Wayfair’s President Jon Blotner on Going Physical, Plus Aritzia’s Blowout Quarter & Grocery’s Mushy Middle

Michael LeBlanc (0:06)

Welcome to the Remarkable Retail Podcast, Episode 316, The Hell Is Frozen Over Episode, wait, too much? I'm Michael LeBlanc.

Steve Dennis (0:15)

And I'm Steve Dennis.

Michael LeBlanc (0:17)

Our guest on this episode is Jon Blotner, President of Wayfair. Jon oversees Wayfair's retail businesses, including merchandising marketing and physical retail in both America and Canada. He also runs operations from the supply chain of Wayfair's own logistics network. He's got a huge remit. Wayfair has built a $12.5 billion business online, selling home furnishings under its namesake brand, which you would all know, and a family of other brands that are a little less familiar, AllModern, Birch Lane, Joss & Main, and luxury banner Perigold. Jon talks about that. After two decades, this is what really got our attention. I think as a pure play, Wayfair now making a serious move into physical retail. Its large format store opened just outside Chicago in 2024 Steve, you did a tour there. We got a great video if anybody wants to check the YouTube site. And it's recently announced plans for its tent. So, lead foot on the gas. It's a great interview. Several years in iterations in the making.

And it's coming up right after we get into the news of the week. Welcome you back to This Side of the Atlantic, you and Greece, birthplace of democracy, philosophy, the Olympics, and where people have been gathering in marketplaces and complaining about pricing since antiquity. Tell us about your trip, tell us about the pictures you sent were amazing.

Tell us about your days there, who you met, and what you're doing.

Steve Dennis (1:34)

I went over to speak at a, it's called the Unified Commerce Conference in Athens. I did do a little R&R by going to Santorini for the first time. So those were probably the more interesting pictures, which was amazing. This is not a paid promotion from the Greek Tourist Board, but if you haven't been to the Greek Isles, I would strongly encourage you to do it. It's pretty amazing, and definitely go more this time of year than the heat of the summer, which is both super hot and apparently very crowded and more expensive. But one of the things that was really interesting before the conference, I'll mention a couple of things quickly about the conference in a second, to the point you were making, was I did get to go check out some tourist sites, including the Ancient Agora, which in one way of looking at it, is one of the birthplaces of organized retail and retail as a community gathering place. So it was very interesting. I knew a little bit about that from school and other things, but to see it firsthand, I could use a little refurbishing, a little bit of an upgrade.

It's not quite in the shape it was.

Michael LeBlanc (2:37)

Let's get Simon on the property.

Steve Dennis (2:41)

Do a redevelopment, like a mixed-use kind of thing, I think would probably work. But also, just a couple other things about Greek retail. First of all, like a lot of European, major European cities, Athens has the regular complement of shopping centers and global retailers, everything from the very high end on Amora Street, Amora Avenue. But also, Lululemon just opened their first store there. So there's a lot going on just in terms of kind of typical global retail scene.

There's also, and I did not get a chance to go out and check this out, it's just starting to open. But there's a very major mixed-use retail development on the Greek Riviera, the Athens Riviera, called Athens Riviera, which is going to have some pretty high-end shops and restaurants and hotels. There's also a very controversial high-rise building right along the water, which is very easy to see because it is the only high-rise building for many, many miles. And several people I talked to that are long-term Athens residents said, you know, if it were to fall down or something, they wouldn't be terribly upset about it, but we don't wish any ill will.

Michael LeBlanc (3:53)

The building you got there, it's a nice building. Yeah, anyway, so it's a little bit controversial.

Steve Dennis (3:58)

At least that building is, I don't know that the overall project is that controversial. But the conference was really, it was really good. It was my first time in Greece, first of all. The Marketing Week people and Vasilis, who runs it, put on a really good conference. Most of the speakers were local Greek, either retailers, tech companies, thought leaders, etc. So I learned a lot about the Greek market, but also plenty of the topics were broadly applicable to the rest of the world. Then there were several international speakers. I was one of four.