Trends and Opportunities for Makers and Retail Businesses with Carla Pellicano of Faire

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[00:00:00] Emily Thompson: Welcome to Being Boss, a podcast for creatives, business owners, and entrepreneurs who want to take control of their work and live life on their own terms. I'm your host, Emily Thompson, and in this episode I'm chatting with Carla Pellicano from the team at Faire on the current state of the world of brick and mortar and maker commerce.

[00:00:18] What's changing, what's staying the same, and how you can prepare for the future. You can find all the tools, books, and links we reference on the show notes at www.beingboss.club. And if you like this episode, be sure to subscribe to this show and share us with a friend.

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[00:01:35] Carla Pellicano is the head of product at Faire, a marketplace for small wholesalers to provide products to brick and mortar stores where she leads the product management team and overseas product development for all customers. She has 15 plus years of product management and leadership experience across consumer and B2B marketplaces.

[00:01:55] She thrives on problems that require optimizing outcomes across multiple stakeholders. Prior to Faire, she was at Airbnb for over 6 years. Carla, Welcome to Being Boss. I'm so glad to have you here.

[00:02:10] Carla Pellicano: Emily. Thank you for having me. It's a privilege to be with you today.

[00:02:13] Emily Thompson: Perfect. I'm so excited to be chatting with someone from Faire was just telling you that I have been a user of Faire for several years, both on the wholesale side, so at Almanac Supply co.

[00:02:23] My, um, my retail business, we do have a wholesale arm where we make and sell candles and some other items as well. Uh, we've used Faire for several years to sell our products to other retailers. And then now that we have the retail store, which I opened, um, a little over a year ago,

[00:02:42] Carla Pellicano: Congratulations.

[00:02:43] Emily Thompson: Thank you very much.

[00:02:44] Um, I use Fair as a retailer as well. Um, I actually even buy from lots of bosses through Faire, which is a ton of fun to be able to support this community that we've built here at the podcast, um, through that. So we're carrying boss-made goods in Almanac supply Coat. It's like a whole beautiful full circle moment, So I'm very familiar.

[00:03:03] With Faire what it is that you guys do and how it is that you help, um, help this community. I would love to hear from you and so that everyone can know a bit more about Faire, what it is that you do there, and how it is that you found yourself in that space.

[00:03:18] Carla Pellicano: For sure. Why don't I start with what Faire is and then I can give you a little bit on the background of how I made a journey over to Faire.

[00:03:27] So for those of your audience who are not familiar, Faire is an end to end wholesale marketplace that allows independent retailers and brands to build and run their businesses. You can think of it as an online tradeshow or a wholesale version of Etsy where independent brands on one side and independent retailers are on the other.

[00:03:47] And these are the retailers that you often find on the main street in your town. And our job is to connect them and make it easier for them to build really valuable relationships. And our aspiration is to help them compete on a more level playing field against the, the retail big box giants like Amazon and, and Walmart.

[00:04:08] And we think that we have a role to play in bringing them together to do so. So in addition to that core marketplace, uh, where they transact, our platform offers a number of simple but powerful tools. Like data insights, payment terms, logistical solutions that help our customers do business more effectively.

[00:04:27] And over the last 18 months, Faire has expanded to 17 new countries, throughout Europe and Australia. And we are now supporting 600,000 independent retailers and over 85,000 brands in total all around the world.

[00:04:41] Emily Thompson: That's amazing. Congratulations. That is huge growth, I feel, based on what I remember from seeing things a couple of years ago.

[00:04:48] That is massive.

[00:04:49] Carla Pellicano: It is. And I mean, it's, it's been an amazing journey and it's been an amazing story to be part of because I think it just indicates how valuable and important the service that we're providing is to these small businesses.

[00:05:03] Emily Thompson: Yeah.

[00:05:04] Carla Pellicano: And they've been a huge part of actually growing, um, this community.

[00:05:08] Emily Thompson: For sure. I can't imagine having or knowing what I know from the retail side of things and even from the wholesale side of things. You know, I, I spent 10 years before this, um, doing websites, building websites for a lot of makers and oftentimes we would build wholesale platforms on, you know, onto their e-commerce websites, which was a nightmare.

[00:05:33] It was a nightmare to build. It was a nightmare for them to manage. Um, and whenever you're managing those relationships on your own, on platforms that you're building yourself, like it was, it was a heavy lift for a microbusiness to do all on their own.

[00:05:46] Carla Pellicano: Totally.

[00:05:46] Emily Thompson: And once Faire joined the playing field, it was like finally, finally, there is a way to do this, and now that I'm in the retail space, I even see the other side of it is I can't imagine what it would be like to stock a store in the old model now.

[00:06:02] Carla Pellicano: It was a lot of work and it was. I think a lot of unpredictability, the way things used to work is you would go to a live trade show or you would work with sales reps and trade shows only happen a few times a year. They have a lot of benefits. It, there's nothing to substitute being able to like see and feel goods in person.

[00:06:21] But imagine you've just paid for a ticket to go to a trade show as a retailer, or you've, you know, bought a very expensive booth at one of these shows as a brand. You're sort of reliant on chance, like the chance that a retailer is gonna stop by and talk to you, or the chance that you as a retailer are gonna get to everything in this, in this massive showroom.

[00:06:40] Um, and it's, it, there was a lot of unpredictability to it. There was a lot of chance to it, and there was, it was so time-bound. And so I think we really have answered and need and, and, and complimented those things really well by saying like, now you can actually find each other and transact any time of day, 365 days a year, and we're going to do the thing that we are good at and, and the stuff where we have expertise around helping, um, helping with like online matching and discovery to make it so that you can sort of navigate what it is that you're, that you need and are looking for, or the kind of business that you wanna build as a brand more easily.

[00:07:16] Emily Thompson: Yeah. It makes it easier for both sides of the equation, which I think is wonderful and I think just a testament to how much Faire has grown in the past couple of years. It is very needed. It has, is providing a service that tons of people need in order to do more of what it is that they do.

