2026, eTail Palm Springs - Unified Commerce_Fireside Chat_Building a Seamless Omnichannel Commerce Strategy

Announcer: Final discussion of the night. Welcome to the stage, uh, uh, Dan and, uh, Lindsay. Uh, GHD: Hair in Chain Store Age, with a fireside chat on unifying story and sales, building a seamless omni-channel commerce strategy. Thank you so much for closing out the night. This is gonna be exciting

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: Or should we sit?

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: Wherever you- Oh. Sure.

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: Yeah. So-

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: We also decided since it's , um, to bring some wine on stage- Yeah ... if anybody else would like to bring a drink, right? Yeah. It's been a long day. somewhere. I'm... We're just gonna cozy.

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: Exactly. And actually, by the way, I am not Dan. I'm- Yeah. ... Brian Lang. Uh, Dan unfortunately was, uh, delayed and had to cancel his flight due to the storms on the northeast. So, uh, Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce. Uh, we're a media company focused on what's next in commerce, and we- We explore the intersection of culture and commerce. That's... That we believe that commerce is inherently a human-to-human connection, so if we can better understand how people are changing, we can better understand how commerce is changing.

And so we, uh, explore that through podcasts, newsletters, research reports, and more. Um, and I'm very excited to be chatting with Lindsay about omni-channel commerce strategy. Uh, Lindsay, why don't you introduce yourself?

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: Of course. My name is Lindsay Morris. I'm the head of e-com at ghd hair. It's good hair day.

It's part of Wella Company, so you might be more familiar with, like, OPI nail polish or things like that. Um, we're actually a huge brand out in Europe, but out here it's mainly for professional stylists. But we're trying to enlarge our imprint for our customers as well, so get it into more hands and sort of compete with the Dysons of the world.

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: So cool. I actually got to talk to your colleague Bianca just yesterday. Mm-hmm. And, uh- She's amazing ... she is incredible, yeah. About c- um, clienteling, and I actually think it's a really important part of the story that we have today. Building customer relationships is the foundation of building a great brand.

And at, uh, ghd, I, I think that you all have done an incredible job of building a product that can have a customer... Like, you can build a customer relationship over 10 years and beyond. And so, um, as you think about your different customers, uh, how do you think about building those relationships across different channels?

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: So that's been something that's been super fascinating to learn and to sort of test and try. So at ghd, while we don't have a traditional storefront, we are in multiple vendors and multiple storefronts. So you can find us in Ulta and Sephora, but you'll also find us in a Nordstrom or a Goop even. And so we've been working really, really hard as a company to come up with what we're calling a channel strategy.

So each channel is going to have their own specific take on how they're going to interact with their customers. So while ghdhair.com is, you know, the main source, sort of the flagship, we get everything, all the limited edition colors and everything like that, we do understand that our customers might more than likely go to Amazon instead to buy it 'cause Amazon will get it to them in two days.

So we wanna be the forefront of education. We want you to come and look at our blogs, our how-tos to style hair. Um, maybe once you get one of our, you know, Chrono straighteners, you'll come to us 'cause you've decided, "I want a fun color of our curling iron." Um, but then we are also really learning how to work with each other.

So I have two other counterparts, Travis, who does all things Amazon and is amazing, and then Camilla, who does all of the retail.com side of things. And since we are all sort of technically competing against each other, we do do a lot of meetings and just sort of working with each other, right? So I, as ghchair.com, do not want to compete with Amazon and Prime Day.

Mm-hmm. I don't wanna compete with Sephora and all of that. So we are leveraging what promos we wanna have, how we wanna interact, who shows up where and when, so that as a company as a whole, we still can win.

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: I think that's huge because it's still the same customer often. Um, sometimes they are specific to one channel- Yeah but oftentimes they're almost like omni-modal in their behavior, right? 100%. And so how do you go about tracking that customer and making sure you have data on all their purchases? Do you use tools? It sounds like you have, um, meetings to help unsilo some of that data. Um, what are, what, what tools do you use?

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: So we definitely have a bunch of combinations. Of course, Google Analytics. Um, and then we've started working most recently with a company called Power Digital. So they are one of our media providers, but it's been really great to work with them because they can sort of help track where people are coming from, um, and how they shop.

And it's really also helped enhance how we are presenting ourselves to the customer, right? So originally when I started, they were like, "We want, you know, the 18 to 30-year-old." And I, and I'm, and- Mm ... I was like, "We want the, the people who love the Kardashians," you know, that kind of thing. And the more and more we dug into things, I'm like, that's not our customer.

