Elizabeth Robillard, eTail Producer: All right. Perfect. All right. So let's begin the show. We would like to introduce Greg Pulsifer. He's the SVP of eCommerce for Sam's Club. He's going to be interviewed by Melissa Daniels, senior reporter for Modern Retail, and they're going to be talking about sparking retail success, how to cultivate a growth mindset in your organization. So please join me in welcoming Greg and Melissa.

Melissa Daniels, Senior Reporter, Modern Retail: Morning, early birds. I love seeing this. I hope everyone had a wonderful trip in here to Palm Desert and is enjoying their eTail so far this year. I'm here with Greg Pulsifer, SVP of eCommerce for Sam's Club. We have a lot to chat about today, but I'll let Greg introduce himself and talk a little bit about his role.

Greg Pulsifer, SVP, eCommerce, Sam's Club: Hello everyone. It's a pleasure to be here. My first eTail was in 2007. It's nice to be back. I've been a few times since then as well. My name is Greg Pulsifer and I'll just give a quick background on me. So I've been in eCommerce for a long time. Started in the late nineties. I worked at a software company and then spent the majority of my career in branded manufacturers selling direct. So think of Puma, New Balance and The North Face. Most recently was at Apple looking after digital merchandising for the online store at apple.com. And now I'm the SVP of eCommerce at Sam's Club, just celebrated my one year anniversary there.

I'm going to take a quick second and talk about Sam's Club. Yes! Sam's Club, we are a membership-based omnichannel retailer. We have 600 locations across the United States and Puerto Rico. We offer disruptive value on items and services for our members and we just had our Q4 earnings and I'm excited and happy to say that our eCommerce business grew 24 percent in the fourth quarter. So pretty excited about that.

Melissa Daniels: Great numbers. Very cool. Let's unpack how you got there. Let's start with the customer. You guys are a membership model. Your customers paying to shop there. That sets a bar, right there on expectation. How do you listen to your customer? How do you get feedback?

Greg Pulsifer: You're right. So we have a really interesting business model in that people pay to shop with us. And as a result, we know 100 percent of our members, which offers us some interesting opportunities when it comes to different types of capabilities. But to your question, everything we do is in service to our member, so everything from our assortment to how those members choose to receive those items, so I'll talk about assortment and feedback.

We have a curated assortment of items, as I mentioned we get direct feedback from our members, and the assortment is based on what the members are looking for from needs, their wants, and their direct feedback. We get a daily email from our members and it includes all sorts of information including what they want in the assortment, so we'll take that information and we'll apply that to our assortment. We also look at search data. So the data that members are searching, they're telling you directly what they're looking for, and included in there are items. We have a null search report that we look at that looks through all the things that members are looking for that we don't currently have and then we'll incorporate that if it makes sense, the data makes sense.

We'll incorporate that into our assortment. Most recently, and interestingly, we had zucchini was something we didn't carry and a lot of people were searching for it. So we took that information and we added that to our overall assortment. So that's an example of feedback as it relates to our assortment.

I would say we also get broadly get feedback from members on how they want to receive items. So one of the biggest changes to our business in recent history resulted in feedback from our members. So we're truly an omnichannel business. We offer members, they can purchase from us directly and ship to home.

We have a curbside business and delivery business and our members told us that they wanted a pathway to free delivery. So what does that mean? So they said, if we're paying a minimum spend of 50, we want to get free delivery from our club. It's pretty easy to spend 50 at Sam's Club. So we took that information and we instituted free delivery from club and it's been an absolute boom for the business. We also put in an express option. So you can get items in two to three hours from us as well and that has our highest NPS in the eCommerce business.

But I'll say so. Obviously, this is, it's important to listen to your member, but you didn't come all the way to eTail to have someone tell you to, you should listen to your customer. That's important. That's not the insight. So the insight is having the discipline to listen to your customer on a daily basis and then the ability as a leader and an influence inside of your company to move the organization based on what your customers are saying. So I'll say it again. Really? Do you truly listen to your customer on a daily basis? And do you have the ability as a leader to move the organization to enact and incorporate the customer feedback? I'll tell you, you will never be wrong in a meeting by saying what the customer wants. And for younger people in the organization or people who are struggling to find their voice in big meetings and meetings with the CEO, etcetera, you will never be wrong siding with the customer and using the customer information to see your point of view.

