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Click the registration link in the show notes for tickets. Hi, everyone. Today is Wednesday, September 9th. Welcome to EMARKETER's weekly retail show, Reimagining Retail, an EMARKETER podcast made possible by Verve. This is the show where we talk about how retail collides with every part of our lives, and I'm your host, Suzy Davidkhanian.

On today's episode, we're talking about a unique challenge in bridal. How do you grow when, if all goes well, your core customer only needs you once? Joining me [00:01:00] from Texas is podcast regular Sky Canaves. Hey, Sky.

Sky Canaves: Hey, Suzy. I'm so glad to be here.

Suzy Davidkhanian: We're so excited to have you. And our special guest, Elena Vilk, President and Chief Business Officer at David's Bridal, joining from Florida.

Hey, Elena.

Elina Vilk: Hey, everyone.

Suzy Davidkhanian: So nice to see you again. We're so excited to have you. Before we even get started, I thought we could do a very quick speed intro. In 30 seconds or less, tell us what you do.

Elina Vilk: Well, I work for Pearl and David's Bridal, and, uh, I'm really, really deep in all things growth, uh, across both business lines.

And in particular, the Pearl business line, driving forward the entire wedding journey via AI for the customer, merchandising, marketing, our e-com business, and more.

Suzy Davidkhanian: And we'll talk a lot more about Pearl, but that was a great overview. Tell us in a few sentences, what is your favorite, you get to pick, book, [00:02:00] podcast, TV show right now?

Elina Vilk: Oh, that's a hard one. So, um, I'm rewatching Heroes. I watched it- Oh ... so long ago, and I just restarted watching that with my son. Uh, and I, I was just kind of, you know, with everything that happened with Hayden and everything recently. And I'm kind of a sci-fi nerd. I don't know. I think- Yeah ... I feel like maybe a few of us are on this call.

And, uh, my favorite movie of all time is probably The Matrix. But, like, looking back at Heroes, um, the character development and the discovery almost feels like you're doing it for the first time again. Mm-hmm. That's so nice. So that's really fun. And it, it does kinda connect back to a lot of what we're...

Like, the way people discover things. I think we can learn a lot from cinematography and the film world and storytelling around the discovery and how you can really, like, get into the minds of, of the humans involved in the different character developments.

Suzy Davidkhanian: I love that because I'm almost done binge-watching what I've been currently watching, so that is gonna be next for me.

Elina Vilk: Yeah. I've-- You gotta text me on that one. So,

Suzy Davidkhanian: jeez. I [00:03:00] absolutely will. So back to weddings. It's a big business. The dress is only, though, one piece of a much bigger ecosystem, from venues and hotels to flowers, photographers, planners. The couples really have to make hundreds of decisions leading into that big day.

But for bridal, there's also this really unusual retail challenge. If everything goes according to plan- You're not trying to get that bride to come back and be a repeat customer. So growth really does come from finding credible ways to solve more of her needs while she's planning the wedding. Mm-hmm. And today, we're gonna talk about how you earn the right to expand beyond your core business, how do you cut through the noise in an already crowded marketplace, and how do you use your customer insights to figure out where to go next?

But before we dive in, I thought maybe we could start with, is there someone in your orbit planning a wedding right now? And if yes, what do you think looking in is maybe the most stressful part? And I can start. It's someone in my extended family, and so I'm very close [00:04:00] to her, and there are lots of stressful things, but I think the most stressful so far has been thinking about a venue not in your local city that fits the number of people that you want to have, and then figuring out all of the other components, which is why, of course, I plugged Pearl and was like, "You gotta start.

You gotta use it." And she's loving it, but we'll definitely talk more about that. Skye, is there someone in your world?

Sky Canaves: I do have a neighbor who just planned two wedding events, um, one in Utah and one here in Texas. So it was, you know, a full two weeks of hard work. Sandwich. Yeah.

Suzy Davidkhanian: Oh my gosh.