[00:07:32] So I love what you guys do. I'm obviously in on it. Super user, maybe.

[00:07:38] Carla Pellicano: You're a deep user.

[00:07:39] Emily Thompson: I am a deep user from both sides, and I think it's really fantastic what you guys have put together. Um, okay, so what do you do there and how did you find your self, How did you find your way there?

[00:07:49] Carla Pellicano: Yeah, so I lead Faire's, product management and product operations teams.

[00:07:54] The product management team is responsible for working cross-functionally with engineering, design, data science, and a number of other functions to create and build products. So the product that you interact with, either as a brand or a retailer, there is a product manager that's responsible for every aspect of that.

[00:08:11] And the product operations team partners really closely with our product managers to effectively launch those products and get them out there in the world, in the hands of our customers. But also they work really closely with our operational teams who end up supporting those products. Whether you're writing into our customer support team or you're interacting with one of our account managers or one of our sales representatives.

[00:08:33] So those are the two teams that I lead and my journey to Faire. I'll, I'll go back in time, but you can cut me off at any time if I get long winded. Um, but I think something that's sort of interesting or like very relevant to the story of like how I made this journey is, um, A long time ago in college, I was a math major and I, you know, there's not really much that you do as a math major in the world with the skills that you learned in college unless you wanna be a math professor.

[00:09:00] And I did start grad school and drop out and, and realize that I was chasing someone else's dream and I needed to find my own. And one of the things that I had done in college, I had taken some computer science classes and the ones I loved were the really practical ones where you built stuff. Like this was like late nineties, so it was building websites and I loved it. I, you know, this was before there was a website for everything. And so in the back of my head there was this part of me that was just itching to do more with tech to enable like, just more products, services, and experiences for people. So, tuck in the way in the back of my head, but I got lost for a little while.

[00:09:35] Um, the economy was in a terrible place. I drifted around, I owed a bunch of money on student loans and I decided, um, after a year of teaching high school math, I was gonna work in finance to try to pay off those loans. And, and I did that. And that's actually where my career as a product manager was born.

[00:09:53] I worked on trading systems and there were definitely people who knew the math and knew the stats better and could do the modeling that I was originally hired to do faster. But I, I filled a niche where I was talking to the traders who were gonna use these systems and the technologists who were building them, and I could help to spec out and design the system that they ultimately would need. And so this was where my career as a product manager was born. Although in finance, nobody's really called a product manager. Uh, so after however many years there and paying off my loans, I now had the freedom and the terrifying experience of needing to figure out what I actually wanted to do with my life.

[00:10:27] And I joined a couple of friends. Every week in getting together and ideating on companies, we might wanna start sort of going back to that college experience of what's a product that we can build. You know, I can, I now knew my function in the world. I could, I can build technology products. And this was when the iPhone first came out.

[00:10:45] And so we started thinking about mobile apps and what were all these amazing mobile use cases we could build and. Fast forward. I did a startup that was somewhat successful, but not that successful. I, I ran product there for three years. We became a mobile ad tech company, which wasn't something I was passionate about.

[00:11:00] And, and I had the fortune to be able to, um, work on things that I was more passionate about at that point in time. So I moved on, started my own company, and we were working on. And, you know, an artificial intelligence, personal assistant to schedule meetings. That was really hard. It only went so well, but it landed me in an acqui-hire to Airbnb.

[00:11:20] And for those in your audience who aren't familiar with an acqui-hire is it's, it's basically when a company buys you, but it's really, they're, they're looking to acquire talent. So it's really like they gave you a job and they might have given your investors some money as well. Um, so I landed at Airbnb in an acqui-hire in 2014, and that was a huge privilege because I had developed along the way a real sense of respect and admiration for small businesses when I was originally looking for what kind of a company I wanted to.

[00:11:51] I thought it was really weird that Silicon Valley, in particular, heroizes people who raise like a seed round of a million dollars to start a company. And there are all these small business entrepreneurs everywhere who don't do that. They just plunk down their credit card and like go in debt if they have to because they believe in themselves and wanna invest in their passion and their desire to work for themselves.

[00:12:15] And I just have this like deep respect and admiration for the sort of micro entrepreneur, the individual entrepreneur, and I felt like I was gonna scratch that itch a lot at Airbnb because Airbnb was all about empowering hospitality entrepreneurs. And I had the opportunity to, again, do what I love and do what I'm good at, which is build online products to empower anybody who had a little space and the inclination to provide hospitality to earn a living and I think that if you get to earn a living doing something you're passionate about in the world, that's a huge privilege. Um, and so I just felt deeply satisfied working on that. So I spent six years at Airbnb. Honestly, I thought I was gonna be stuck there because I loved the mission so much. I thought there's never gonna be another company I can go work for, where I'm gonna love the mission as much as the one that I love.

[00:13:03] And I also got an opportunity to work on a lot of subject areas that I found really intellectually challenging. I led a team called Marketplace Dynamics, which worked on pricing, commission structure, cancellation policies I was responsible for, my teams were responsible for cancellations during covid, which you can imagine was pretty wild experience.

[00:13:23] And then I met Max Rhodes, our CEO at the end of 2019. And when he started talking about what Faire is doing in the world, I was immediately taken with the mission and I realized that there might be another company I could work for out there. And um, fast forward a year, I ended up joining Faire as, as Head of Product.

[00:13:44] And what really drew me to Faire, as I've mentioned now, is again this same. Unique opportunity to do something that I love doing and to build for small businesses and to, to really build a platform that allows for people with a passion, people with a talent to be more successful and, and in particular, to stay in business, to thrive and to compete against, you know, a, a type of consolidation that I'm not excited to see take over the commerce world.

[00:14:16] Emily Thompson: Yeah. Oh, that's such an amazing story. I, I often find that listening to stories of people on the show, that it is always a really windy road to get to the thing that is yours. Right?