Melissa Daniels: I love that. There's a lot to unpack there, and I'm making a mental note to see what I can do with bulk zucchini. It might have been a New York Times recipe or something that hit, and everybody needed it. Let's get into it. I want to go back to what you were saying about omnichannel because I think that's the name of the game for a lot of folks. How are you personalizing that right now? How are you giving the customer the omni experience they want?

Greg Pulsifer: We are truly an omnichannel business. I think one of the things that we strive for as an omnichannel businesses, we really do want that unified experience, both online and in club. And one of the ways we do this is through a technology innovation called Scan and Go. Our members love Scan and Go. It has a 90 NPS and it is quite literally the connective tissue between the online and the physical world. So the way it works is members walk into the club. They open their app, they scan items in the app. They can then pay for those items in the app and then bypass the traditional checkout line.

So that's great because the technology improves the member shopping experience. It allows us to personalize the experience, so they have a digital device in their hand and we can personalize the experience while they're in a physical location in the club. And then it helps the members get the most out of their shopping trip. That's important for us. You talked about OmniChannel. Our members are extremely Omni, and I have some data to back that up. So right now, 41 percent of our members who go into a club, have visited our site or app a week before making a purchase and that's driving 37 percent of our in club sales.

So it's pretty incredible the ability to have the technology to connect those and the member behavior is really unlocking personalization for us because the experiences that you have in the club will show up online and vice versa.

Melissa Daniels: Yeah, that's a great way to learn and you're seeing exactly what they're getting each time. You can cross reference that with their sort of customer profile. It tells you a lot.

Greg Pulsifer: It really does fuel the flywheel for us.

Melissa Daniels: This is interesting. The technology there, too. So I'm a big Walmart shopper. I'm not just saying that because we're on stage together. It's the closest store to my house. I appreciate that. I'm always seeing folks doing like the associates doing the curbside pickup shopping. They're scanning and going too, is there, there's a similar technology there.

Greg Pulsifer: Yeah, for sure. And we leverage a lot of the Walmart technology in our digital experience as well.

Melissa Daniels: I love that. It's a great use of technology. Talk to me a little bit about some of the actionable strategies that you all are doing behind the scenes. As you're trying to figure out what tech to deploy, what's a new way we can listen to our customer. How do you AB test that? How do you figure out what sticks?

Greg Pulsifer: I think we have some slides we can show too. And as those are pulling up, the other thing I would say about member feedback is your data, your business results are also member feedback. So we measure every single part of our business right now. On Monday mornings, we have a trade meeting and all those metrics go up on a slide and we talk through the business with our CEO and the team. We lean into what's working. We identify what's not working and we work to figure out why that's happening.

That's all direct feedback from the members. So the data itself are your members are telling you if they like what you're doing or not. But to your question. So testing is a huge part of what we do. A lot of that is driven in data and I have three examples and the first one's very basic. The second one a little bit more sophisticated and the third one will be fun to talk about as well.

A member, I mentioned we get member feedback. I sort that on a daily basis. I sort it from bad to good. So I like to end with some good news. One of the things that was showing up was members are telling us for three particular terms, account, membership and cakes of all things. So we have custom cakes. They couldn't find them, and we're a membership business. If a member tells you that they can't find membership, it's probably a pretty big issue. So very simply, in search, we put hard links when those items are searched on the top of our search and that drives directly to those sections of the site. This is basic and beautiful. At the same time, being able to explain to your leaders why you did something and show the actionable results from that are pretty great.

If you go to the next example: this one's a little bit more sophisticated. In the middle of the screen, you can see your frequently ordered items. Reorder is a huge part of our business. When something is a big part of your business, sometimes it gets—you can be a little nervous to make changes to it. What we found was that when members left the homepage, they couldn't easily get back to it. On the bottom, the example on the right, you can see the reorder and the lower navigation. So we put reorder there and we started to get more people to use it, but more new people. The big win there was the merchandising spaces that we were giving to reorder were driving more members to use it who didn't know that we had it.