Sky Canaves: Well, the neighbor is, is the mom, so it's, you know, she was very involved, and it was just, yeah, a lot to do.

A lot. In two places. Yeah.

Suzy Davidkhanian: And Lena, you're seeing that a lot too, right? It's a lot

Elina Vilk: I think, uh, you know, aside from personal anecdotes, I can tell you there's, the average wedding is an 18-month planning cycle, [00:05:00] and you are very excited when you're dating, and you're very excited when you get the ring, for about 24 hours.

And then there's one emotion that you feel for the next 18 months, and you both said it in different ways: stress. And so stress is the number one emotion you feel in wedding planning all the way up to the wedding day itself, to the point where many brides report don't even remember their day because they were so stressed about all the details that are going, you know, "Did so-and-so arrive on time?

Is my bride, is everything, the dra- family drama okay? Is this okay? Is, is this gonna accommodate? Is the weather gonna hold up?" Like, all these questions come into play at the last day, and it's, um, it's a very stressful event, in particular for a bride, you know, average age in their mid-20s, has never come close to spending this kind of cash or planning this kind of event ever in her life.

So absolutely, um, very stressful. We can even tell you the top three stressors. Number one is [00:06:00] financial. Number two, any guesses? Number two most stressful aspect of planning a wedding

Suzy Davidkhanian: Having never been married but observed, I would say guest list

Sky Canaves: Uh,

Elina Vilk: family. Family. Um, you're both kind of in the same ballpark.

It's, it's about wedding party management. Wow. It's, it's your bridal party. It's like dealing- Oh ... with the humans that are closest to you, um, and their roles in the wedding, and then, you know, that's been reported. Mm-hmm. You know, like we're deal- we're... One, one of the things we're working on right now is, like, how do you get five women to agree on a bridesmaid's dress?

So, right? So think about all the dynamics at play, um, when, when you plan a wedding. Mother-in-law wants something different than what you have planned, doesn't like the color, et cetera, et cetera, and so forth.

Suzy Davidkhanian: So at David's Bridal, I mean, you guys started with the bride's wedding dress, but you've moved beyond that, and you're trying to really think through all of the different components.

How are you [00:07:00] able to move more credibly into other areas?

Elina Vilk: It, it starts and ends with one word, which is trust. And so, um, David's Bridal has a brand reputation that is 76 years old and is the most trusted, uh, brand in weddings, period, um, in the United States for sure, and beyond. And within that has dressed more brides than anyone else on the planet, has been with more brides, and 90% of all brides will go through the David's ecosystem at some point or another.

So that allows David's to start playing in the territory by building on that trust. Our stylists in the store, we call them dream makers. They are so much more than people that fit you for a wedding. They are your therapists. They're your emotional support. You walk into that, I mean, the conversations, you know, one of the, my favorite things to do is actually g- go to a store and, and experience it.

I cry every single time to this day when a bride says ... Yeah, it is not just a [00:08:00] dress you're putting on, you're putting on your future. You're, you're imagining walking yourself down that moment, and you see I'm, like, already kind of like, you know. I know there's no video here, but I'm already kind of ... It's like an very, it's a very big responsibility, and it's a very big emotional journey.

And the stylists, the dream makers, they, um, many of them, we, we've retained them for over 20 years. And so when you talk to them, you'll find that it's not just about what fits the best and looks the best on the girl, but it's everything, every single emotion surrounding that journey. So, I mean, I like to say this, that, you know, it's not just her dad that walks her down the aisle, it's also David's.

Suzy Davidkhanian: Aw. That's so sweet. So it starts with trust, but it's such an emotional time, and some of the decisions, I, I think I read somewhere that it's 300 decision points that they have to make throughout their process.

Elina Vilk: At minimum.

Suzy Davidkhanian: At minimum.

Elina Vilk: At minimum. If you have a more, like, for example, if you have an Indian wedding, it's probably 2X that.

