 Greetings, everyone, and welcome to Working Together on ThinkTech Hawaii, where we discuss the impact of change on workers, employers, and the economy. I'm your host, Cheryl Crozier-Garcia, and we invite you to join in the conversation. Please call us at 808-374-2014 with your questions and comments, or if you prefer, you may tweet us at thinktechhi. One of the simplest ways to see change in a community is to study its commercial districts. Here in Honolulu, the Jaguar dealership on Baratania Street is now a goodwill store. The Liberty House on Fort Street Mall became a Macy's before morphing into a Walmart. Remember Schumann carriage? Now it's Makani Kai Air, running commuter flights between Honolulu and Moloka'i, and its former location on the corner of P'ikoi and Baratania Streets is a safe way. Most of us who grew up in Hawaii remember the small family-run stores where we spent our allowances on crackseed, shave ice, and shredded cuttlefish. Sadly, most of our cakey won't have those experiences. Long-time, locally-owned businesses are closing, being replaced by large brick-and-mortar retailers, as well as by e-commerce enterprises. One of the largest electronic retailers, Amazon, recently acquired Whole Foods. While that was probably a good strategic move for Amazon, how will this affect shoppers, workers, and those who compete with what is becoming a real behemoth of a business? Joining me today to share her insights on this issue is Carol Mon Lee. She's the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Welcome, Carol. Thank you, Carol. Nice to be here with you. And you know, before we get started on the real conversation, we need to introduce our super special secret guest, Minky. Yes, this is Minky Mon Lee, actually Minky, too. Minky, too? Yeah, she's part Maltese. Oh, how wonderful. Mm-hmm. She's cute. Is she shopped? Not yet. We haven't trained her to shop yet, but she consumes. Good. You know, shopping and consuming are integral parts of virtually everyone's life. I can't think of a day, unless I'm sick in bed, where I'm not pulling out my wallet to pay for something, whether it's coffee or a bottle of water, lunch, paying the cable bill, whatever it is. And there have been some real changes over time in the way we approach acquiring the goods and services we need and then paying for them. What kinds of things have you experienced as a consumer and as a shopper that maybe are different today from the way they were, say, when you were younger? Younger. Oh, sure. And I'm a baby boomer just to give you a sense of where I fall in the spectrum. So of course, I was shopping long before there were computers or electronic devices of any kind. So of course I'm used to going to stores and actually touching or holding or checking the prices and then maybe using a calculator to figure out how much something costs. And price comparing in real time, right? And then buying and then maybe exchanging by returning something directly to the store. And of course all that's changed now. So I would say I haven't come along quickly like many of my younger friends and my children and my colleagues in terms of adjusting to the new way of buying. But certainly I do buy more things now online and I look online. I just had a recent experience. I was on a cruise ship and I downloaded a book on Amazon rather than buying the hard copy. And I read it online through my iPad. And I really enjoyed it because of course I was able to adjust the type, the font size. And then after I finished my book I picked up something else, a hard copy of a book, another book. I realized I can't expand the font and I felt boy that makes a big difference in being able to as I get older and wanting the font size to be bigger having that flexibility to do that with a book that you purchase online. Now of course I feel also that the downside is that I can't share the book that I purchased online through Amazon with someone else without, I don't know what you can do if you can do it at all. But there may be a way but I'm not sure what it is. And there are certainly copyright infringement issues if you were to just try to download it to someone else's device or something like that. Which is a lot different than maybe just here, read this. Of course. It's only someone a book. So I definitely noticed that as a recent adjustment that I've made. And of course buying clothes, a lot of my friends only buy their clothes online. But I find it, I prefer to touch and feel and then of course if it fits, I'll buy it and if it doesn't fit, I don't have to worry about returning something. How do you feel about the waste of packaging? I feel like there's so much packaging wastage, boxes and stuffing and the size of the boxes much bigger usually than the need for the object. And I just feel I don't want to contribute to that kind of environmental access. It does expand your carbon footprint sometimes if you purchase online and have things shipped to you unless you shop with a retailer that focuses specifically on using recycled materials etc. For example, just everything I have on today, I bought online. I have an app on my phone called Thread Up, which is a consignment shop slash thrift store type of operation. You can only buy via the app. They don't have a brick and mortar store, they have a warehouse. People send in their things and then they can either be taken on consignment where the person is paid after the garment is sold or they'll buy straight up and send you a check for whatever those things are. So everything came, but it was shipped, this was the interesting thing via USPS, the post office, in one of those flat rate boxes. And the box was small, they're not trying to wrap it up all nice with foam peanuts and stuff and wasting a lot of stuff like that. Now, gasoline probably, fuel costs associated with shipping. On the one hand may increase, but on the other hand those planes are coming to Honolulu anyway. And if they're not filled with my Thread Up box, they're going to be filled with other consumer items that we need. So let me ask you, did it fit the first time it arrived? Are you sure? Yes. Enough of the sizing? Okay. So typically when you buy, do you ever return? I usually don't have to. If I have certain brands that I know and I know what sizes I take in those brands and so that's what I tend to focus on. If I see something I like that I'm not familiar with the brand or the sizing, I may head into a store and look for that brand on the rack and try it on and see which size is appropriate. And then go home and order it online. And then go home and order it. Well what I do find is that using Thread Up, as well as using other kinds of, shall we say, secondary market type retailers, Plato's Closet and Savers, Goodwill, things like that, I never buy new anymore. Well I had another experience involving online shopping which was I had a young friend who was a tech person who helped me set up my second screen and realized I needed a new printer. So he was at my house, we were setting it up and okay I agree, I definitely need to buy a new printer. So he pulls up on his phone Best Buy. We look at several HP printers and he found one that was in my price range and did what I needed to do. So okay let's go ahead and order it. So I gave him my credit card, we ordered it, $109.00. And I could pick it up at the store locally so I didn't have to worry