Why am I excited about the idea of brands known for fairly narrow product categories launching curated marketplaces? For three broad reasons.

The multi-platform, multi-venue, multi-product program I’ve now seen over several weeks appears to be the result of the proven creativity of The Infatuation team and the risk-taking for which Nike has become admired.

Hitting so many DNVB stores in quick succession reinforced for me a story. The story is that these brands - unlike retailers before them - are not opening stores for pure distribution strategy reasons.

A number of companies are jumping in to build more distinct CPG brands and subscription programs and to prevent such categories from being forever solidified as commodities. Here are three I'm personally using and loving.

My reactions to recent news that's been widely shared.

Personally and professionally, I love stores. But in the past three days alone, I've observed too many of them failing on the basics.

I've been out and about in New York over the past three days and, without intentionally embarking on a channel checking tour, I've found myself making a lot of mental notes about the experiences I've had.

I read many - probably too many - articles about retail. More than any I’ve seen recently, last week’s The New Yorker article, "Why J. Crew's Vision of Preppy America Failed", nails so much about retail today. 

A few weeks ago, I announced the pre-launch of my new retail business, Box The Party. As the landing page says, I want to help people eliminate Pinterest party fails and create Instagrammable everyday celebrations at home. Despite the chatbot hype, I believe there's an opportunity in human-to-human interaction. So it's no coincidence that Box The Party's minimally viable product - which launched last week - is all via SMS.

I packed about 17 experiences into my one day (Saturday, 3/11/17) in Austin, not including all the mind-expanding conversations I had along the way. The global, truly interdisciplinary nature of the crowd this event continues to draw is beyond impressive.

Personal shoppers, whether they’re entirely human or a human/algorithm combination, typically have a major advantage over a salesperson or a web site welcoming an unknown visitor: Time to plan... But my recent shopping experiences with a number of online and offline services have fallen far short of that expectation.

Last month, I wrote about my successful shopping experience with Hamlet, where I discovered and bought a table lamp via text. Around the same time, I needed to book a flight so I downloaded the Mezi app. 

I read about Hamlet a couple of months ago. Having procrastinated on a ceiling light search because I had a specific aesthetic in mind yet technical limitations to conquer, I decided the time was ripe to try my "personal home stylist, from the comfort of my phone". I'm so glad I did.

Hamlet has a conveniently low barrier for consumer entry because it's just a number to text -- not an app, not even Facebook Messenger.