Suzy Davidkhanian: Oh, yeah.

Elina Vilk: Um,

Suzy Davidkhanian: so-

Elina Vilk: I [00:09:00] have

Suzy Davidkhanian: been to one

Elina Vilk: of those ... yeah. It's, it's, um, it's, it's really ... The thing we don't think about i- in, in particular as women, we carry this, I call it this bubble over our heads. Uh, and so this bubble sits with you. Even right now I bet you're thinking about, and the l- for the listeners here, men have this too, to a degree, uh, the, you have things you're thinking about that have nothing to do with this conversation at this very moment in time.

And so, you know, you have a d- you might have a dog that you haven't fed or walked. You might have, you know, things that are happening. These are just your everyday things. Now, I want you to imagine when you're planning something of this magnitude and scale, um, and the bubble and how much it grows, most of those things are not in any to-do list.

The use case I give is the engagement photo shoot, a very simple thing. That is one task on any wedding list. If you go to, like, wedding planning, that's just one task. I want to s- you to start a count. If we had, if we had, like, a visual counter, I would show you, like, how many things go into that. [00:10:00] Uh, and so you could see, okay, so you, you pick the photographer.

That's thing one. Then you pick where I'm getting my photo shoot done. That's thing two. Then you have to go through inspiration photos, um, and figure out, like, okay, what do- what do I kinda want, want it to look like. That's thing three. Then what am I- what's my hair gonna do? Do I need to go to a stylist?

That's thing four. Then you have makeup, then you have your outfit. Is there an outfit change? What's he wearing? How are we doing it? Why do we plan it in our day? Thing five, thing six, thing seven. Do I need to do teeth whitening? Like, how do- do my nails, like, how is that... Is the ring gonna look good? Do I need to clean it beforehand?

So on and so forth, okay? That- Oh my

Suzy Davidkhanian: God, I'm overwhelmed, and that was just the picture.

Elina Vilk: That's one task on any wedding list. That's one task. So I want you to think about the bubbles that come with that one, the micro tasks that happen. Yeah. So 300 tasks is minimum. It's like, it's probably, it could be thousands, up to thousands of things that, that are like that, that are not on any list, and you wonder why you feel so overwhelmed.

And also, these costs are [00:11:00] adding up. They're tickers that are adding up. They are blind costs. Like, you're not probably budgeting, you know, a new bustier for your wedding photo shoot or engagement photo shoot in your wedding budget. But these things, you know, you, you find yourself overwhelmed with cost.

Your credit card bills go up at this time. So these are all real things that happen during the course of a wedding that we're thinking about.

Suzy Davidkhanian: Well, and it sounds like you have so much information over the years that you're really able to... 'Cause if we think about Pearl, which is a, like, your sort of personal assistant that helps you through the journey, you've figured out, you know, how do you ensure that there's trust throughout the journey, that you really understand her and the whole family really, for that matter, and you're able to get permission.

But Sky, that doesn't always happen. There are brands and companies and retailers that try and go into adjacent categories, and it's not credible. What separates the stretch from the, like, reality of it happening?

Sky Canaves: I mean, I think it starts with, uh, understanding the customer and what they're going through.

Like, what is their mission? And in the [00:12:00] case of wedding, there are many missions and many tasks that go with them. Especially nowadays as weddings expand, they're becoming more multi-day, they're involving more people, they can involve more travel to destinations. Um, there are all sorts of events leading up to, and then of course the honeymoon.

So these create all sorts of opportunities that are all adjacent to the single day or event of getting married. But there are so many components within that that, you know, cause stress, and where there's potential friction, and where, uh, a retailer like, or brand can provide services in addition to products that support easing that journey or solving those missions and tasks.

Suzy Davidkhanian: So sounds to me like when your brand core is, is maintained and you're moving into adjacencies, as long as you keep remembering what the core is, then you have a better shot. It's not always guaranteed, but that you have a better shot of [00:13:00] folks moving with you into a new direction. Which kind of brings us to Pearl, because Pearl is operating in a slightly crowded space, right, with The Knot and a few other companies.

