027 | Nicole Leinbach Hoffman | Stimulating commerce: disrupting retail and sexual wellness

Welcome to Commerce Famous, the biweekly podcast all about ecommerce and retail. In each episode, your host, Ben Marks, cuts through the clutter and takes you straight to the stories and experiences of those who shaped digital commerce as we know it today. While their names and faces might not be recognized on the street, each of Ben's guests are famous for commerce or commerce famous. Without further ado, your host, Ben Marks. Hey, everyone.

Welcome to Commerce Famous. This is your host, Ben Marks. With me today is someone I've actually had the pleasure of, working with and meeting in the past, because I she was kind enough to have me speaking at, her long running, events series, Nicole Leinbach. Welcome to Commerce Famous. Thank you for having me.

So excited to be here, Ben. So, you you know, you're you're actually, I think, unique, among all of the guests that we've had, and we've had, you know, probably about 30 at this point. You know, if we talk about season one and season two of Commerce Famous. But you have been producing an event series where you've had to, you know, you've had to solicit, great speakers and, of course, sponsors and everything else. So you've you've had singular, focus in this space for a really long time and then putting things together that bring all the people together.

What what got you started all the way back in, I think, 2011, was when you founded, you you you cofounded in Independent Retailer Conference. Can you can you just talk about what led to that and then the journey that happened, afterwards? Yeah. Absolutely. So I am a self described retail geek.

So I grew up, you know, going to a local main street with my mom and sister shopping, and I fell in love with the business, not necessarily the product behind the scenes of retail. And I started RetailMinded in 2007 after working national marketing rules for, like, Adidas America and Franco Sarto footwear. And by 2011, I was, like, so excited to be able to bring retail education to the stage. We launched in Chicago. We held events in New York City and ultimately partnered with amazing trade shows such as New York NOW, ASD Market Week, Outdoor Retailer, Halloween Party Expo.

Those are just some of them that the Independent Retailer Conference partnered with. And I did that as a way to bring connectivity of commerce and, you know, through education and basically sourcing inventory as well. We we were doing them at events that you could also identify inventory for your stores across all retail categories. And like you said, I got to work with amazing, like, leaders and speakers and sponsors and truly awesome experience. And over the years, it certainly changed, and we all know that COVID made things change in a big way, and that led to some other things that have followed.

But, yeah, self described retail geek who just loves bringing content and education together. So with with, you know, tens, hundreds of thousands of of of of eyeballs and ears on on the the content that you've facilitated, You know, if we go back to that, you know, that, you know, the incubation moment of the series, was it really the case? So I just and and and, you know, just for the historical perspective that we really value here at Commerce Famous, was this really was this there was a need for this back in back in 2011. Right? There's just this this real kind of of education, this insight, this providing information, in the context of being at these events where you have the people supplying and the people wanting to sell.

You know, again, it just it fascinates me to think I would have thought that, you know, that this space would have already been mature by then, but, clearly, that's not the case. What was your what was your, you know, do you have, like, an ethos or ideology when when you think about it, or was it just like, you know, damn it. No one else is doing it. And it it it so if not no one else, then me. Yeah.

Well, this this is what's interesting. There's already amazing conferences that existed then and still exist now such as ShopTalk and MRF. You know? Yeah. Amazing experiences.

They're very conference focused, and I wanted to bring education to places that inventory was being sourced. And that's the big difference because you there's amazing conferences out there, but there are trade shows that were not offering education. And if they were, they were typically tucked away in different meeting rooms either off site or maybe on a second level of a big convention center, and it wasn't really bringing the value that I felt could be offered to the attendees. So we actually created an experience with quick learning experiences. So we're looking at fifteen minutes.

You can sit down. The tagline of the independent retailer conference is engage, learn, connect. The goal is let's bring leaders like yourself, Ben, where you're, you know, be being able to share your immense wisdom and then also able to connect them ultimately to, let's say, Shopware. Right? So we're we're bringing a combination of wisdom and operational resources together, not just the I've always believed that, you know, inventory is what bring a store to life, whether it's online or brick and mortar.