[00:14:29] Carla Pellicano: Totally.

[00:14:29] Emily Thompson: And I feel like you are no exception to that rule of. If you just sort of show up, you do what you have to do, you figure it out, and you end up finding your way to the thing if you, you know, stay true to yourself and, and really with your eye on what you are passionate about.

[00:14:43] And I also have to thank you for being, I'll call it a behind the scenes sort of champion for us in our community and what it is that we do showing up to do that kind of work, um, to build the tools that allow us to show up. Cause many bosses here are in, you know, some real estate, uh, real estate things.

[00:15:02] They're running Airbnb, sort of side hustles, you know, to fill in the gaps or whatever it may be. I know that's a really common thing amongst our community. And then also now being at Faire. Helping out the maker and retail crowds too. Um, you really are like the woman behind the scenes sort of helping make all of this happen for us.

[00:15:21] So thank you.

[00:15:22] Carla Pellicano: I mean, you don't need to thank me. I feel lucky. I feel lucky to work on something that I believe in. And again, I think that those of us who can do that are really fortunate in this world.

[00:15:33] Emily Thompson: Yeah.

[00:15:33] Carla Pellicano: I guess maybe to comment on the other thing that you just said about the windy road. I, I listened to one of your other podcasts where you, and, um, I forget who you were, um, talking with, were really talking about, there's just not a direct path and

[00:15:43] Emily Thompson: Yeah.

[00:15:44] Carla Pellicano: I'm a huge believer in that and my, my first 10 years of career, I was, I felt so tortured, like I was not doing what I wanted to be doing, and every moment of that time I felt like I should be doing something else, and I didn't appreciate that it was part of the journey. And the journey is so important. I have just a tremendous respect at this point for how each moment of your career of really, of your life is just an opportunity that to the extent that you can kind of relax and sink into it and get what you need out of it, I think you can enjoy the journey and the unfolding and, and even more learning and opportunity sort of prevents it presents itself to you.

[00:16:23] So the number one advice I give to people is to just not get so crazy about optimizing each moment of your professional career. It's longer than you think it will be, and it's gonna be far less direct than you wish it will be.

[00:16:36] Emily Thompson: Absolutely great lesson. I agree with all of those things.

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[00:17:43] All right. I'm really excited to dive into kinda the world of retail and product and sort of pull out some of the insights that you've gained, um, over the past couple of years because I do think you have an incredibly unique view of. Sort of the economy of this space and what's happening and the trends and all of those things.

[00:18:03] So I'm really excited to dive into those things with you because I think we can all agree that really with the rise of the tech world, entrepreneurship, being a maker, like a micro maker business and retail doesn't look like it looked like 10 years ago, let alone 20 or 30 years ago. But also that's not very much time in the grand scheme.

[00:18:25] Whenever I think about the timeline of, you know, being a merchant , for example, we're looking at the past four seconds maybe.

[00:18:33] Carla Pellicano: Totally.

[00:18:33] Emily Thompson: When everything has totally flipped, so, Uh, maybe let's even just keep it kind of open ended on that at the moment. What are your thoughts around that from your perspective of how much things have changed and maybe what some of the biggest changes you see happening from where you sit?

[00:18:51] Carla Pellicano: I think that's a really astute, um, observation is just how much change has happened in such a small period of time. I think the last 20 years in particular in terms of everything moving online to start. Then the rise of mobile, then the rise of social, Like there's just been so much change in terms of commerce and I think the thing that I love is how much certain things endure throughout that, in particular, brick and mortar.

[00:19:18] Really firmly establish that it's not going anywhere and that the, the small business owners are as, as resilient and as scrappy and as adaptable as anybody else. And you know, I, I think that we see, one of the trends, I think we see is that even. Sort of things that feel more classic, like brick and mortar.

[00:19:41] The people who are running those businesses are constantly learning and they're constantly embracing new things. Whether that's more technology to better run their store in terms of like point of sale systems, inventory management systems, platforms like Faire to help them source inventory more, you know, efficiently, um, social in terms of how they're actually gonna be reaching customers and getting their brand, establishing their brand and getting it out there.

[00:20:07] So I would say, One of the amazing observations or trends that I've seen is that just people love learning and people embrace new, and people have rolled with all the change that we've seen. And that I think there's a huge amount of opportunity to continue building technology and products that are going to enable, um, businesses to continue to thrive and be more successful.

[00:20:28] So that's sort of a meta point around it, which is that people are excited, adaptable learning, and then I think it's definitely worth think talking for a moment about social and I'm actually curious for how, what your experience in joining with social has been, but there's just no denying that like social media has become such an important part of the commerce world.

[00:20:51] And that is changing so rapidly all the time. Everything we thought we knew about social like five years ago is so different today, even like three years ago. Um, and I think you have more and more consumers who are turning to social media that to inform shopping decisions. And you have social media marketing now as a result of that becoming an increasingly valuable tool and an important tool for small businesses.

[00:21:14] And so I think during busy shopping months in particular. Social media is probably a really important way for businesses to be attracting new customers, to be increasing sales, to be building more connections and community, um, with, uh, with their customers. So social I think is, is probably one of the most fascinating ones and it's impossible to like pin down at any moment.

[00:21:36] I don't think anybody, like however many years ago it was all about you have a page on Facebook and you have a little bit of community about your store, and then there was live selling happening on Facebook and then there's like, You know, TikTok comes along and there's random videos and then those videos are like the biggest source of like shopping and, you know, Instagram ads in terms of like targeting is like beyond impeccable and I, so I think that like there's just so many ways in which one can and should be paying attention to social in terms of how you're gonna grow your presence as a brand or a retailer, and how you're gonna better connect with community.