Mm-hmm. Like, I don't know about you, but I'm, I'm not a... I, at 18, I was not buying a $400 straightener. Mm-hmm. Like, I was lucky if I could get a $20 Conair. So, um, we are learning more that our actual true customer is more of like the 30 to 45, has, you know, more expendable income, um, is more established. And so we're starting to market more to that age group versus the younger demographic.

Now, of course, we do have people who, you know, are in different, um, class levels and stuff like that, and so they might... But they're gonna likely be more loyal to a Sephora, so they- Right ... would probably buy us at Sephora, and that's where the younger demographic comes in. So really knowing who shops where and how, and that's even how we're adjusting our promo strategies, what tools we put there.

So we won't recommend certain tools for Sephora- Mm-hmm ... because we know that that customer will never buy it, and then we'll just get a wholesale return. So really, really digging in and peeling back all the layers.

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: That's really essential. I mean, there's a whole trend of, like, 12-year-olds shopping at Sephora. Like, and so yeah, having the right education, being in the right channels and the right places, uh, requires, I think, a little bit of, like, well, understanding of, of who that customer is, but also, like, being able to think about how to educate them and connect with them, um, across channels. And so what are some strategies you've used to help, you know, maybe, I- I won't say push customers to different channels, but help provide them with the education they need before they make a purchase?

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: So that's where it's gotten really interesting, and we've been able to really dive in. So our website is... I like to call it a beautiful catalog, right? It's not gonna be- Yes, you can find the key points and everything like that, but if you really wanna get quick and get to, like, the key features of the product, you're gonna find that more at a Sephora or at an Amazon.

So with the Sephora and Ulta customers, we actually created, um, within the PDP pictures with important factors, right? So we're, we are known for the perfect temperature for hair. So 365 is the temperature. It's... We're not one of those fancy ones that have all the different temperatures and stuff. So we, we labeled that out.

Why is that the perfect temperature? What does it do in terms of heat damage and shine? So we put our key things that you would normally find in, like, the description if you were to scroll down on the page. That is now on the, on the PDP and PLP, so you can scroll through it when you're at Sephora so that...

'Cause we know those customers- Mm ... are very instant and shopping. Whereas on our website, you're gonna wanna scroll. You're gonna look at the beautiful imagery. Mm. Like, all of the sort of, you know, content and stuff. So really knowing how to put those. And that actually got a huge lift in Sephora sales by just changing and adding one extra picture image for it.

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: Wow. That's huge.

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: Yeah.

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: Wild. And so just being able to, like, take some of those assets that you built for, you know, other channels and then s- say, "Hey, maybe Sephora, consider including this." Yep. Huge bump in sales. That's amazing. Yeah. And then I would imagine also, you know, across these different channels, not only are you having to track customers, but you're having to track different ways of marketing.

And actually case in point, adding an additional image. Um, what tools are you using to help drive and, like, track and make sure that your brand is represented well, and, like, you're pushing out campaigns, that they're going to all the different channels. And like, it sounds like you're, you know, you're not the only one responsible for this. Right. So how do you maintain all this?

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: It's super difficult. I'm very, very lucky that I have a great, um, marketing partner. And so we work... Same thing, though. We are definitely reliant on our partner at Power Digital of where we want to sort of spend our money. Mm-hmm. Um, we do have certain retailers who will actually give us sort of, you know, free advertising and retail space.

Um, when it comes to Amazon, like, they don't need the, the advertising or anything like that. And Travis always teases me. He's like, "Just put it on sale on your site, and then we'll get a bump on our site." Mm-hmm. Because obviously Amazon crawls everything, so they just match. When it comes to Sephora and that sort of thing, we want to show up for them in key moments.

So obviously when they're having their, you know, tri- tri-annual Sephora sale. Instead, on our social channels, we will actually push them to the Sephora website. Mm-hmm. And we actually do sometimes get these, um, these bumps that we don't even have to pay for with other Sephora partners. So like certain Sephora influencers will actually feature our tool, which is wonderful- Mm-hmm

because we're getting, like, free traffic that we didn't have to pay an influencer for, even though these influencers are wonderful. Um, same with Macy's and with, you know, Nordstrom's. Nordstrom obviously has their big anniversary sale. So how can we show up for them? Other things we try and do, too, um, is we'll try and do, like, special bundles, for instance.

So we just actually- Mm-hmm ... launched in Costco. Mm-hmm. And obviously it's- Oh, congrats. Thank you. Huge. I love Costco. Costco is my favorite spot. I will- Same ... spend all day there. Same. I'll take the kids there. When it's a rainy day, take the kids. Highly recommend. They'll run through the aisles. You get free samples.