But behind the scenes, that's where the magic really happens. So I wanted to bring also that connectivity of companies like Yelp and like Shopware and like Shopify and all these different places that exist to floors of these trade shows. Commerce famous is proudly presented by Shopware, the leading open source e commerce platform for mid market and lower enterprise merchants. More than 50,000 clients already processed over $25,000,000,000 in annual GMV through Shopware. Find out more about Shopware and the best value in ecommerce at shopware.com.

Well and and, you know, my experience of the format that you had created and as it turns out, as we'll get into, in in short order, you know, was the sort of the pinnacle of of the the IRC series. But showing up and and being asked to speak and then walking in the front doors there, this was, in Las Vegas at the convention center, walking in, and then front and center is this this carve out of knowledge exchange. And what I really, really liked, what was particularly novel to me is that, you know, you have this sort of I don't wanna diminish it, but, like, it was like a it's it's it's it's an event inside an event. And it was, as you say, I mean, it was clearly focused on learning. Now the content was great, and I had I had fantastic conversations with with merchants when I spoke there, but I just I love the whole the whole space was framed with the well curated group of sponsors who were able to add color to to basically any discussion that was happening.

I mean, for me, that was that was, you know, as someone who's been to his fair share, like, hundreds of events around the world over the years, this was a really refreshing approach for me to see, and I think that was probably the secret sauce. Now so when when when, when someone looks at your CV, they'll notice that August 2023 is the end date of you as cofounder of Independent Retailer Conference. I'm curious to know what's going on with the series, what's since then. So, yeah, it's a great point. You know, I think like all good things, including any retailer commerce business, evolution is important.

And we've been around for twelve years doing this, successfully enjoying it, creating immense, you know, exchange of wisdom. And what we wanted to do is bring a refresh to that. So we actually decided, let's start to do almost like a private label product development. Let's private label this experience. So because the one disconnect that we've often found was sometimes an attendee might be like, wait.

The independent retailer conference held on-site at ASD Market Week, which brings in 40,000 people twice a year. Let's look at that disconnect. So, actually, this past March, we produced a private label experience at the ASD Market Week. It simply wasn't branded IRC. It appeared to the audience, the attendees, to be ASD operated and produced, but really it wasn't.

It was produced by us. And so we're doing more and more of that private label where it's behind the scenes, if you will, no one knows, but we're still curating that. I think, Ben, the magic that we can bring to any partnership is that curation and identify identifying those conversations that are going to be engaging someone like yourself and so many others that we've welcomed over the years to the stage. Well, that's I mean, that that is really cool to think that that, you know, it if I mean, it's tough as you as you well know. It's really tough to put on, to conceive, and then deliver a great conference where, you know, everyone who shows up for the most part, they they walk away, you know, they they know they their their career has been enriched.

Their, you know, their mindset has been informed. It sounds like you can you can you and your you know, you and the team can show up and just sort of make this happen and and really allow basically, allow these these events to to to dress themselves up in your garb. And that was actually in it I'm glad you said it that way because that was my experience when I was at when I spoke at ASD in, in Vegas. You know, was I think that was last year. Was that last year or the year before?

I don't even remember. I think it might have been 2022. I think it was 2022. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, you know, but not one to be, you know, you're not gonna sit back on the laurels of your success. You, of course, have started another series. And this one, I remember I was I I I think I saw you post something about it, and I went to look at it. And this series is called Stimulate. You know, it's a sexual wellness b to b trade show.

Right? So it is it is, addressing head on and in, you know, in a professional way, like, the reality that there is this massive massive business, that involves something that at least in the the sort of the the the puritanically rooted Americas is kind of almost verboten or difficult to talk about. Clearly, you saw a need. So, you know, this was this was March 2022. If I can, like, what what what was the genesis for this?

What was the what was the thing that you saw saw missing or you didn't see, or the thing that you wanted to achieve by founding this brand, which and and I think when in the in the the, run up to the show, you were telling me, like, it's it's growing hand over fist. So clearly, there's demand. There's there's there's interest and there's opportunity. But I'd love to get to that that moment, you know, whether you're sitting on a couch or walking down a beach or wherever, where you knew that this was something that needed to happen? So great question because it definitely didn't just, you know, wake up with me one day and think, oh, I have to do this.