[00:22:15] Emily Thompson: I agree with all those points. I wanna go back to what you were saying with brick and mortar being this sort of like classic way of doing business because I, because I have a viewpoint from both sides. Like I have Being Boss, we have an online community on, almost online only. We do some things offline or IRL, as we'll call it.

[00:22:32] Carla Pellicano: Yeah.

[00:22:32] Emily Thompson: Um, I see both. What happens when you have an online only business and then when you have a very traditional brick and mortar, you know, we are literally making our own candles in house. Like it is like very hands on, very in it. And very traditional. So I see the world of business and how things are shifting and changing through both of those lenses in a way that blows my mind every time I like sit down to look at my numbers or, you know, think about the next strategy, whatever it may be, because they are completely different worlds.

[00:23:01] And one of the things that I love most about Almanac is that that class, there are so many elements of that classicness that aren't going to change, right? Like they are like foot traffic important. Always going to be important, always will be important. Like there are things that just don't shift and change, and they've been that way for literally thousands of years in some cases, which I love.

[00:23:24] Whereas at Being Boss, we are writing a new playbook every six weeks, more or less. I feel like we are constantly showing up and needing to reinvent the wheel because the strategy that we was working last time isn't working this time. All these things. So there is this, there is this, this, um, expectedness that I have in Almanac and that brick and mortar aspect, or even just retail.

[00:23:47] Cause I even think to some level, like retail online also has a little bit more stickiness to it than, you know, just purely informational service based business that I really love at Almanac. So that is something that I definitely see and feel and I love and I think makes for, uh, makes for a really.

[00:24:06] Less stressful way of doing business. , I'll call it.

[00:24:09] Carla Pellicano: Yeah.

[00:24:09] Emily Thompson: I think compared to a lot of our audience. And then I also wanna touch base on, oh, what was the second point you were making?

[00:24:15] Carla Pellicano: Well, one more thing, just to add on that before we move off of it. I, There's another important thing that, which is I've come to respect the things you don't wanna change with tech.

[00:24:25] Emily Thompson: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:25] Carla Pellicano: Like there are certain things that you wanna try to enhance or augment. I would never wanna show up with a hubris of telling a retailer, You need to, you need to buy these products. And I would love to give you information about things that we see that are selling well. But I'm not gonna have the audacity to say, I know your customer necessarily better than you do.

[00:24:48] Um, and that I know exactly where you are in the world and the kind of foot traffic and, and just sort of all the nuance that you can pick up with, pick up on that. I'm just not going to be able to from where I sit. And, and so we think about our role as like how, like where are the places where we do replace things?

[00:25:06] Where are the places where we try to amplify and be a great support and be able to just accelerate or make easier, um, certain things that free people up for doing what, you know, honestly can't be replaced. And I think like customer service and, and talking to your customers about products and about your products, but the other products that you sell.

[00:25:28] I want to be able to, you know, free you up for that. But I also don't wanna replace the things that you love about running a, running a shop, or running

[00:25:34] Emily Thompson: a brand. Yeahh. Yes. And that hits on the second thing you were talking about of this idea of augmenting what works with what's new through in social media. And that's something we're obviously talking about.

[00:25:47] It's like everyone's favorite topic all the time is social media. Um, in our community especially, everyone's wants to know what's working, what's not working, all of those things. And I do think that brick and mortar business owners do have, um, there is like a special bit of resilience and it has to include.

[00:26:04] Also this, willing to learn the next thing and, and augment what works and what has worked for, you know, so many years with where we're moving into because we are moving into a, we're in it a completely different era of, of commerce. And um, and I love that that's, that's one of the things that you guys do at Faire..

[00:26:27] But it's also one of the things that, you know, we're all looking at and going, Okay, we have to accept that social media as a thing. We have to accept that, um, there are POS systems that can make everything so much easier. Like there's. There's just things that are no brainers that you have to get into, and that resistance to change is not a place for, for our realm of, of business owner to play in if they wanna stay around very long.

[00:26:51] Carla Pellicano: Totally. And I'll say, you know, I obviously, I've worked in tech for 20 years and it's a place where I feel very comfortable. The progress in social media is dizzying to me.

[00:27:01] Emily Thompson: Yeah.

[00:27:01] Carla Pellicano: And I can only imagine for, you know, and, and in some ways this is, this is my trade, this is my work. I, I need to be up on these various technologies and figuring out how we incorporate them into the products and services we build for small business owners where this is like part of how you do business, but it's not your core business. I can only imagine how it feels. And so it, it makes us wanna work harder to make sure that we're providing the right simplification or integration that allows you to use these tools more effectively for your, for your purposes.

[00:27:32] Emily Thompson: Yeah. I will say one of the things that, you know, we've gone into, cuz it's easy with social media, we won't spend the entire time talking about social media, but just to sort of, sort of bring us back to this sort of interesting juxtaposition between old and new is, um, is I'm not a huge user of social media, surprisingly, maybe to some people, Um, but we, I obviously know that there's a place for it in the businesses that I run, and we use it. Um, but we also have found ourselves going back to a lot of those, like old school air quotes, methods of flyers and postcards and bags, and I'm looking at like billboard campaigns and these sorts of things, because whenever you can really pair the two, one of the, the problems that I see with social media often is that it's so again, air quotes easy, um, is that it's the only thing people do.

[00:28:22] Carla Pellicano: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:23] Emily Thompson: but I love pairing it with these, these old methods that are tried and true and still definitely work and are a great pairing to those things. It is that, it is that balance of, of what has worked and what is old and like, tried and true and the new things that are also working and pairing them together that I think is, is something we all need to embrace moving forward.

[00:28:45] Carla Pellicano: Totally. I think that also hits on something that I often say about product development, which is that you have to get off, you have to leave your desk. You can't do only the things that you can just sit here and get done from your computer.

[00:28:59] That's not how you meet people in the world. And I think that there's been a ton, and we've seen this obviously with the rise of Facebook and Google. We've seen over emphasis on advertising, like online advertising as the solution for everything, as the solution for all of your customer acquisition needs. And it's partly because it doesn't require you to leave your desk.