You get them fed, and they don't drive you crazy at your house. 100%. But ... But, so we just launched in Costco, which is also wonderful because that's gonna give us that much more exposure, right? Costco is all over the place. Mm-hmm. It's in places where we aren't even with Sephoras and things like that. And so we created for them a very unique package that included a brush, a, um, bag, and then our most popular tool, which is the Chronos hair straightener, Chronos Max.

Um, and it's in the basic black color. But that's been going wild. They actually did a special on it this month. So also working with them in terms of giving them special deals and that kind of thing. And just because we are so small in the US, the key really right now is It's not your traditional D2C, right? Like, we don't have a store, but we're in multiple stores. So that's how we sort of get out there.

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: Yeah. I think that's a really good point. Like, omnichannel means so many different things now. Like, um, you could say, "Oh, well, you're not omnichannel if you don't have your own stores" but actually you're working with, like, so much more than just your own stores.

Right And you're in so many different stores, and you're in them in so many different ways. And like, you're running promos and, and packages for different channels in different ways. That's just like, basically it... To me, that's almost more complicated than like a typical, like quote unquote om- omnichannel engagement.

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: It definitely is because, um... Sorry, mic fluff. Uh, it's definitely more complicated, but it's also so much more fun, right? Because candidly, I worked in fashion retail for a long time, right? Mm-hmm. So I was used to uploading 100 SKUs, you know, doing hundreds of thousands in sales a day. Whereas this is a lot more fun because you get to really test and learn from different customers and different retailers, right?

So we've got different shoppers in Sephora than we have at Goop, and what the price sensitivity is for each of those customers. You also really find out like, what they are going to buy and what it takes for them to buy. Um, you also can... Once they sort of shop at an Amazon, we do find that they come to our channel as well, and same with Goop or anything like that.

Um, and then it's just really trying to keep them educated and informed because our tools last 10 years. Mm-hmm. Right? So I mean, I don't know about you, I own about 25 white T-shirts, um, but I only have to have one straightener. So it's- Right ... not only educating them that we have straighteners, but hey, now try a curling iron.

And we're really heavily dependent on new customers. So as opposed to most other channels that you maybe only need like 30% new customers, we're at like 60 to 70-

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: Oh my gosh ...

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: new customers, which is insane.

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: Yeah.

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: And exhausting. Um, so it's trying to get them to sort of shorten that, that, um, purchase period.

And yes, it's a $400 tool, but maybe you wanna come back and buy, you know, a $200 curling iron. And we do have product that you could You know, reuse like our hair stuff. Um, so like, you know, mousses and that kind of thing. But, um, it's really sort of getting them to love the tool so much that they wanna come back and try something else as well.

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: That's huge. Yeah, and I, I think, an- another thing that's really interesting about the product is you sort of have such a quality product that you have a huge sort of pro audience, and that's really where you started as well. Yep. And like the way that you have to interact with them and sort of amalgamate like your audien- your, your customers, your direct consumer customers, it's, it's almost a totally different channel onto itself.

It's almost like working with influencers, right? Yeah. And so trust is huge in that process. Yeah. And so how do you track sort of like building out this like s- you know, a strategy across so many different tiers of users, everything from beginners who are like, "I finally wanna upgrade to a bru- uh, a straightener that's like actually gonna last me some time," up through people that are straightening hair every day for their job?

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: So we have different, um, channels and markets. So one of the things I will say about ghd is we have a wonderful educator program. And so they actually will go out into and do, um, you know, sort of courses and learnings with our pro affiliates. At the campus in Calabasas, we have full-on studios. Hmm. So like I, I get my hair done once a month.

It's wonderful. Incredible. Uh, especially as someone who like, I was the messy bun ponytail girl, right? Um, so I've now learned how to actually do my hair at the age of 44. So it's been really, really fascinating. Um, we are so well known because we also have the Wella name behind us. So you know, we have Briogeo, Wella- Mm-hmm

um, Sebastian, all of that, that people sort of inherently already know about ghd. But we definitely do work with the pro channel. Um, we actually just started a pro affiliate channel as well to sort of get them- Hmm ... to post more content about us as well to sort of help us get our name out there. Um, I candidly, when I was first interviewing for this job, I didn't know about ghd, and then I went to my hairstylist.

I was like, "Oh, you've got like three different tools from them." And he's like- Hmm ... "Yeah, they're amazing. They're the greatest. I don't use anything else." Hmm. So we definitely... And that's one of the nice things that like we really wanna try and hit home when it comes to consumers is You can have a professional level tool that lasts pros five, six years who are doing eight to 10 blow-dries a day in your house, you know?

Wild. So that's one of the things, is we have a much higher standard out there. Um, and so trying to get that to the customers is one of the n- next things that we're really, really working on.