So what this does now in the screenshot on the right is even outdated because we just changed this. The frequently ordered items now moves down on the page and you can reuse that premium placement for other merchandising of other opportunities. Again, it's a stepped learning process that we only found out from testing.

And the last example, this one's kind of fun. There's images with pricing and the name of the item. We're in a meeting and someone recommended, I think there's too much on this page, we should take the pricing and the name off. I was like, that's a terrible idea.

Melissa Daniels: Silly. Yeah.

Greg Pulsifer: We're never going to do that. But they said, let's test it. So we tested it and we have fun gamifying this. The example on the right with the name removed and the price removed was significantly better. Data is humbling. You have to trust the data, but we saw increased engagement, increased conversion, increased spend by using the example under the new, which is pretty interesting.

Melissa Daniels: Do you think, cause there's like a curiosity factor there, you're getting folks to want to learn more instead of giving it to them right now?

Greg Pulsifer: I think that's it. I think that's it. I also think that there’s—in a way, this is a desktop example, just to make it easier. We usually use mobile examples, but for this, I wanted to show a bigger screen. The ability to scroll and having big images is definitely behavior I think that people and members are using through social media too, so I think there's a familiarity with it.

Melissa Daniels: And back to the second slide, I don't want to underestimate the importance of a home button, because it's a great way to close a browser experience if I can't figure out how to navigate. For sure.

Greg Pulsifer: Yeah, I like that idea.

Melissa Daniels: I want to hear a little bit more about how this happens behind the scenes. You've talked about how to be right in that meeting by going back to the customer. It sounds like a lot of these examples started from there. How do you keep fostering that organizational buy-in to get people to want to experiment here?

Greg Pulsifer: And I think this is the essence of this session, right? Like, how do you build excitement in your organization for eCommerce? So I put a lot of thought into this. I actually have notes.

Melissa Daniels: I love it.

Greg Pulsifer: Don't underestimate the analog folks. It's fine. All right, so what can I leave? I've been in eCommerce for a long time and what can I leave you all with, just some insights on things that I've seen and had some success in fostering excitement for eCommerce. I have three. I love the power of three. Are you ready?

Melissa Daniels: Ready.

Greg Pulsifer: Let's do it. First one, be a great storyteller and share successes. As a foundation, first and foremost, always find ways to give the why and the so-what on everything you do—from your data, from your metrics to the stories you're saying. Demystify it. That's the foundation. Think of your favorite leaders you've ever worked for or ever watched or been around, right? They've all been great storytellers. The good news is if you're not a great storyteller, there are things you can do to get better and they're all free.

Podcasts. I have long commutes. You and I talked about this backstage. I have a long commute and I spent a lot of time on airplanes. I listened to the Jason and Scott show quite a bit. What can you learn from those podcasts and utilizing the time that you have and commutes and in planes. I also love listening to CEOs on Squawk Street on CNBC. They have a very short period of time with a ton at stake to be able to tell a story about their business. What can you learn from that?

But also, that's the short form. The long form—think about an earnings call. These are all available and you can listen to any earnings call. Like I just mentioned, we had our earnings call. What can you learn there? Notice the differences between a good quarter and a bad quarter and how the CEOs and the CFOs and the leadership team are talking about the business. What can you learn about that and how can you apply that to your business as well?

Lastly, nothing says confident leadership like sharing successes with cross functional partners and then taking responsibility for when things don’t work. This will be the fastest way that you can build evangelists in your organization.

Melissa Daniels: That's a great tip. And as a writer and storyteller, I wholly endorse you.

Greg Pulsifer: Ready for number two?

Melissa Daniels: Number two.