[00:29:20] But I do think that there's a whole lot of room to be creative and to, to figure out how you make offline and online meet more effectively. And you know this obviously because you have a brick and mortar presence and a physical presence is one of those ways.

[00:29:34] Emily Thompson: Yeah. Oh, that's such a great, it's such a great parallel there because that is something that we see often, and you're right. Getting up from your desk, walking away from your phone, going out into the world. I mean, that is, that's, those are really the kinds of connections we're all here to build anyway. We just sort of get lost in the, in the scrolling, that is so easily available to us. Okay, so this juxtaposition of, of old and new, online, offline, all of these things.

[00:30:00] How does Faire fit into this? What are you guys doing to either bridge a gap or fill a hole or, you know, augment, like, what are you guys doing in this space?

[00:30:11] Carla Pellicano: So I think we thought a lot about how we are gonna bridge offline and online in particular when we first started, because we knew that there were a lot of valuable things that people were getting out of going to trade shows or talking to their sales reps that were not gonna be easily replicable just via a website.

[00:30:29] And so we thought a lot about what kinds of services and value propositions we needed to be able to layer in to make it work. So one of the things that you're probably familiar with is that Faire offers free returns on opening orders the first time that you're ordering from a brand, and we recognize that it, there's a leap of faith involved in deciding that, like, I'm gonna order not just one or two, but like some order minimum number of this product to sell in my store.

[00:30:56] What if it doesn't sell? My discovery budget is blown. What if the product arrives and it doesn't meet my standards of quality? You know, obviously we do a lot to vet the quality on the platform, and we hope all our products meet your standard of quality. But what if it isn't the right product for your store and for your customers and, and you didn't have the opportunity to see it in person?

[00:31:16] So we, we provide free returns on those opening orders because we know it's really valuable. In general, but also because it's a really valuable, it's an important part of being able to move from the offline experience to the online one. And that's something that we invested a lot of time and money, frankly, into getting right because it can be really expensive to take a whole bunch of returns back on products that don't sell.

[00:31:38] And, uh, we, we had a commitment because we believed this was gonna be a really important part of bridging that sort of online to offline. And, you know, other things that we're, we're trying to do to help is we recognize that outside of Faire theres obviously a ton of consolidation that's happening in the world and benefits of scale for the Walmarts and the Amazons as a result of it.

[00:32:01] That creates a pretty unfair situation for the independence. And so one of the things that we thought to ourselves is how do we use our scale to be able to provide competitive advantage here? And one of the things that we were able to do is offer net 60 payment terms and those terms you know, we obviously we're footing the bill here, we're figuring out on our balance sheet what are the credit limits that we can afford to offer.

[00:32:25] We do the underwriting and we, we understand the risk. And you know, if you're a brand, this is a huge benefit you get to offer to your retailers that costs you nothing right now. And if you are a, you know, retailer, these are really valuable terms. Like many of our retailers pay with a credit card, so they're essentially getting a net 90, right?

[00:32:45] Cause they have 30 days to pay their credit card bill. And that means they can sell a lot of product before they ever have to pay for it. And you know, more than anybody, that type of cash flow is really valuable. And this is just another example where we're using the our, our scale, we're using our ability to create this tech to be able to offer what we think is an important value proposition for, I guess in this, in this way, it's like a little bit competing against, um, you know, the, the benefits of scale and consolidation that the independence will never have, right? By nature of being independent, that's not how you're going to look to have an advantage. Um, but so we think a lot about where can we use our scale and actually make that your scale.

[00:33:29] So how do we say that like you are just one independent retailer, but actually you're part of a community of 600,000 and a community of 600,000 has a lot of power and has a lot of benefits of scale. And we do that, you know, through a number of other things too, like the data and the analytics that we provide and the trends that we provide.

[00:33:48] Our website and on our blog, those are informed by this much larger community. So you might be one independent brand and not understanding, you know, necessarily what is trending at any given time. And we are able to provide those additional insights because we have obviously a much larger community that we are representing.

[00:34:07] So I'd say those are, those are some of the things. Um, and I, I'm trying to think if there are a couple of other ones. Those are, those are the, probably the, the main ones that come to.

[00:34:20] Emily Thompson: I love it, and as someone who uses it, I can, I feel the benefits of those things and I, I, I love that you put it in those words because I just, you know, I see them, I'm like, Okay, features they're trying to get me over competitors.

[00:34:31] I love that. But hearing it, hearing it be such a thoughtful process as to how it is that you can help us compete and how it is that we can take advantage of that scale and how it is that, you know, even the returns, the sort of online offline balance of if. They're at a trade show, touching, feeling it, talking to the person.

[00:34:49] We are taking a leap on a new brand or a new product or whatever. Um, hearing the thoughts. The thought process behind that. Um, it makes a lot of sense and it makes me, makes me feel great about, um, about using them because I see why they're there and how they're going to be helpful.

[00:35:05] Carla Pellicano: And those returns in particular are also so important to our brands. We want our brands to get discovered by more retailers, and so we know that there's like, how do we, how do we remove the friction for allowing for more of those, those relationships to be develop?

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[00:36:09] I would love to hear about, you talked about, you know, our, our big brother competitors out there. I feel like there is some, there has to be some sort of drive there that has fed into not only you being a part of Faire, but also Faire, just existing. What is the importance that you feel in this economy, in the economy of the brick and mortar of the small makers, et cetera, that really feeds into both you and Faire.

[00:36:35] Carla Pellicano: Yeah, I, I think it's, it's, I think these are shared values. Um, but I'll definitely, I'll say these are my own values, but I'm pretty sure they're very much shared by Faire. Um, we believe that the brick and mortar retailer, the independent retailer, provides outsize value in our world. The places that we choose to lead live, the communities that we like to walk around in, they're not, you know, the strip of big box stores.

