2025, eTail Boston. Keynote Fireside: Personalization at Scale: How to Harness Data at Every Point of the Customer Journey

Moderator: Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: I did just make the joke with Felice on the side that I'm in her CRM because I have three kids. But don't sleep on her. Crocs, check them out. They're really cool. Couldn't be just shame. Those are fantastic. Yes. Oh my gosh. Special conference.

Feliz Papich, SVP, Digital Technology, Experience & Insights, Crocs: Crocs.

Moderator: Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: We bring 'em out for the big events. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: Feliz, what a time for us to be chatting an expert on data and personalization at a time when personalization in AI is. Pretty much everything is, I'm sure it'll be the buzz, the buzzy topic of the moment, but let's jump in. Yeah. On all you're doing at Crocs, what, first of all, I feel like your customer has really evolved beyond, I don't know who we knew of it in the past.

Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: Who's your customer today and where are you learning about them?

Feliz Papich, SVP, Digital Technology, Experience & Insights, Crocs: Yeah. Yeah. I think the great thing that I've always loved about being with the Crocs brand and the hey dude brand is. It's a Democratic brand. So there's every customer, there's different ranges of customers, different interests. I think our customer has their love for personalization obviously, and we love to lean into that and self-expression.

And so it's been this very fun moment to have a customer base that spans different demos, different age groups different interests, different product affiliations. So we've really had this. This great moment of experimenting with all different types of messaging which also comes with a challenge and figuring out how to personalize that information.

So we really leverage, I'd say, collecting the data. So that's priority one, is that we make sure that we're doing activations where there's a exchange of information with the consumer so they feel like there's value in providing you information and vice versa. So we leverage an app, specifically for that.

Our direct to consumer channels are really important because that's that zero party data, that's that data that we have direct access to. We've always really been heavily into all marketplaces, so we've leaned right into all of that. With that comes their information on shipping, and we're able to stitch where we're getting acquisition from across all the digital landscape.

So it's really critical to have that value exchange with your customer at all times. You can leverage that and lean in with them. Is there an A Croc app and a hey dude app? I feel like there's people in here on the hey dude side that wish they had an app. But yeah, we have it specifically for the croc side.

Yeah. And then are looking if the value proposition is there for the hey dude again, because you have to provide that value for the consumer. So a lot of that comes with collaboration access, special Gibbs access, things that the consumer can only get in that environment. So we're really looking at what would be the next iteration for, Hey dude. Because we've really had strong success with Crocs in the app and the value add it has for the consumer. Yeah, that makes

Moderator: Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: sense. As you're learning all of these things about the consumer Crocs is known for something and we know what you stand for and what you're all about, but as the consumer behavior evolves and the consumer evolves, like what does that mean for your messaging and your communications?

Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: Does that automatically flip.

Feliz Papich, SVP, Digital Technology, Experience & Insights, Crocs: Yeah, again, I think it comes down to the data. I think you, you have to have that foundation to do anything at the end of the day. So really what we're looking at is how you actually activate one-to-one in real time. So I think it's no longer. That attractive to the consumer to have dated information on their email or there's, a slight personalization, but it's not geared towards what they want right now.

It's geared towards behavior we learned about six months ago. So I think AI is pushing all of us and the consumer is pushing all of us into being more specific in real time. So we're using things like dynamic re-ranking of product so that we can really make sure that real time we're giving them a personal.

Personal experience versus just looking at. Oh, we purchased this shoe 12 months ago. We're going to move you into this category. It's more about reading them in the moment, and that's what we're seeing is personalization and AI is really helping us lean into that moment. Yeah, so that's the aspect we're looking at.

Moderator: Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: Ooh, I wanted to dig into that a little bit For sure. That real time personalization. Yeah. So on the site that looks like how you're ranking product anywhere else that is happening.

Feliz Papich, SVP, Digital Technology, Experience & Insights, Crocs: Yeah. So obviously in SMS and email and all of our. Paid channels in which we're advertising. We're really looking at segmentation.

So we think another thing we're looking at is how to like. Layer information on top of your data layer. Instead of buying another tool like buying a CRM or buying something that has to then attach to your big data source. We're looking at lighter tools that really make sure that like census, that attaches onto your platform so it's easy to activate it's day to day.