Greg Pulsifer: Number two. Make examples relatable. If you're working in an organization that grew up in the physical space, and a lot of the organizations I have been in, have grown up in that physical space, how can you relate to them and demystify what you're talking about? Talking about page load time—we talk about page load time all the time, because it's important from a conversion standpoint. Equate that to time spent in physical stores, where someone had to wait for someone, or you had to wait in line to check out. Nobody likes waiting in line to check out, right? At Sam’s Club, we have a “just go” option. With Scan and Go, you can scan an item, pay for that in app and then just leave.

Be creative in trying to find other ways to relate to your leadership. When I started at Sam’s Club, they threw me on stage in front of the entire company. I was a couple days in and I was in Bentonville, Arkansas. How do I get people excited about eCommerce? I just started. I don’t know anything about the business yet. I’ve only been here a few days, but how can I relate to them? I looked at the data and all of the yearly traffic we had on the eCommerce site and I put a slide up and introduced myself and said, I’m so excited to be here and we talked about eCommerce and I talked with the scale of the business and how exciting it was.

I equated the traffic that we had for a year into full Arkansas Razorback football stadiums. I said our eCommerce business is the equivalent of—let’s just say for math purposes—600, 700 full Arkansas Razorback football stadiums. I’m from Boston, and I put in one Fenway Park to try to relate to me with how I think about the business. It’s funny. I mentioned I just celebrated a year at Sam's Club and people still talk about that—hey, how many football stadiums did we fill yesterday? So these are ways, and these are people who don't even really generally talk about eCommerce. This just as a way to connect to people and try to share the excitement.

Melissa Daniels: That's great.

Greg Pulsifer: My third example. Most important, so I saved the best for last: be an optimist. Excitement starts with a vision that inspires people and they're excited to see the big picture. The best teams I've ever been on have been full of optimists, and this isn’t blind optimism. We're not talking about your head in the clouds. This is your feet planted squarely on the ground, but with a view of what can be. ECommerce is a growth capability in every organization. If it’s not, there’s probably a bigger problem. It’s tough to get the organization excited about something if you aren’t an optimist about that growth.

Building evangelists and being a great leader in your team means using your customer and member data to move the organization, to model this in your leadership. I have a ton of meetings and they’re all back to back. I have meetings where bad news is shared. People give me tough feedback. I have to give tough feedback to others. But it should end in that meeting. Your problem is not their problem. Do your best—this is hard to do—I really do try to do this, but empty your cup as you’re leaving the meeting. Don’t bring your problems to their problems and let yourself be seen as that optimistic leader who can roll with the punches and inspire.

Melissa Daniels: I just want to double click on optimism really quick though, because I think sometimes it's hard for us to find that when there's headwinds of different kinds facing a business or an organization. It's very easy to get caught up in some of those things. I appreciate that you're putting a premium on that and hearing that from your position because I think it can’t be underestimated.

Greg Pulsifer: Can’t be underestimated. It also shows the importance of hiring. You want to hire the right people who feel like owners. When I hire people we look for: do they feel ownership in the business? Do they think what can be? Are they an optimist? Are they a can-do person? That is a huge part.

Melissa Daniels: Give me a bonus. Fast tip.

Greg Pulsifer: Here we go. Two quick ones. Repeat yourself.

Melissa Daniels: Say that again.

Greg Pulsifer: Repeat yourself. Even when you said the same thing ten times. Say it again. Say it to the point where you're nauseous saying it. How many of you here have said something and then someone asks you a question and you're like, I just said this? Oh, all the time. Or I was, I told you this last week.

Melissa Daniels: I have a toddler.

Greg Pulsifer: Repeat yourself. I can’t stress it enough. If you have a large organization, especially, chances are that there are people who don't understand what you were saying or didn't hear it. We're all busy. Repeat yourself over and over again. For the people who've already heard it, it gives them confidence because they know what's coming. Last one: act with urgency. I just picked this up the other day, I was talking to Jason Goldberg about this. If your leader is more impatient than you are, it’s a bad ratio. So be impatient, be optimistic, can-do.

Melissa Daniels: I love it. Thank you so much, Greg. Greg Pulsifer, SVP of eCommerce at Sam’s Club. Thank you so much for joining us today. Have a wonderful eTail. Tip your baristas and bartenders. Thank you so much.