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March Monthly Edition 2023

How Wool & Water is building the foundation for Retail3 with its  Web3 technology

How Wool & Water is building the foundation for Retail3 with its Web3 technology

The retail of yesterday was predominantly comprised of face-to-face interactions. Consumers would visit a store to buy products and services, and to speak with staff about recommendations and questions. Retailers could use those interactions to establish long-term, high-value relationships with their customers.

As the internet proliferated, shopping evolved. Consumers ventured online to save time. And technology began to supersede personal relationships as consumers began to forgo in-store experiences. Although online shopping is mostly preferred by most of the customers, offline shopping is not left behind.

Online retail stores enjoy high visibility with different ranges of products and prices, no online convenience can compare to the sense of confidence and fulfillment that customers get when they visit a physical retail store. They get to see and feel a product before buying it. For instance, when purchasing fashion items, most customers prefer visiting physical stores rather than online stores.

A lot of the time, customers want reassurance around a purchasing decision. They naturally want to buy products that are exactly in line with their needs and requirements first time around. Without seeing the product in question and getting a ‘real-life’ sense for it, some customers are reluctant to purchase.

Few others want to save time and energy and just browse online for what they want. Since both are the preferred ways for customers to choose the best from the available options. It is essential to improve the purchasing experience both online and offline.

We introduce you to Wool & Water, a B2B software startup which is dedicated to enhance both online and offline purchasing for businesses that offer goods and services, such as stores, automobiles, breweries, and wineries. They don't sell directly to consumers, and it's unlikely that they will ever be familiar with the name of their technology.

Wool & Water’s multi-award winning 3D AR commerce technology is specifically created around typical consumer habits to produce a frictionless shopping experience from the moment you enter the store until you check out. The streamlined, easy-to-use shopping experience connects effortlessly with your website to increase sales in a measurable, significant way and open up new revenue streams.

The company’s web-based tech is built to remove friction so the shopper can checkout in 1-2 clicks whether entering from print or digital Omnichannel elements. That combination of convenience and confidence consistently increases sales and reduces return rates.

The organization is the first to give customers both the security of in-store and the convenience of online shopping by integrating Web3 and Metaverse technology throughout their omnichannel footprint and help businesses sell more products, more frequently to more customers.

More than 50% of shoppers abandon carts online due to doubt about how something will look in the real world. Wool & Water’s technology empowers shoppers to better know how anything from a lamp to earrings will look in their home. Nearly 60% of shoppers have walked out of a physical store without purchasing the product they specifically came for over reasons other than price. The firm’s technology brings a retailer’s entire catalog in a 3D personalized way with sizing and knowledge that can still make the sale even when a specific product isn’t carried or salesperson without the necessary knowledge.

“Our award-winning 3D AR commerce technology is precisely designed around natural shopper behaviors to create an intuitive experience that removes friction all the way to checkout.”

Wool & Water is different than the countless other AR, NFT and Metaverse startups because they focus on solving problems using technology that is deceptively easy for consumers to use. It’s honestly shocking how few tech startups focus on solving real problems versus being enamored with a new technology’s possibilities. One of the organization’s biggest advantages is a leadership team who has led digital transformation initiatives for 15+years for companies such as Google, Boston Beer and Nissan, and is acutely focused on emerging technology that is being adopted by the target. For instance, Jeff Bodzewski, Co-founder & CEO’s MBA ensures that he views everything through the prism of will it either create revenue or reduce costs.

Steve Jobs’ design principals of simplicity and intuitiveness guide Wool & Water’s UX since no consumer is going to invest an extra minute or two learning a new technology so they can spend their money. The company’s team deep ecommerce experience means everything they do is to reduce checkout friction, Adding 10 seconds to a shopper’s experience often means the difference between converting the sale and an abandoned cart. Simplicity wins and that is their advantage in delivering immediate ROI to clients.

When asked to the company about the decline of NFT trading volume to 90% this year, and FTX becoming the latest crypto marketplace to liquidate and Meta laid off 11% of its workforce. And why did wool & Water pick the current tech downturn? Wool & Water replied to this saying the tech industry needed this phase to both consolidate and eliminate trendy start-ups that weren’t positioned for long-term business value. Just as it happened in during the dot-com crash, investors today continue to reward tech companies built to drive measurable business impact immediately. The near-term demise of NFT marketplaces isn’t unlike 2001 when investors at the time realized shipping 50 pound bags of dog food was not a sustainable business model at the time.

Investors are rewarding Wool & Water’s business model built around Hamilton Helmler’s seminal 7 Powers that emphasizes long-term business value by building competitive barriers such as economy of scale and switching costs. Retailers are responsive to our sales pitch that starts with immediate bottom line impact such as 90% increase in online conversion, 18% higher order size and 25% reduction in returns versus shoppers who didn’t go through AR commerce products.

Wool & Water is disrupting the retail industry with its technology. The year 2020 was the worst possible year for digital transformation experts, even though they had put immense efforts; it was not enough for the success of retail industry that year.

Wool & Water was the first to utilize then emerging tech such as augmented reality and VR to improve the retail experience. Their disruptive advantage is how they seamlessly integrate with a retailer’s native ecommerce, CRM and analytics platforms so shoppers can purchase what they see in AR or VR. Even now very few retailers have made this foundational investment in their long-term Web3 strategy, instead choosing to spend their budgets on gimmicks such as Roblox or “falling leaves overlay” one luxury company recently launched with zero sales impact.

Wool & Water has a 24 month roadmap for their emerging technologies including interactive holograms and their own branded metaworlds. The tech graveyard is full of companies who forced a new product or service long before a critical mass of consumers were ready. The company’s model is predicated on a new product being able to deliver immediate, measurable financial impact that is only possible when shoppers will intuitively use the technology.

Wool & Water’s relentless focus on innovation is more than new and emerging technology to address unmet shopper needs. Customer care, supply chain and in-store experience are areas that Web3 and Meta can enhance the overall shopper experience and deliver higher lifetime value.

Meet Jeff Bodzewski, Co-Founder & CEO

Jeff is an award-winning innovator recognized by Harvard Business Review, IBM and Oxford University Press for creating new models that transform how companies grow sales and create new revenue streams using emerging technologies dating back to writing the recommendations that first launched Nissan, Infiniti, Midas and others onto Facebook and Twitter.

He’s driven by solving problems in new and unexpected ways possible by applying his experience consulting innovative companies across industries such as Google, BP, Microsoft, GM, Lyft, AT&T, Expedia, Boston Beer and Unilever. Jeff founded and today leads Wool & Water, a tech startup that develops retail Metaverse commerce products for mid- to large-size companies to grow online and offline sales.

He spent most of his career within large agency holding companies including Publicis Groupe’s Epsilon, Omnicom and IPG often being recruited to build new capabilities and teams. Jeff earned his MBA from Kelley School at Indiana University and his BA at Purdue University. Jeff lives with his three sons and two rescue dogs in Barrington, Illinois.

“We are mapped to merge natural real world and online shopping behaviors.”


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