Um, how are you guys thinking about cutting through that noise so that you are the go-to resource across all of the components?

Elina Vilk: We're not going into it, uh, from the standpoint of, oh, this is, this is, this is another category and we're another player in the category. What we're going into it is... And I'm not really looking at them that much, um, I'll be honest.

It- they're not-- When we're solving these problems, we're looking at, what is the best possible way to solve the problem? So we're looking at other companies, like for example, Airbnb, how do they match, um, how do they match the, the owners, the sellers of the, the, uh, of the home to the, the renters, right? How do they do that?

What's their process? What does the criteria look like? We're looking at world-class tech companies. How are they matching these services? And what we're defining is, what are the biggest stress [00:14:00] categories? And inside of those categories, what are the best ways to solve the problem? So for example, we know that budget's a big problem, so we set out and built a budgeting tool.

That doesn't exist today. Um, that tool basically allows you to say, "Okay, my wedding budget might be $35,000, but that means I have to make some trade-offs." So what are the things that are most important to me? Is it the venue? Is it the music? Is it the food? What are the things that should be at the top end, and what does that top end look like?

'Cause I could get a quote from anybody, and if it's sequentially the first thing I do, well, I'm halfway done with planning and I've blown through my budget I don't think anyone has this direction right now. So these are the kinds of tools we're building, is we're, we're actually trying to solve for stress.

We're not solving for being a competitor in the field. I mean, maybe these guys are partners of ours someday, I don't know. But, um, what we need to do is we really need to s- if we solve for stress and we keep our eye on [00:15:00] stress as the main point, and to your point from earlier is, trust allows us to play in this space from an adjacency perspective.

The trust is the baseline that allows us to play in that space. But if we truly solve for stress, then the financials will come, because we're solving a real customer problem. And I come from the technology world, and I think that what's what separates a lot of great companies is it's not about just the tech or about the, um, the infrastructure or about, you know, the brand.

It's all those things are important, but the real thing, the most important thing is are you truly solving a customer problem? Are you solving it? And are you solving it end to end, or are you just scraping it, scraping by?

Sky Canaves: And I think then that works to enable things like partnerships with, you know, other parties that might be considered competitors, but that then can complement or join in helping to solve the customer problems or tho- those friction points that you're looking at as taking those as fundamental.

Elina Vilk: Exactly.

Suzy Davidkhanian: And it's truly that differentiating piece, right? [00:16:00] You're starting from the customer problem with the customer data and building around that. So has it come to a point where you thought you were solving for something, you thought you had permission to solve for it, and she was like, "Absolutely not.

No thank you"?

Elina Vilk: I don't think we've had, like, a, "No thank you." I think what we had is the way we're sol- like, it's the right problem, but maybe we're not solutioning the UX the right way. Um, so that's been a little bit of a trial and error, because when you do things that have never been done before, you don't have a blueprint for how to do them And so it's kind of like is the UX/UI the right way?

Like for example, we know there's 300 tasks. We initially had like a high level list, and we're like, "We can't do that. We gotta walk her through maybe three or four tasks." Based on the wedding date, if the wedding date is shorter, like if she only has three months, she's seeing way more tasks than she should, and that feels very overwhelming- Yeah

and we're creating more stress by showing it that way. So these are the things we've adj- we've started to adjust for is there's so many use cases and there's so many different [00:17:00] ways people get married, from like a backyard wedding that could be happening in two weeks to an elaborate, you know, multi-pronged, multi-day situation that could be happening in two years.

How do we start to scale and map for that is the things that we're just learning in the UI process.

Suzy Davidkhanian: I love that because what I didn't hear from you was, "We tried, it didn't work, we moved on with our life," but you were like, "Oh, we know that this is a problem. The customer is telling us. We have to reposition, we have to tweak, we have to think about it so that we can make a different sort of solution that helps with the initial problem."