[00:37:02] It's the main street in our town that has cute shops that we go into where when you talk to the people who work in that store, they actually know the products that they're selling. They picked them, they have a passion for them. They can tell you brand stories and they're excited to, and they're somebody you're gonna see and there's somebody, your kids are, you know, your kids are gonna go to school with their kids and they're just part of your community.

[00:37:27] There's like a social contract and I guess we feel very much that it's, it's a community and it's an important part of the fabric of our. Of, of our commerce world that we wanna preserve and that we want to, that we wanna support. We don't wanna, like, we're not looking to be charity here in any way. We're not saying like, let's give them money to stay in business.

[00:37:49] We're saying, how do we make it so that they have the opportunity? How do we make it so that there's a level, a more level, and more even playing field? And we really think about. How can we help them work together more and how can we bring them the benefits of the scale that we've accumulated by having so many retailers and having so many brands on the platform.

[00:38:09] So I think it's just this sense that like, this is an important part of our world, is an important part of how commerce should be transacting and therefore, like we are just very driven to continue to support it. And then I would say there, Sorry, there was one other part of your question, um, that I, Or there was one other thing that I was thinking of with respect to your question, but it's escape me. Maybe it'll come back.

[00:38:31] Emily Thompson: If it comes back, feel free to interrupt and we, we will get back to it. That, that is, That's beautiful.

[00:38:39] Carla Pellicano: Oh, I was gonna say actually on the brand side of things, cause I've talked, I think a fair bit about retailers. Um, this one is partly me, partly Faire. Um, I don't know how much is like stated Faire, but I am very much someone for whom like, Uh, junk really bothers me.

[00:38:56] Um, I, I really hate to see poorly made, low quality products that get used and thrown away. Um, I don't know what it is. It just, it drives me crazy. And, um, I've been a big believer. I was raised that you buy something that's well made, you maintain it, you keep it forever if you can. My husband laughs at me cuz I'll say, he'll say Nice shirt.

[00:39:17] Do you know how long I've had this shirt? And he's like, I don't know, since 1992. And , and he's probably right because I, it's real, like I just believe in, in well made quality things. And so I find that the values of the brands on Faire, more closely aligned to mine. These are people who really take pride in what it is they're creating.

[00:39:40] They're building better products. Their interest isn't mass scale and maximizing profit at all costs. They're not looking to outsource everything to get something made as cheaply as possible. They're definitely looking to make a living. They're definitely looking to, um, you know, be successful, but they're not sacrificing what I think is a really important level of quality.

[00:40:01] And so, again, it's just, it super aligns with my values. Like these are the kinds of products that I, I want to see in the.

[00:40:10] Emily Thompson: Yeah. Oh, that is so great. I feel like anytime you're, you're driven by a mission like that and find a space like this in order to work towards it like that, just that gives me warm fuzzies.

[00:40:22] So I'm glad that you have found that in this space. I'm glad that you, I'm glad that you have those values and that you have found an avenue through which you can do work to support them, because you're right, I mean cute little main streets are my favorite, obviously, they're important to me. Um, Right. And I know that the majority of our audience either prefers those kinds of places too or are active participants in them in some capacity or another, either as a, um, as a store owner or as a maker who's supplying them.

[00:40:51] Um, they are the economy that drive our audience in a lot of ways. So, So I'm glad to hear that, um, that you hold that. I feel like you may have answered at least some of this question, but we talked about some of the changes that we've seen in the sort of retail, um, and maker business economy. What have you found has just stayed the same?

[00:41:14] Carla Pellicano: That's a really good question. What has stayed the same? I, I actually think that, um, some things that have stayed the same are that people still want to know the story of the, the brand and the product that they're buying or, and maybe that's actually not stayed the same, Maybe that's amplified over the last however many years.

[00:41:36] But I think that, um, there people wanna feel connected, um, both with the place where they're purchasing something as well as the, the maker of the thing that they're purchasing. Um, I would say, um, I, you know, I would say, I don't know. I guess I'm, I'm about to get into something that is, maybe it's changed and it's also stayed the same, which is that, um, consumers wanna shop local.

[00:42:02] And so I think that's like something that has been the case for a really long time and maybe it's actually gotten stronger. Um, you know, I think there's been a lot of movement around shop local and, um, you know, some, I, I've read some stat not long ago that like the number of independent bookstores in the country has like, actually increased significantly over the last how many years when we all thought that they were dying off, um, you know, about 10, 15 years ago.

[00:42:25] And so, Maybe what I'll say is we've recognized that local retail, local commerce is here to stay. And that's a nice staying power, um, or a nice, um, thing that stayed the same. I think, um, the, the value of customer service is something that has, has also I think remained like pretty constant. And, and in fact, I think it's a, it's, it's a place where, you know, sort of like the, the big online ones.

[00:42:52] Have really tried to compete, right? Because there's a lot of ways in which they can't and, and so they're throwing a little bit of extra emphasis there. I think they come up short because there's nothing like the personal connection that you get when you're actually, you know, in person. Uh, and so I think that's another thing that has, has stayed the same is the emphasis on, um, personal connection and customer service being really important.

[00:43:15] I'll say another one though is price consciousness. I think that generally speaking, um, you know, people are pretty price conscious. That is, I, I, Pricing is something that I worked, I have worked on now, um, for over eight years when it comes to building product, and it is always one of the most important and impactful things and being able to compete on price and, and, um, being able to.

[00:43:40] Offer something at the price points that are important to your customers is really powerful and is really important, and there's a lot of ways of doing that, right? There's, you know, obviously taking costs out of system. It's not just about like discounting something, uh, but understanding willingness to pay, being able to produce something that you still believe in, but that meets the price point of your customer, I think has just remained really important.