But rather after COVID, when I was working with some trade show clients, they challenged me with some great data that they had collected during COVID that identified adult novelty as one of the top two, depending on where you were looking, categories sold online during COVID. So that, of course, was fascinating in itself, and they were looking to introduce potentially an angle that they could discuss it at their own shows. Well, the I did that, by the way. I did deliver that opportunity for them, and I dove into the data, and we created a program like we often do, private labeled it, and we produced that. Now moving ahead, I was so just interested in this data that I started to then attend other events throughout The US and look at what I felt was missing in the market of what might be considered adult novelty, and then I expanded that into collective sexual wellness.

And I quickly realized that the way I define sexual wellness was not being supported, and I define that, and it's now a tagline of stimulate, is head to toe, young to mature, purpose to pleasure. And really purpose to pleasure is very important here because we cover everything at Stimulate from menstrual care to menopause care to, of course, all the touch points in between of someone's health or intimate well-being. If you were to walk into a CVS, which by the way, CVS attends our show. Right? They're looking at care in their intimate well-being aisle that supports whether it might be condoms for intercourse or whether it's tampons.

Right? There's such a range of what's defined as intimate care. And we wanted to really bring that to a sophisticated policy polished experience of connectivity through a trade show. But here's the catch, Ben. You know I love retail education.

Yeah. That my favorite part is the Stimulate Educate program that we we created also. So in addition to Stimulate, we have Stimulate Educate, and that brings in our operational resources that fuel retail businesses. This is a category of a lot of retailers like Hustlers Hollywood, Lion's Den, Adam and Eve, but also independent boutiques, also Nordstrom, Sephora. These are all cat retailers that currently sell sexual wellness.

And we felt like we wanted to elevate their opportunity within retail operations also. So stimulate educate does that, and it's so important in my opinion to bring that into this experience. Well, I mean, clear I mean, for me well, I mean, granted, I mean, I'm I guess as as as a as a hetero as a hetero male, you know, it's it's it's really so as a hetero male, it's really I feel I feel like there is I feel like this is bringing something that probably wouldn't come up. This thing would never happen if it were a hetero male trying to do this. And I'm not, you know, and I'm not I'm not trying to I'm not bringing, you know, gender politics into this.

I just think it is a reality, you know, at least in The US, that we we don't, you know, we don't see, you know, we don't see this kind of we we don't see this business really given its its its given representation, you know, in in the trade media, in in, you know, in in analyst reports and everything else. When when the the reality is this is a booming business. It always has been. I mean, I mean, hell, I one of one of my stories I love to tell is I remember a couple years into my my my my tour around the world training developers when I worked at Magento. And, yes.

So this was 2012. We started in 2011. 2012, I was teaching, our second class in London up by, Marble Arch, And, there was a there was a group of like five, like, guys from from The US in there. And I thought it was really fascinating. Like, what what are you guys doing here?

I mean, you know, we teach these classes in in The US as well. Like, oh, yeah. We're here for a trade show. And, gosh, I may have to put that label on my podcast now if I mentioned, but but anyway, I we we get into it and I'm like, well, okay. So cool.

We start talking about, okay. You know, where do you work? Yeah. They work they were from they were Fleshlight. And then basically, they said to me, they're like, hey.

We're we are we are actually at the time, like, we're one of your biggest customers that you can't even talk about because Yeah. It just you can't do a case study in the adult category. I would love to think that that that that might have changed or might be changing, might, might be evolving. Since then, it is more and more normalized to talk about this reality. But I I keep going back.

So the the note that I wrote down and what you were just saying in all of this is is that adult novelty exploded during COVID. And and they for me, that's like, well, people were people were buying, you know, online in droves because that was that was that was the times, but people were spending time together. Yes. And they they they weren't they couldn't be distracted by all the other things of life. You actually had to spend meaningful time together, and this category saw a ton of growth.

And and there we have there we have just this and for me, that's that's an organic shift in, in industry and spend. So you're actually taking, you know, on on on the heels of that coming, how do I say this? After that happens, you bring to the forefront a chance for people to people and businesses to to actually participate, talk about this. I love that it's full scope. I love that that that, you know, you know, the sort of sexual sexual, health, enjoyment, reality.

