When Joel Bines was in middle school, he had a basketball coach who told him what he really needed to work on was…getting taller. And he’s always thought of business books as being every bit as helpful as that coach: “prescription-oriented” and “fully impossible for anyone to do anything about,” he told Retail Brew.

Bines decided to write one anyway: The Metail Economy. And the message is that, more than ever, the consumer is calling the shots.

But Bines stressed that he’s not here to tell retailers “what you’re supposed to do about it.” (That’s his day job—as a managing director at the consulting firm AlixPartners, where he leads its global retail practice.) Instead, his book is meant to pull the fire alarm.

We asked Bines to explain the paradigm shift to customers truly being in charge—and why he’s so obsessed with the gas-pump hoses at Costco. (This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.)

How do you define “metail”?

I define “metail” as the democratization of consumerism…Consumers have always had agency, but lacked power. And now they have both.

Because, with technology, consumers have so much information?

Two things: information and access. So information to everything—pricing, sources of supply, human rights, manufacturing costs, product comparisons, whatever it is. And access to one another. So it wouldn’t be enough if you just had access, but no information, or you had information, but no access. The phrase that I use in the book is, you know, when I was growing up, if you were making a major purchase, you looked to Consumer Reports. And today, you look to consumers report.

When I first saw this term “metail,” I thought, Oh, this is just like a gimmicky way to say the old chestnut that “the customer comes first.” How’s what you’re actually saying much more 2022?

You are right, that I’m saying that the customer comes first. But I am right when I say that everyone before now, for the most part, who said the customer comes first was lying. The customer never came first. And the customer knows that. Any customer knows that until recently, rarely did we as consumers ever feel like the companies were putting us first. And what I’m saying is now you have to mean it. We the customers now know that you’re not putting us first because of information and access.

Click here to read the full Q&A.—AAN

We didn’t time this to today’s jobs report, but maybe we should say that we did.

This month, Retail Brew will be on workforce watch, breaking down the industry’s biggest labor trends. Now, we all know the pandemic has transformed the world of retail and its workers. So, to kick us off, we put together a reading list of stories about how things have changed—and ones predicting how they’ll keep changing.

Search party: Retailers want to know where the workers are. But this Business Insider piece makes the case that the industry’s labor shortage won’t be fixed until those on-the-ground roles become a “viable, long-term career again.”

• And the answer isn’t just boosting wages. “They have to start thinking a bit outside the box and create a culture that shows retail is not just a fly by night seasonal thing,” Miya Knights, a retail analyst, told Business of Fashion.
• The same goes for luxury brands.
• Meanwhile, grocers are turning to automation to fill holes left by empty roles.

Joining forces: Global retail consultant Joel Bines just explained to us that consumers are now in the driver’s seat. Well, Recode lays out why workers, too, have more power. (Hint: Companies really want to keep the ones they already have.)

But speaking of power shifts, unions are back in the spotlight.

• Vice digs into why the efforts at Starbucks could be spreading from Buffalo to stores all over the country.
• And the Teamsters, one of the largest unions in the US, are interested in talking to more and more Amazon workers.

Looking ahead…What does the future of work look like for retail? McKinsey covers the importance of resilience and reskilling.

• Sorry, but it does look like the future will probably include the metaverse (don’t @ us). Here’s who companies should be hiring to make it a reality.—GT

If you didn’t already know, Morning Brew is on YouTube! Our shows cover the tech, trends, and companies you care about—in a way that won’t make your eyes burn from jargon or boredom. If you’re wondering how the world works (that makes two of us!), let’s figure it out together. Check out some of our newest shows:

• What’s a blockchain, a DAO, or an NFT? We explain why Ethereum matters
• Kanye or Elon Musk: Can you tell the difference?
• Meet the couple that made $70k from Magic: The Gathering cards

Hardly Ever Worn It wants you to hardly have any issues when you shop. The luxury resale platform got a revamp this week in an effort to streamline its shopping experience.

• The upgraded platform learns from customer behavior, presenting fewer, more personalized options, CEO Tatiana Wolter-Ferguson told WWD.

“The calibre of product, curation, condition, and customer service makes HEWI stand alongside any other luxury e-commerce platform in the primary market that our customer is accustomed to,” Wolter-Ferguson said.

Nice and easy: A top-notch customer experience is expected when shopping for luxury clothes, she said, which is why HEWI also offers in-person appointments to try things IRL.

• HEWI’s goal is clear: have customers shop with them before trying anything new.

“The future of retail will be that the customer will go to resale before they go to the primary market,” Rachel Reavley, a HEWI board member, also told WWD.

On the flip side…Brands—luxury included—increasingly want customers to come to them for resale.

• Oscar de la Renta, for example, is embracing resale with the help of startup Archive.

“[Brands] were seeing their customers buy things from their brand and then leave the platform and go to Poshmark and Depop” to eventually resell them, Archive CEO and co-founder Emily Gittins previously told Retail Brew.—KM

Today’s top retail reads.

Raked over the Kohl’s: Why the department store, despite many smart moves over six decades, is facing pressure from activist investors. (Retail Dive)

Understanding Uglycore: The long history, and inexplicable success, of weird-looking shoe brands—and the empire they created for Deckers Outdoor Corp. (Bloomberg)

An eye for safety: How Stoggles, fresh off raising $40 million, managed to make protective eyewear fashionable. (Insider)

Essential info: KPIs help organizations measure progress, but which are the most important when it comes to tracking success? In Oracle NetSuite’s guide, you’ll learn about the 20 essential KPIs every growing business should track, and much more. Get the guide here.*

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Catch up on the Retail Brew stories you may have missed.

• “An underlooked and underserved market”: How one startup is making online grocery more accessible for EBT recipients
• Secure delivery lockers are huge all over the world. Why not in the US?
• Misfits Market unveils wine as its latest category expansion

Three of the stories below are real...and one is most definitely not. Can you spot the fake?

1. Dolly Parton and Duncan Hines are teaming up for a line of cake mixes and frostings.
2. Ye will be organizing a Yeezy garage sale.
3. Job candidates at Ikea can snack on 3D-printed vegan meat balls while interviewing at the company.
4. A fight of 40+ people broke out in a Golden Corral, reportedly over a piece of steak.

Keep reading for the answer.