[00:44:05] Emily Thompson: Yeah, I agree with all of those points. Even just anecdotally being in the store. I think all of those are incredibly important and you know, we operate in an area that gets a lot of tourist traffic as well, and it's always entertaining to me, the people who will walk in the store, who just wanna buy something with the word Chattanooga on it.

[00:44:22] Carla Pellicano: Yeah,

[00:44:23] Emily Thompson: Like that sort of like they, they wanna rep local. It's not just they wanna buy local, they wanna rep local, which I think is such an... I'm always like, Okay, that's weird, but I got some . I've got things for you.

[00:44:34] Carla Pellicano: Totally.

[00:44:35] Emily Thompson: Um, I

[00:44:36] Carla Pellicano: And that's something that hasn't changed.

[00:44:39] Emily Thompson: Right? All of those things resonate with me for short from things that I've seen in the store.

[00:44:43] And I think, I think it's one of those things that will also, they. Changed or, you know, have been amplified. But I think it's, it is what gives us the staying power to keep doing the thing. Um, and in spite of our, you know, big box competitors. Um, I, before we wrap up, cuz I think we are sort of getting to the end of it.

[00:45:03] I feel like since they have you here, all this experience and, and data crunching and, and building the things, I would love to talk, I would love to like look into the future. Of like what you see coming in the world of product and retail, especially in this mom and pop, um, sort of vibe of what we're talking about here.

[00:45:21] What do you see coming in this little piece of the economy?

[00:45:26] Carla Pellicano: You mean in, in terms of this segment that we've been talking about?

[00:45:29] Emily Thompson: Yeah.

[00:45:29] Carla Pellicano: Do you mean with respect? Okay. Like you're not looking to me to provide macroeconomic guidance.

[00:45:34] Emily Thompson: No, no, no, no. Definitely not.

[00:45:35] Carla Pellicano: Great . I'm good. Um, I, I won't be at all, uh, I won't at all have the hubris to think that, like I can predict what's coming in social.

[00:45:45] Emily Thompson: Sure.

[00:45:45] Carla Pellicano: Because I, I just can't, and as we've already discussed, it changes so quickly, but I would say, what's coming is more change and it is something that people should be looking at. Um, it's a place where, uh, you know, they, most businesses always pay attention to what people in their twenties are doing because people in their twenties are gonna be their customer of like, they're gonna be their most valuable customer in 10 years from now.

[00:46:10] And, and understanding the differences in how they are getting information or just going about their daily lives ends up being really important. So I think. You know, without directly answering your question, I think paying attention to the trends and the things that are really speaking to younger people today is gonna be really important.

[00:46:31] And I think one of the things that we are finding actually, uh, in that generation, Gen Z I think it is, um, is I think there's like a, a real drive toward autheticity. and I think that aligns actually really well with a lot of your audience and the things that we've been discussing here. I think you have, you know, the rise of thrifting in particular amongst this group.

[00:46:56] Like sort of going back to find old well made products that have stood up and that like you can still find secondhand on the store. Um, They're definitely embracing social and they're embracing it in very different ways. And so I think that's important to, to understand and know, um, because they're the indicator of sort of how things are gonna shift over time.

[00:47:15] Um, I think that, uh, they're also very values aligned in terms of how they spend their time and how they spend their money. And so it's probably one of the best moments for the independent maker and the independent retailer in that regard because I think there really is strong values alignment, however, it's balanced with, they're also very frugal.

[00:47:40] And so I do think that there is that price consciousness, um, that we're seeing sort of in that generation that almost is intention with our values, which is why I think you see the rise of thrifting in particular, because it's that nice compromise between the two. So I think that that's a little bit of what's coming from like a generational perspective, I think, in terms of what's coming in terms of the industry and the businesses that we've been talking about.

[00:48:05] We're gonna see more technology and I think that hopefully what we'll see are sort of more holistic solutions. And you know, obviously from the perspective that I have, we are thinking about that all the time. We're thinking about how we can be more of a comprehensive solution to our brands and our retailers because we have.

[00:48:22] The benefit of, of deeply understanding the type of business that they're doing together, which gives us data that understands, you know, where trends are moving and where you know, how demand is changing over time. We understand the things that impact success on either side. We start to understand, um, you know, sell through of our retailers based on like the things that they are reordering.

[00:48:45] We understand the success of a given brand based on how, how well they're able to fulfill orders, you know, in terms of the, the service that they're able to provide. And we're looking to provide additional products and services to continue to help them. Like how do we help brands more successfully, you know, fulfill orders with great customer service for retail so that retailers so that they can, you know, continue to have success and, and reorders how do we make sure that our retailers can be successful with our customers and what can we build?

[00:49:15] So, I think continuing to embrace technology to ease the parts of your workflow that free you up to do things that are more interesting to you, that exercise more of your creativity and that are, that entails stuff that is just hard to replicate from a technology perspective.

[00:49:34] Emily Thompson: Yeah. I mean, that is the point of technology, right?

[00:49:36] To free us out to do all the things we'd much rather be doing. I love all of that and I, I feel, I feel very resonant with everything that you just said, even from my perspective. And it's interesting hearing a lot of that come from you, because I probably haven't really put them in like in line in those ways.

[00:49:53] Um, I do wanna go back to this Gen Z thing cuz for, you know, the audience you may not having the retail store, I actually now employ a lot of 20 year olds.

[00:50:03] Carla Pellicano: Yeah.

[00:50:03] Emily Thompson: To work my store, Um, which has been a trip in itself for sure.

[00:50:08] Did I get them wrong?

[00:50:09] No, you got them spot on. Totally spot on. And one of the things that I wanna share, which I have found kind of maybe kinda crazy, maybe not, I will say, you said authenticity.

[00:50:20] It's one of the things that they value very much. But I also wanna add transparency to this of they wanna know exactly what is in, you know, this thing that you're selling them, where all the pieces came from. They wanna know who made it. Like they wanna know, they need transparency in order to like have the trust to do things.

[00:50:35] So, authenticity, Absolutely. But also transparency.