It is it is it is truly from it is it is menstruation all the way up to, you know, all the way up to, you know, intercourse, having fun together, and and then degrees of everything in between. I feel like I don't even have I I don't even possess the vocabulary to really talk about it. So I'm just gonna kick it back over to you because I I wanna I wanna actually segue into stimulate educate because I feel like I could benefit from stimulate educate. Well, it's interesting you say that. My vocabulary has certainly evolved over the last few years since I've worked in this space, and one of the things I've always leaned into are experts.

And so what we found was through stimulate educate, we needed to bring in that retail operations. But I also identified product knowledge as being a really important component of that too. And the third piece to that was actually sexual wellness insight. Now historically, Ben, in most of the education we've produced over the years, whether it's through the IRC or retail minded, it's been very much focused on retail education. But this category demanded more.

And so what we did in our year two, so our virgin show there's a lot of fun play of words, by the way, in the Of course. Our virgin show was held in 2023 in Nashville, and I will tell you, trade show network news nominated it as one of the best community focused trade shows in our first year. Nice. And we were up against Dallas Market Center and the Disability Expo, which by the way are both 50 plus shows and very deserving trade shows. The disability show won very deservingly.

But just to be included in their company was amazing for, again, our Virgin Year. Year two, what we're doing is not only stimulate educate where we will focus on product knowledge, retail insight, sexual wellness education. We're actually also introducing a whole series called ask the doctors. Doctors. And we have urologists, gynecologists, proctologists, and dermatologists, all of which support sexual wellness.

And we have some of these amazing founders of science backed companies who are also doctors speaking. We actually just did a private event in Miami where we did it at a urologist office and had amazing companies, including a retail technology company called Allpoint Retail, which does mostly point of sale. But, you know, it's interesting because education is always gonna be at the core of everything I personally get involved in because that's where you know, I'm also a retail professor, side note. So I truly am a retail geek. But falling into this category is actually a lot of fun.

And we're just thrilled. Over two days in Nashville this August, we're actually gonna do over 30 sessions. Well and and I, yeah, should not fail to underscore you are adjunct faculty, at Columbia College Chicago since 2004. So you really have been educating in the space for a a while, which I think is just, I mean, Nicole, that's a that's a tremendous benefit to, you know, your mission and and also to the people that get to experience the the output of that. I so you've got all the ologists at the at these at the which is which is great because if nothing else, you can you can you can reduce things down to sort of the medicality or the medicalness of everything, and then that becomes maybe a safe space for people to talk about stuff.

But, I mean, you you just heard me realizing, like, yeah, I I feel like, you know, as a as a guy, I even I struggle, and I feel like I'm a pretty open and out there guy, but I I struggle to really think about things. I I think this is very this is also fundamentally, this is this is a it's very significantly a a a a I'll just put this grossly and and and with with all apologies to, you know, gender identity and everything. I just this is this is very much a women's issue in the sense that there needs to be a lot of space for for for women to participate. And the question that I wrote down for myself to ask you when I thought of this is, I'm curious actually to what degree do you see men still may like, are men still the retail buyers? Are still men setting the policy in the advertising?

Like, to what degree are men still in control of this shit when they probably shouldn't be? And do you see that trend changing? Super great question. And the one thing I wanna highlight before I dive too deep into that is when I mentioned all those ologists, as you said Yeah. The reason that's important is because medical and retail are blurring, and I define it as med tail.

So when you I'll take this back to the med Same title. So Medtail. Exactly. And, yes, I've trademarked it because Nice. It is incredibly important to understand that medical and retail are blurring the lines, and the urologist is in fact a male focused doctor, and that's where we we've done a lot of work with urologists at this point.

Why should a male leave an urologist urologist appointment who's been recommended, like, you should use ABC as a resource to boost your sexual well-being, but then have to figure out where to buy that? So we're helping to create that medical retail overlap where just like you could at a dermatologist office or just like you could at a dental office or even a hair salon for that matter, you can make a purchase at exit. Your patient is now a customer, Yeah. And that's commerce. That is amazing commerce, growth, opportunity, beauty.

And that's a big part of what we're doing at Stimulate as well. We're not just creating a show. We're creating and developing new experiences. And men and women both have opportunity for that. I will tell you, and I bet you could agree to this, Ben.