Elina Vilk: Exactly.

Suzy Davidkhanian: So is the speed of learning here also really important for you guys?

Elina Vilk: Yes. Um, speed of learning is exceptionally important. Uh, and so for us and, and scaling in the right time and in the right way is a counterbalance. We haven't even really started marketing this. Um, we're only starting now, and so...

and we have hundreds of thousands of users. And so it's kind of like we fully open this up, this [00:18:00] spigot up, we wanna be ready. And I'm... and this is maybe a little bit of a me thing, I never feel like we're ready, and so this probably like, I know it's a thousand times better than anything that they see today, but I'm like- We wanna make sure it's so right because it's so important we remove the stress and we remove the pain point.

And so it's a huge responsibility for us to do it, so we have to learn very, very fast so we can launch these things very, very fast and move forward.

Suzy Davidkhanian: Trying to do perfect without speed is not helpful, right? And there are so many, so many different solutions. I mean, outside of wedding, just in general, every company is coming up with solutions.

So Sky, I still kinda wanna dig into that idea around you get the permission, the consumer's ready to play with you, but you still need to cut through some noise sometimes. So how, how, what can brands do or how should they be thinking about breaking through that noise when there are already established systems or players?

Sky Canaves: I think this is where you have to focus on this kind of, the trust that you have and building influence from there. Um, I think with weddings and [00:19:00] wedding planning, the whole process, um, there's so much, there's so much or- content that comes out of it that can be leveraged from both the wedding party themselves, the brides, um, you know, everything from those engagement photos, to the lead-up to the day, to the honeymoon.

Um, there's all this content around the weddings that, you know, is out there on social. It's being published. It's being shared. And then you have the, you know, the expertise of your, your employees, your staff, who, you know, have great influence in the wedding planning space and can, in addition to supporting your customers on the platform, can be sharing that more broadly through social channels.

And that- that's really what builds, like, the high-trust influence and, you know, it's kind of word of mouth, but it's also, like, amplified through social channels.

Suzy Davidkhanian: I don't know why for me, I always think about, like, when you're trying to change, I always go back to that [00:20:00] JCPenney example with Ron Johnson, right?

Sometimes it's really hard to change when the customer doesn't wanna change with you, and so that's so critical. And when you have the customer changing with you, that also gives the opportunity to think about different revenue streams. Um, and it sounds like you guys are also thinking about how do you build out the stores, you know, how do you think about perhaps maybe being a commerce media channel at some point.

Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Elina Vilk: So when we think about who our customer is, and, and that 90% quote I gave you earlier of, of will go through at some point our funnel, that gives us a totally different viewpoint to think about that customer because they're so much more than, uh, you know, a bride.

They're going through a huge change in their life at the end of that cycle. They're turning into household formation. And when you get into the household formation, you're starting to make a whole different set of decisions [00:21:00] because sometime in that 18-month journey, they're moving in together. And when they move in together, she becomes the household CEO.

85% of married women are household CEOs, you all know. Um, meaning they make the primary decisions of everything that gets purchased in that home. And so we're talking about the toothpaste you all use together, the mattresses, um, et cetera. And then the biggest financial movement is also when you move in together, when you do move, right?

That's also, like, a big, big turning point, um, in commerce in general. And so that's the customer we have, and she's Gen Z, and she's coming in, yeah, et cetera, et cetera. Right? So that is a very valuable first party set, and we have not only the first party data, but we have hundreds of data points around that customer.

And so that turns into a very, very, very robust commercible, um, customer base that we can then expose to other brands, but we have to do it very selectively and in a [00:22:00] way, again, that removes stress and is helpful to that customer. So it can't just be we're not gonna do a ton of billboards, and we're not gonna do a ton of ads, um, because we can.