It's, something that can our marketing teams can use across all channels and they can use quickly. Yeah, that's another thing I think with personalization. It's incredibly labor intensive if you let it be. So the way that you can make it as light as possible and as easy to operate for the consumer and for your own team is the critical return value there.

Moderator: Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: Yes. Yeah. Let's talk about the return in terms of the impact on the business as you're doing this real time personalization. Yeah. And as you are using all of this data to perfect the ME messaging acquire customers. Yeah. Where are you seeing success?

Feliz Papich, SVP, Digital Technology, Experience & Insights, Crocs: Yeah. I think for us it really is in that content.

At the end of the day because AI is again, that factor that makes it easy to actually go and personalize the message for a consumer. Before it was like, how are you gonna get all of this content to do segmentation? How are you gonna get this content to speak to different consumers? And that was the block.

For a lot of our teams and so now having constant generation and constant tools that plug right into everything. So they plug right into your marketing tools, they plug right into your site content and it's constantly iterating and generating. Yeah. That's the unlock right is where you don't have to do all of the work.

So then. The return becomes incredible because not only are you driving, acquisition costs slightly down, you're also not having that backend labor intensive component of building all of that content to do the segmentation. So I think it is very much about leaning into those tools that are out there, that are lightweight, that you can make sure you're leveraging and driving conversion, and then you're not having that huge investment on the back end of it too.

Moderator: Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: Yeah. Let's talk about that a little bit in terms of what you're able to. Pull off inhouse and some of those tools that are emerging and what, where you're needing to like, invest and look into a third party maybe expert.

Feliz Papich, SVP, Digital Technology, Experience & Insights, Crocs: Yeah. Yeah. I think something that we think about is what's the competitive advantage?

So if there's a really high competitive advantage for us to build this inhouse and we think. We think that we have the skill sets. We don't think that there's a plug and play tool out there in the market, then we will invest in it. But I think a lot of the stuff out there right now is exceptional and people are experimenting, people are challenging.

They're really bringing a lot to the market where you can leverage all the work that has already been done. So you have that strategic ability and agility to move with them. A lot of the things we're doing is trying to figure out where we already have vendors. That are also pushing into better personalization.

They're pushing into ai, and we're just taking what that relationship we already have, the integrations we already have built, and we're leveraging that. So that's a big way that we're leaning in. And then there's other areas where we think. Our specific brand have a competitive advantage. And so we lean into building those tools in-house and we feel like that's where the investment makes sense versus where we don't see, a strategic advantage for us to spend the time building on our side.

Moderator: Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: Yeah, makes good sense. Yeah. So how are you thinking about I wanna dig into kind of the sales channels Yeah. And where you're selling how, what's your take on omnichannel right now?

Feliz Papich, SVP, Digital Technology, Experience & Insights, Crocs: Yeah, I think, we think about omnichannel as very much. Net. Net omnichannel is to be wherever the consumer is.

Yeah. So we have always had a really long time presence on Amazon. We have experimented in multiple marketplaces in Europe and in Asia. TikTok, we were a first mover in being one of the bigger brands in TikTok cr. Still, I think the number one footwear brand on TikTok, and it is a massive halo effect for us.

So not only are we driving direct sales within the platform and reaching multiple different types of consumer base, we're also seeing that impact sales in our other channel. So in our wholesale accounts, in our retail environments, we're seeing like just the momentum of being there with the consumer.

So we think of omnichannel very much as like, where is the consumer? Yeah. And we should be there what, wherever they are, rather than trying to control where they go to see our brands. That's been key. And then we also think about Omni as very much. Data, right? Yeah. And instead of it being like, how do you activate Opus or Bopus, right?

Or those components that we all think about when we hear omnichannel, it's very much of like, how do we know more about our consumer in every single touch point? And then we can actually, again, personalize to them and really make it valuable for them to interact with us. Because if we're not using the data at hand.

We're feeling the consumer. So that's how we think about omnichannel.

