.

And we're like, yes, we could do that, and in fact, that's actually some of the easiest games to do just explaining your product. Think about, for example, you're trying to show them how much it fits into a box. That's hard to say if somebody gives me numbers, but you just do a game actually that's just a puzzle right 

Kajal: are there any other common Issues that you saw from e commerce founders or brands that you spoke to.

Is there anything like commonalities that we've seen, whether, a trend or a technology base, what are the problems that people are having right now?

Seema: I think one thing that's really been challenging is there's a couple of big problems they kept saying to me. One of them is ad sales are costing them more, partly with the election, partly with [00:07:00] uncertainty. so getting new customers costs them more. And then the other thing is, a lot of people feel like their markets are saturated.

there was a number of brands and we talked to all these people, we're very agnostic, and I don't have a particular favorite for any product, We work with any makeup company, they feel like these markets have become saturated because a few years ago, e comm was booming and now, being different seems like a really important thing to people for both of those reasons.

Angelo: I think that's why the gamification message resonated We we're the only vendors doing gamification, and providing something novel and unique, when people think of gamification, they often think of a spinner, which is already cool But when we show them bespoke games built for their audience, and specific pain points, that message resonated really well. 

Seema: It was so fun to play the game. Angelo had the games on his computer and we had a screen. people would walk by, and, we're working on some trivia games for big brands.

everyone would walk by and be like, Oh my God, I know the answer. it was funny because a lot of people, particularly [00:08:00] the trivia one. really Felt social everyone was like, Oh my God, I got it. very few people got the right answers, which was fun.

we had another game for a toy company where there are toys dropping and everyone was like, Oh my God, this was so cute and it was fun to see people happy while connecting to the brand, both of those were key to brand awareness. Those games were created for brand awareness.

Kajal: And I think everyone has a history with games of some sort, whether it's a trivia or an arcade game. So I feel like it really hits that soft spot, that nostalgia for them and is an opening for people who are unlike CIMA and able to just go and have a conversation with anybody that they see.

People like myself and I know our CEO John is a little bit more introverted, so being able to have that is a big help. 

Seema: Yeah, and if you think about selling a product, those people who are connected to it will do better word of mouth. So it actually does two things, right?

It connects them to that product, and then it makes them want to share, Oh my god, I did this trivia game. I won. Did you win? 

Kajal: I [00:09:00] hope there are, people going out there saying, Oh, hey, we met this cool brand. We played fun games with their booth. Go see them. We love them. Evangelism. We love evangelism. 

Seema: So it happened at ShopTalk. I met some dude and he was like, Oh, I've heard of Playably. And I was like, you have? we had just transformed our brand name. he said, yeah. And I was like, where?

he said, somebody came up to me and told me they talked to somebody here. And I was like, that was me. They talked to me. And then, he told somebody else. at an event, she was like, Oh, everyone keeps saying, I have to go over to your booth. I was like, you can come, or you could just play it here.

So we play the game there. 

Kajal: it's fun. And if anyone did miss out on playing our games, we do have a game arcade on our website, playably. ai. Feel free to head over there and check out some of the games from our past clients live and ready. No leaderboards yet, but those are coming.

Angelo: Coming.

Kajal: Advice would you give to e commerce founders when it comes to building [00:10:00] strategic partnerships after attending events like this?

Angelo: I think, the ratio of brands to vendors is not 50 50. of the attendees, let's say there's about 2000 I think 25 percent are brands and about 79 percent are vendors. at other conferences, the brands have different badges.

So the different badge color compared to the vendors you see oh, that person has a green badge and then they all attack them like hungry wolves. But, I felt like everybody had the same badge to talk to everybody, not that she wouldn't talk to anybody anyway, even if they had different badge colors, I think one thing brands to think about is you're getting pitched to a lot.

are any of these vendors actually asking you questions about your business? and your pain points? I think a lot of times these vendors go straight into the pitch without really listening or figuring out the right solution for you.

 that's why our team had success and was able to book so many meetings we listened to what your pain point? is and what you're trying to solve? There’s one brand we met. that has cordless kitchen appliances. like a kettle. that only works if the stove is an induction stove.

If it's on an electrical stove [00:11:00] or a gas stove, it will blow up and it won't blow up. It won't work. But when we talked to him, he's yeah, this is the new product that's launching and I want to make sure that, people are, it's very clear that this product only works for this specific stove and so Oh, we could totally build you a game to show that.

it's going to be fun for us to build something, that explodes when it's on the wrong stove, but it also helps him because it's very clear to the customer. Is this product right for you? And that saves them in terms of reviews and returns, which is the pain point he had, for this new product he's launching.