Although we can do that tomorrow and make a lot, a lot of money on that, that's not what we're going to do. The way we're gonna do it has gotta be very intentional, thoughtful, and in a way that, um, treats this responsibility as it should, right? But if we do it right, we can actually do it in a way that helps the brands but also helps the customer, and that's what we're doing today, is we're driving use cases that matter.

So for example, we started, um, something called Travel by David's. Travel by David's solves the pain point that you mentioned earlier, which is a lot of weddings are happening not here They need room blocks. They travel for honeymoon. Well, let's start a travel division, get everybody involved. Let, let's get all the brands, like from cruise lines to hotels, et cetera.

Let's get them all in there. Let's build a [00:23:00] marketplace of travel. Let's solve the pain points that they have in the moment that they have them, and let's do it contextually. And so that's just one example, but you can think of so many examples along the wedding journey.

Suzy Davidkhanian: And you guys keep coming back to this, which, uh, having worked in consumer insights makes me so happy, right?

You're always starting with the consumer insights that you're getting directly from your consumer, and that also means that counterintuitive to a lot of other companies, you guys have opened outlet stores, and you're opening more stores. Tell us more about those decisions.

Elina Vilk: When we looked at our store fleet, we have 993 stores, and we looked at the household income of those markets, and we've kind of treated those stores all the same.

Uh, and so kind of, you know, 15,000, 12,000 square foot, et cetera, large scale stores that were opened up primarily in the early 2000s and the '90s, and they've been the same, same, same for all these, all these years. Um, when we start evaluating who is the customer walking in the door and what are they looking for, what we're seeing is that there's different sets of [00:24:00] customers.

When you cater to the 90%, you're gonna have a luxury customer, you're gonna have a mass market customer, and then you're gonna have a budget customer. And the budget customers in this K-shaped economy are increasing right now. So rather than have a lot of inventory in every store, why don't we take our disc inventory and move it to outlet stores where there's a lower household income, where there's a more of a pressure financially in those markets, and when we've evaluated those markets.

And so if we can provide that service by shipping those goods out in that way, then we can actually create, um, economies that work for... And then different product in different, in different markets that cater to the specific market they're looking for. And so, um, we can't homogenize every city and every market.

Can't do that anymore. And so we've gotta look at the customers that are coming through and the customers that are there, and offer them the right product at the right time. And as for- And the

Suzy Davidkhanian: right experience too, right? Yeah. Yeah. It, it's so great [00:25:00] that even your store assortment, I don't know if even was the right word, but like everything you're doing starts with the consumer and ends with the consumer experience.

And so Sky, when we put all of that stuff together, when you think about new services, new revenue streams, different store formats, uh, courting a new type of customer, what can other retailers outside of bridal altogether take away from this, and how do they put the customer insights at the core of growth?

Sky Canaves: I mean, that's, that's the part that the customer will show the way. Um, you know, if you follow the customer and look at their friction points, that roadmap for new opportunities to add value and grow revenue will kind of write itself. But then part of the challenge is that as these offerings are become more diversified, and as you serve a broader consumer base, there's that challenge of matching and personalizing, um, what shows up for which customer.

Because if you have a dozen or more new [00:26:00] services or offerings, um, you can't just blast them to everyone. So you wanna make the options highly relevant on that individual one-to-one customer level to, again, as Alina mentioned, like not overwhelm them with too many things to do or too many options.

Suzy Davidkhanian: I love that.

I want to keep going, but unfortunately that's all the time we have for today. Thank you so much, Alina. Thanks so much for having me. Really enjoyed the conversation. And thanks, Sky.

Sky Canaves: Thanks. This was great, Suzy.

Suzy Davidkhanian: And thanks to our listeners and to our team that edits the podcast. Please leave a rating or review and remember to subscribe.

I'll see you for more Reimagining Retail next Wednesday. And on Friday, join Marcus for another episode of Behind the Numbers, an EMARKETER podcast made possible by Verve.