Moderator: Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: Okay. Makes good sense. Yeah. Are you tackling social commerce seeing as you're so hot on TikTok? Yeah. Yeah. We are. So

Feliz Papich, SVP, Digital Technology, Experience & Insights, Crocs: we are selling, we've been selling for I think a little over a year now. Great. On TikTok with Crocs and hey dude also as well.

Both really seen strong success there. A lot of it is really through the creator. Environment. So we ourselves don't actually create a ton of the content. We leverage all of these micro influencers and people that are on TikTok and they're selling directly. 'cause the consumer really is at this moment, is gravitate, are gravitating towards.

I think real recommendations, right? They wanna know that somebody who's recommending these shoes, these Gibbs, this style is very much in tune to them versus somebody who's very detached from their every day. And so they're scrolling, they're engaging. So most of our sales actually come from the content in like that integrated environment versus the shop itself.

Yes. But being there obviously enables us to sell through there.

Moderator: Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: Makes good sense. Yeah. I wanna talk about, Crocs has this rich history. It's not that old, but it does compare to some of these very emerging disrupting brands. You go back a little bit to what extent does that work to your advantage?

Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: Yeah. The, like older data. Are you able to leverage that for any purpose today?

Feliz Papich, SVP, Digital Technology, Experience & Insights, Crocs: Yeah. I think it enables us to trend better, right? Again, when anybody's talking about ai, which is the key buzzword at. To do that. It's very much data. Yeah. At the end of the day. So for us to actually have this historical run and this information on the consumer across multiple environments allows us to really understand if a situation happens, we can trend into it a little bit better.

Cool. And then I think it's, we've experimented with a bunch of different tools, so I think we've learned what truly works and what is actually, I think the other evaluation we've really spent time on is. Can we actually activate with this? It's not just about having the data, it's about making sure your marketers can use it.

Yeah. And it's actually available and it doesn't take, weeks and multiple people to get access to that. So that's been a really big focus for us as well. Yep. I think also historical and enterprise. If, come with the other component of things being harder to connect. Yeah. And integration's taking longer and all of those aspects that I'm sure people in this room feel that pain point of, I wanna do something, but it's gonna take so long to get to there.

So I think it's about really honing down your use cases and starting somewhere and then evolving from there. So I think it's very much. Not trying to tackle everything at one time because it creates the slow moving process versus just iterating, challenging, trying, and then figuring out what works at the

Moderator: Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: end of the day.

Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: That makes sense. Yeah. Going back to your, that question on partners yeah. As technology is advancing, are you finding that. I like probably contrary to what would people would normally believe that you're working, like you're streamlining, you're able to work with fewer partners, maybe save some money.

Feliz Papich, SVP, Digital Technology, Experience & Insights, Crocs: Yeah, I'm sure. And everybody's also thinking about how they find more efficiency, right? And save money. And they think that's again, where it isn't just about chasing net new vendors that are doing ai, it's about looking at your existing partnerships and saying what are they doing and how can we leverage it?

I think with data it's very much like, how do you get. The 10% right away out of activating it versus thinking about this big undertaking in this large scale environment. So I think that's been key too for us, is really thinking. What's the purpose and can we consolidate that purpose and leverage, innovation and feature adoption from current vendor stacks versus always looking external for another vendor or another aspect.

And so that's been really important. And then, if you are in a multi-brand environment, it's how do you use the same tool for both? How do you consolidate? How do you find that? And sometimes like you'll learn, you'll be able to like real time experiment with two different tools and figure out what you want to use go forward.

Moderator: Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: Nice. Yeah, that's a big question I have to ask. What, where do you see, as you're staying on the cutting edge of all of this technology, where do you see retail personalization going? What's the next era?

Feliz Papich, SVP, Digital Technology, Experience & Insights, Crocs: Yeah I think I alluded to it earlier, it's very much that. People don't want you sitting there and mining and putting them in, like these segments that may make sense to them now, don't make sense to them a month later in their purchase behavior.

Or it's tiered towards one type of purchase they made, and it doesn't allude to what their forward looking purchase is. So I think we're trying to really lean into what's that real time? Yeah. Information we need on the consumer and their behavior to really meet them in that moment. So a lot of that comes with just using tools that can immediately respond to the consumer.