We always joke that our slogan is we make online shopping fun, but we're also making it fun for this specific audience. And tying it to the specific pain point or business objective that you have. 

Seema: I think that also brings up the thing I noticed, people were sometimes surprised when they came by us.

We are partners, what happens is they all want to, know what kind of game? Because they're so surprised somebody wants to meet their need and actually work with them. I think a lot of vendors, are, pushing a one stop shop kind of solution, which doesn't always work for everybody.

they love, [00:12:00] that person you're talking about, he loved the idea of coming up with a game with us. he was having such a good time being like, wait, it can explode. And we were like, yeah, we can make it explode. when you go there as a brand owner, you're also vetting the company as people to work with.

if they're just selling you and not. Interested in you or your brand or your, raison d'etre, then they're not going to give you what you need. Good advice. 

Kajal: Good advice. I know the, vendors are Outnumbering all of the brands, I believe all the brands get to attend for free, to a lot of these conferences or even get their travel paid for.

if that's not something you've done previously, we have shop Talk coming up in Las Vegas in March, we'll definitely be there. come by and say hi to us, if you're not signed up for it, you could attend or get paid to attend, and meet with vendors to see what's, happening on the forefront.

Any other parting words of wisdom that you would share, any actionable [00:13:00] takeaways, things that people should be implementing into their e commerce strategies besides gamification, of course, we know that's number one.

Angelo: just build games. 

Seema: Just hire us to build games. That's all you need? actually one of the things I thought throughout this, because there is a lot of noise. I'd walk by somebody and then I'd be like, did we just talk? And they're like, no, that's our competitor.

And there are so many, you meet hundreds of people. So you lose track from the vendor side, we actually really understand brands cause we're also hearing all this noise. pick your battles, pick the thing that's going to make you feel like your brand is going to stand out.

Angelo: as a brand you're gonna get hit up with all these invites to go to parties and you should sign up for all of them and you should go to all of them because it's open bar, and it's free food and usually the food's pretty good and, sometimes you get fun swag. the one thing about Toptak, for people that are, going to spring for the first time.

Make sure you have room in your suitcase because for brands and vendors, they have this, swag store. every day they have a rotating selection of different items you can shop for and you can get up to five. I have [00:14:00] two milk frothers. I gifted one to my friend, but there was also, one brand called Sweden's that offers.

Flavored wipes. 

Seema: Flavored, intimate wipes. 

Kajal: baby wipes? 

Seema: No, and I was laughing because we were at the thing with this woman who sells sheds, and I was saying to her, they have strawberry but not cherry? I was like, who missed the joke? how did I get cherry? 

Angelo: I got the honey lavender one. maybe I'll test it out this weekend. 

Seema: They were giving them away and you could see everybody go up to them because it was like Elf and then Squishmallows, the new Squishmallow one. They had those. So it was like Squishmallows, Elf, and then these.

Angelo: Sweetums. 

Seema: everyone was like, okay, huh? And it was like, everybody's brains were working. Like you could see all of them were like, Oh, huh? 

Kajal: Let's build up a game. we can reach out and be like, Oh, you really 

Seema: stood out to us. That's what we were saying. there's [00:15:00] also the one, what was the nuts one?

Angelo: Oh, Happy Nuts? 

Seema: Happy Nuts. It's powder for men's parts. 

Angelo: There's a lot of fun games we could do for brands like these. 

Kajal: And of course, the question that's on everybody's mind. How was Busta Rhymes? 

Angelo: It was my first time, and all I can say is the crowd loved it. 

Seema: The crowd loves Buster. first of all, you walked in and there was a chance to get a photo, like an ID picture like spy kids or something.

they said, if you choose to accept the mission, you can see Buster Rhymes on Thursday. it was at house of blues in Chicago, an old school theater, type venue, with all these stacked people. Busta Rhymes is dropping a new album.

Angelo: heard it on the Play As We Podcast. 

Seema: That's right. You heard it first. It's gonna drop on Thanksgiving. he had I don't know how many, people were there, like hundreds of people doing this, new line dance that he has on the album. It was amazing to watch. It was a [00:16:00] cultural experience.

Kajal: Love it. Marketing done well. don't miss your chance to hit all of this up in March. Las Vegas will be at Shop Talk Spring and we hope you will be too.