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: No, I think it's super interesting. You have everything from, like, physical content that's, like, very, uh, ephemeral, in the moment, and it's training for that, like, upper tier.

But you a- also have sort of, like, that sort of same content you have to manage for the masses in your channels and with your influencers and with the other, uh, the pro users that are actually creating content on your behalf. And so now we're talking about, like, what at WeFut- at Future Commerce we call the multiplayer brand.

Yeah. You are actually... Your brand is being driven for you by the people that are inspired by your tools, and that is huge.

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: Yeah. We actually had recently... And this is one of the things where, yes, we're a small brand, but, like, you still have to be just as nimble. So most recently, um, Bad Bunny had a incredible performance at halftime.

Our tools were used on all of the different women, and even some of the men there. So you had all these beautiful women, different hair types, different textures, different races and backgrounds, and our tools were used on all of them. And so the, one of the professional hairstylists who did it was featuring our tools, and so we instantly went out.

It was mainly the curling irons. And so, like, right away we're like, "All right. We're doing a curling iron promotion." Like, we're gonna... You know, obviously we can't say Super Bowl Halftime Show, but, like, throw in a little Bad Bunny music and- Mm-hmm ... she was tagged in it, and, like, it made sense, right? So the bride who literally got married onstage-

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: Oh, the bride. Wow ...

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: her hair was done with GHD tools.

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: Incredible.

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: And so we were able to sort of capitalize on that moment. You know, we get really great moments for Met Galas and Golden Globes and that kind of thing. So it's not your traditional... Like, obviously Black Friday is still big, but we have different key moments because of the type of tool that we have.

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: Right. And I think omni-channel then all of a sudden starts to take on a completely different meaning. Like, you're capturing the moments the fans of your brand are actually... Um, and then, and you're using that as a way to come back to sell to the rest of your customers and beyond and, and acquire those new ones because y- you have to.

Yeah. I know we're coming up on time here in just a minute. Um, I think we have time for just maybe, uh, one, one or two questions. Anybody out there have any questions? Oh, see one right there. Oh, nope. That was an itch. Never mind. Not a question. No question. Uh, anyone- Questions? ... questions? No? No. Oh.

Audience Member: Hi. Hi. So it's amazing 'cause you have a functional product that you need to explain how it works and the benefits and features of it, but it's also an emotional purchase.

So how do you balance, right? 'Cause emotion for us women, like, makes you f- feel better when we do our hair. Um, how do you balance that storytelling of emotion but also features and benefits?

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: So we have some really great content on the website where we have how-tos. Um, we have an amazing YouTube channel as well, and what we've started to do is we've actually started to sort of romance our welcome series to our customers.

So traditionally, when you would come onto the website, you know, we'd ask for your email, and then literally 15 minutes later it'd be like, "Buy now, 15% off," which that's not... I'm not gonna just randomly drop $400. So we're starting to more wine and dine, let's say. Mm. So instead of, like, if you went and looked at the curling iron, we're gonna send you an email and be like, you know, our curling irons are actually our second most purchased product, so that's a fact that we'll give you.

There is a curling iron quiz, so you can sort of take the quiz and sort of learn about the product, and it actually will walk you through, like, the type of curls that you want, and it'll tell you what to get from there. And so it's more of, like, a slower... We don't expect you to convert within a day or a week even.

We are actually willing to wait, you know, up to 30 days for you to actually want to buy the product because we want you to feel good about what you're buying.

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: Love that. One... Oh, we got another question. I think we have time for one more real quick. Oh, we got, we got a mic here.

Audience Member: You previously were in a fashion retail environment, um, Forever 21. Yes. And that had, um, a lot of probably impulse shoppers and impulse buying that was very quick, and as you just mentioned, this was very... it's very different now, what you're doing. Um, are there any, like, outside of the box or innovative strategies that you've been able to pull to that, from that very different environment into what you're doing now, where it's a much longer commitment?

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: Absolutely. Mm-hmm. So, um, we've... I've definitely learned, for instance, we used to have, I call it the CVS receipt. So our emails for GHD were five miles long, same with our homepage. I can still pull from Forever 21 where we know we just, like, put it to me fast. Like, we actually started using, um, word only emails as opposed to, like, all this imagery and stuff.

Mm. Um, the other thing is too is, like, even at Forever 21, we know that, like, they'll spend the money on something fashionable there, but if you want, like, a core long-term item, you're gonna go for, like, you know, the Skims or hopefully the GHD hair line. So it definitely translates.

Brian Lang, co-founder of Future Commerce: Well, you said wine and dine. I'll cheers to that. Cheers. Thank you so much, Lindsay.

Lindsey Morris, Head of eCommerce, GHD Hair: Thank you, everyone.