I don't know if you're a sports lover at all, but I like to watch Golf Channel and various other sports channels. Sometimes, not always by my choice, but it's on a lot in our house. Yeah. Yeah. So the commercials I see very much positively support testosterone health and various other men focused ailments that would boost their sexual health.

You do not see that in the women's category. You don't see anybody talking about boosting libido for women on on TV or commercials or even on ads. You might see conversations, editorial, but you don't see it as a commercial. And I find that interesting. Yeah.

I mean, I feel like, you know, there were it was a couple years ago, maybe there were some there were some and maybe this was local to Charleston where I live. You know, there were some ads about, you know, vaginal rejuvenation, which for me, I have no I have no concept of this, obviously. And, yes, for sure, you know, for sure, now we now you've got hims and hers that has come out, which is which is, I would say, definitely in that that Medtail category. Right? But I, yeah, I I feel like there was maybe a flash in the pan moment where this, you know, things you just mentioned were kind of coming up.

But, yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right. You you do not you the narrative is often from a male male performance. It is that it is it is very it is still very, male centric. And and I've I'm of the opinion that the more we involve, I don't know, half the population of the Earth in basically anything, it's probably going to transform and transform for the better, whether that's making it more efficient, more applicable, making especially, you know, the relationships between, you know, between and among genders, I'd have been more meaningful, more effective, more that that that has that has knock on effects that would require and probably an an entire other podcast series to even talk about.

Yeah. That's not what I'm well versed in. But, you you've you've already sold me. I mean, just even even even the website. And and but would you remind me of the website for, for the event coming up in Nashville?

Absolutely. It's stimulatetheshow.com. And if you're on Instagram, that's the same handle, stimulate the show. Stimulate the show. Stimulate the show.

And we're always updating with just who's coming, the agenda, all that fun stuff. Well, I mean, short of an asteroid, you know, destroying all the roads between Charleston and Nashville. I mean, Nashville is a great city to visit. It is. And, but but I'm I'm I'm pretty excited to be there.

And now I'm even more excited to have my my my my listening ears on and really take in take in some content even as, I also look at it from, you know, from my my my my platform market growth perspective. Do you have anything else in the offering that we should be prepared for? Or is this is this fully consuming your time these days? You know, it it definitely fully consumes my time like most major. I guess you could look at it as a start up even though it's, you know, under my retail minded umbrella, but it's it's so empowering too to support this category.

And so it's been great to do that, great to meet new people, and it's just truly been such a wonderful growth. I will tell you that we have a lot more that we'll be announcing about Stimulate the show. A lot of that's going to be coming at Stimulate. We're we're doing some on the road series, like workshop with very education intense. There is an international stop coming very soon for Stimulate that we'll be announcing also soon.

So the growth opportunity is exciting. And I would tell retailers who are listening, whether, again, online or brick and mortar. Yeah. Don't underestimate what this category could be for you because sexual wellness is purpose to pleasure. It's also young to mature.

And if we start to really look at the generational buying habits, we have to consider how that's shifting their comfort level. I can tell you Target has products that, you know, their founder of Bloomy spoke at our show last year. She's one of the first brands that was sold, selling vibrators and various other things on the shelves of Target, you know. And you're going to see it more and more, so you you wanna look now before you get lost in it later and have to be the last one to the table. We we we've come a long way since sort of, you know, physicians in, you know, windowless rooms solving, you know, hysterics.

And I'm I'm I'm here for it. I'm here for the sexual maturity of of a nation that deserves it. I'm here for especially facilitating the discussions and commerce around it. And, Nicole, from from my perspective, you are you are right at the forefront of this. And, you know, I think maybe within five to ten years, if not sooner, you know, there's gonna be a big chunk of the industry that's gonna look back and and and hopefully, give you all the all the awards and everything else for what you're building.

This is this is really incredible. I think that's a that's a good place for us to end it here at Nicole. Linebaugh, thank you again so much for being on Commerce Famous. This was I mean, no pun intended. This was this was a stimulating conversation.

I'm I'm, I'm looking forward I'm really looking forward to, to seeing, what all you you all have to offer and, and where it goes from here. Thank you so much, Ben. I love being a part of your podcast, and I always love chatting with you, more importantly. Right. We have we have we have good time together.

Alright. Talk to you soon, Nicole. Thank you.