Yeah. Rather than spending all of this heavy lift, in kind of these previous segments, which you also need to do. Yes. But that's not you have to also have this real time moment with the consumer. I think they're. Their expectations with TikTok algorithms are incredibly high. They expect everything to be exactly what they're looking for.

They don't want any friction. Yes. Especially in the digital environment. And so the more you can do to ease that path, the more you can say, if you're in this category, you should go to see this next. Or if you are seeing this product, you should absolutely have this accessory add-on. Or you should all be very easy.

We're really experimenting with. Kind of Gibbs and we call that product personalization, right? Yeah, too. So then the personalization of that product, personalization, because there's 800 plus different types of Gibbs, which are incredibly overwhelming, you have to figure out how to give that consumer less friction while still giving them the opportunity to personalize themselves.

So it's this give and take that you have to learn on all the time. Yes.

Moderator: Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: Yeah, I recently learned about that. I didn't realize bbt, it's a significant percentage of the business. Yeah. That's so interesting. Yeah. I wanna ask about your role because, head of digital technology experiences and insights, big title, but modern Retail just wrote about the, you opened a store in, in soho.

Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: Yes. Would love to hear there's a jts moment. Would love to hear about your role in that and in ensuring its success.

Feliz Papich, SVP, Digital Technology, Experience & Insights, Crocs: Yeah. Yeah. So we definitely think about. Again, we think about all of our channels as agnostic. We think of the experience for the consumer is very much like how they're experiencing the brand, not how we show up at retail or how we show up on digital, or how we show up in our wholesale accounts.

It's very much like how does the consumer see us? Soho is such a great opportunity for us to really take this hands-on moment with the consumer, elevate the experience, really create this environment that people wanna be in. I think you're seeing that a lot more with physical retail. Is that.

You're creating this environment where. Content generators and influencers want to be, yes. Versus just a shopping environment like transactional is never gonna get you to the end result with conversion if you're only thinking that perspective. It has to be how is it tactical, how the consumer experience it, and then we're trying to take down, honestly, a lot of what.

They're doing in our retail environments to online with bbt because we see a moment to really take personalization to a different level with the consumer and when we think about product and all of that. So we're trying to learn from those BBT bars in store and how to put that online and what that looks like.

It's been a fun experimentation that we're working on. Yes. I love that

Moderator: Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: we have a little more time than I thought. Last question from me. But when it comes to, you talked about the challenge or the speed, the algorithm, new consumer behavior based on that personalization and algorithm, would you say that's the, your greatest challenge?

Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: Obviously there are a lot of challenges throughout retail right now, but in terms of Yes. Your focus and the challenge you're conquering now. Yeah. Keeping up

Feliz Papich, SVP, Digital Technology, Experience & Insights, Crocs: with

Moderator: Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: that,

Feliz Papich, SVP, Digital Technology, Experience & Insights, Crocs: what would you say? Maybe more? Yeah, I think it's pivoting with the consumer. The consumer pivots much faster than all of us are ready to pivot with them.

Yeah. 'Cause I feel like by the time we're setting up a new technology, they're already moving on. Yeah. And so it's very much like I mentioned, being iterative. So really trying to sit there and say, how quickly can I get this to market to learn, and how can I evaluate that? I think like Algolia was a big moment for us of just putting in part of it and then iterating and learning more for the consumer versus trying to tackle this big moment.

Yeah. And by the time you get there, the consumer's already gone. So I think it's very much about like how do you get enough of a return immediately with an iteration. Yeah. Verse trying to spend this whole time trying to get there, and then they're gone. By the time you get there, it's very much this trade off that you have to evaluate with them.

And just trying to stay up to date and experimenting in these channels, being in TikTok has. Enabled us to learn a ton about the consumer and how they shop and changing our own.com to match that kind of scroll native behavior and really match like how we're servicing product information to them.

So it's very much like wherever you can experiment in channels and learn, you can also take that down into your other channels. So that's the critical moment to think about. That makes good

Moderator: Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: sense. If I post your shoes on TikTok, am I gonna go viral? Hopefully, it would be great for both of us.

Jill Manoff, Editor in Chief, Glossy/Modern Retail: Amazing. They're amazing. Let's give ize a hand. Thanks so much.