[00:50:40] Carla Pellicano: Mm-hmm.

[00:50:40] Emily Thompson: And one of the things that, one of the interesting things that I've found amongst our, uh, our retail staff is, 20 year olds do not want to be, or they are not on Facebook or Instagram. At all, like they are not on Instagram. Everyone think about that.

[00:50:54] If your goal is to start chatting up the 20 year olds and your nose is in Instagram all the time, you are not chatting up the 20 year olds. They're not there. They're on Snapchat. And TikTok.

[00:51:07] Carla Pellicano: Yeah. Or BeReal and

[00:51:09] Emily Thompson: Yeah.

[00:51:10] Carla Pellicano: I dunno if there's a few others. Yeah.

[00:51:11] Emily Thompson: There are. Which I think, you know, in our age group, like if you're on, you're probably on Instagram, maybe on Facebook, but like, uh, the, the next generation of buyers hate Facebook.

[00:51:23] Carla Pellicano: Yeah.

[00:51:23] Emily Thompson: Hate Facebook. And what they're doing, what they have done, uh, which I think is really interesting. Whenever I heard that, I was like, Okay. Noted. Noted her. Y'all literally aren't even on it. And I love that for them. Um.

[00:51:34] Carla Pellicano: I do

[00:51:34] Emily Thompson: too..

[00:51:34] Right. Okay. So. Maybe one last question from you, one last, like, sort of big question then I have a couple follow ups.

[00:51:42] Um, where and how can small makers and retailers make the most of the current environment and into the new year?

[00:51:50] Carla Pellicano: Yeah, I would say some, some things that we're seeing is that on the retail side, you know, retailers are buying closer in, they're, they're buying inventory closer to when they're gonna sell it.

[00:52:02] I think most retailers know that like inventory that's sitting around. Is, um, you know, is, is a liability. It's, it's, um, and it's preventing you from discovering new product. And so we're seeing, uh, we're seeing more trends there. And again, we offer, you know, free returns on, on opening orders to try to take some of that risk out of that.

[00:52:19] So it's sort of one thing that we're seeing on the retailer side of things, and I think it's really important to set those expectations carefully with retailers because if you miss. Uh, if you miss and you don't deliver, then it, you know, you're not going to get that repeat sale. You're probably gonna get dinged when it comes to a review, and it's gonna really hurt your, you know, your future ordering.

[00:52:39] So, you know, try to get those, those fulfillment times down and, and be honest about what you are going to be able to commit to. I think it's really important, and I, I'm, brings me the second one is just like being really thoughtful as a brand about what your customer needs are and. Um, you know, just talking to your customers, understand what those needs and trends are, and be able to more accurately predict when you're gonna need inventory.

[00:53:04] Uh, obviously the last couple of years have been really hard for brands when it comes to supply chain issues and shipping challenges. And again, it's another place that we're trying to help with provide data and trends on what's selling and you know, where we see demand really spiking and what ordering ends up looking like so that you, you know, have at least a little bit more information to be able to prepare as a brand.

[00:53:26] But, you know, just being really in touch with your customer and understanding what is needed when, et cetera. Um, And I think another thing that's, that's sort of really important for brands and we've been talking about it, is diversifying the ways that make sense for you, diversify your sales channels.

[00:53:43] And so, um, you know, we, this is something we didn't actually talk about specifically, but over the last like 10, 15 years, I think we've seen the rise of omni channel where you have, um, you are basically finding your direct to consumer presence. You're finding, you know, your brick and mortar store and you know, what we saw in, you know, the early teens, I guess, was this rise of direct to consumer and.

[00:54:09] And it being really hard, it being really hard to like, develop individual relationships with customers and people moving and realizing that wholesale is a really good opportunity if you are looking to scale. And so I think getting started on Faire and, and really being able to like dip your toes into wholesale without having to go to an expensive trade show I think is a really good option as well.

[00:54:31] Emily Thompson: Perfect. Awesome. I agree with all of those things. From this side of things, I don't think I have anything to add. Mostly, keep on keeping on because what we are doing is super important.

[00:54:41] Carla Pellicano: What you're doing is super important and I, like I said, it is nothing but a privilege for us to be working to continue to support your and your community's ongoing success.

[00:54:50] Emily Thompson: Well, I very much so appreciate it. For sure. And Carla, thank you so much for coming to chat with me. This has been an absolute treat. If folks wanna get in touch with you or maybe just find Faire, how can they, how can they do those things?

[00:55:03] Carla Pellicano: Check out Faire, www.faire.com it's the French word to make or to do. And, um, we look forward to, um, more of your community joining ours.

[00:55:16] Emily Thompson: Perfect. Absolutely. And my last question, it's always my favorite question for everyone. What's making you feel most boss.

[00:55:23] Carla Pellicano: What's making me feel most boss? Ugh, this is a good question to end on. One that I thought wish I had thought about a little more.

[00:55:30] Emily Thompson: Yeah. I like it to come. Just first thing that pops in your head.

[00:55:34] Carla Pellicano: What's making me feel most boss? Um, we're in the middle of 2023 planning right now. Mm-hmm. . And I think the thing that's making me feel most boss is seeing my team put together plans and strategies for next year that are really customer centric and that are like really steeped in what's a customer problem and need to be solved and how are we gonna go about solving it?

[00:56:00] I think as companies get a little bit bigger, you often start to see plans that center around how do we grow business and how do we optimize metrics and. Uh, I've worked really hard. Max has worked really hard. We've worked really hard in building a customer, a customer centric organization. And so in the moment where you see that happen, uh, I, where I'm seeing that happen, I'm feeling really proud and I'm feeling really successful.

[00:56:25] Emily Thompson: Nice. Perfect. Great answer. Carla. This has been a treat. Thank you for coming and chatting with me.

[00:56:29] Carla Pellicano: Thank you so much, Emily. I really enjoyed our time.

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