about being shipped and how long it would take. I could go pick it up the next day. So I go to Best Buy to go pick it up and the same printer there is $129.00. And I said, but I only paid $109.00 and they said, yeah, if you buy it online it's cheaper and you can still pick it up at the store or they could have sent it to me. I was very happily surprised by that kind of a situation. And I also know that there are some retailers who will also match whatever the price is online because typically prices online are cheaper, right, because they don't have the brick-and-mortar to have to overhead. But if they do have brick-and-mortar store and you go into the store and you show them the online price, they will match it. That's a nice development. Yeah, it really is. If the merchant is willing to take that step. Now a lot of times you should ask because they may not advertise that this is a policy that they have. But if you inquire about it they'll say, oh sure, we'll give you the discount. And of course now the news is that a lot of these brick-and-mortar stores are closing, right? We aren't hearing about how many, whatever it is, Walmart or Sears, big chains are shutting down many stores. So how do you feel about that in terms of you won't be able to go into those stores to actually try? Yeah, that's true. But a lot of the really big stores that have been closing, at least here in Hawaii for the last couple of years, Kmart, Sears, etc. I wasn't a big user of those particular merchants. Although I have to say that if I ever needed an appliance, Sears was the only place I'd go to. Of course, right. So I've got a house full of Kenmore because you knew the service was good, the product was fine, they'd install it for you, they'd deliver it, they'd take away the old stuff. They'd take away the old one, you can buy a relatively inexpensive warranty, they'll come fix it if it breaks. So for that, Sears, everything else, not so much. Well, but it also requires, if we're moving in that direction where there will be fewer and fewer brick-and-mortar stores, are there also equally almost a hundred percent access to the internet for most people? I mean, how do you do? That's a net neutrality issue. I mean, if we pay for, say cable television, for a small extra fee, you can get your internet connection. If you have a cell phone, you can purchase additional technology that will allow you to access the internet. And you can walk into any public library. Or any Starbucks or any, and provided you've got a computer or a phone with computer access or a tablet or something, you can do your shopping there. Now, there are some security issues that come with that. If you put a credit card, pay with a credit card, yeah. And of course, the library, they do have computers, so you don't even have to have a computer. Right, right, and it's funny, you bring up the library because our library's going to go out of business. If we can download the books that we want, why walk into a library? Well, I used to sit on the Board of Education and used to be involved in public libraries. And actually, they've kind of pivoted in terms of what they do for the community, and they've become much more of a community resource center, not just books, but of course summer programs for students, after-school programs, adult classes, and of course, a place to buy and sell used books and magazines and sharing of all sorts of information. And then of course, the big one is internet access, and particularly on the neighbor islands, it becomes a huge way for the community to be able to go to one place and be able to have access to both the computers and the internet. Hold that thought, because we will be talking more about this right after we introduce our audience to some of the other awesome programming on Think Tech Hawaii. So I'm Cheryl Crozier-Garcia. This is Working Together, and we will be back in one minute. We have this crazy thing going on today. I was just walking by, and all these DJs and producers are set up all around the city. I just walked by, and I said, what's happening, guys? They told me they were making music. Working Together on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Cheryl Crozier-Garcia here with Carol Monly and Minky talking about how shopping and e-commerce change the way we shop and the way we think about retail workers. And the issue of retail workers is something I think that doesn't get enough thought, because most of us, many of us, got our first paying jobs in some kind of retail-related business. If it wasn't cash-shearing at the local store, it was maybe a fast-food restaurant or something like that. And those are all retail-type positions. I still remember being taught in high school in the early Jurassic period how to count back change. You know, when you run the cash register, the total would come up, the person would give you their money, and you would have to count the change back to them. Today, not only can the average retail worker maybe not count back the change, but depending upon where you are, they don't even have to know the price. They can scan the items. And in some places, it is even as simple as pressing the button with the picture of the item. No kidding. Fast-food restaurant. Yeah, you want cheeseburger? Right. The person behind the counter will press the screen. The picture of the cheeseburger, and it will say cheeseburger. And so, in a way, the skill set that is required is so different. And I'm not sure, and since you mentioned that you had been affiliated with the DOE and the library system for a while, let's talk about some of those issues. How do we train our future generation coming up not only how to survive on some of these types of jobs as they're getting started in their working lives, but how do we train them to be good consumers of the vast variety of products and services that they have access to? So how do we do that? You know, I'm not sure because I'm not even a savvy consumer now. I don't consider myself a savvy consumer. I sure I leave money on the table all the time, right? I don't get the best price. My son can figure out what's cheaper than, you know, and he can shop. I just, whatever is easiest sometimes for me. So I don't know that I have the answer except that it seems that the younger you are, the more savvy you are in terms of course of online shopping, price comparing, knowing where to find the best deals, knowing some of these sites that I've never heard of. Yeah. And I find it interesting what people, because I teach college primarily. And so most of my students now are late millennials and quickly becoming Generation Z people. And what surprises me a lot is not only what they consider to be expensive or inexpensive, but what they would prefer to spend their money on. Very different. Yeah. I'll give you an example. When I was in college and I'd get my grant check or my scholarship check or whatever it was, the first things I bought or my textbooks and whatever school supplies I needed, my lab stuff, those kinds of things. And even if they were expensive, I sucked it up because I knew I needed those things for my education. Now, first of all, you're supposed to complain about the cost of textbooks. It's a rule. Really? Oh, of course. Okay. You're supposed to complain about textbooks. They are expensive. But a lot of them are online now. Yes. But even the online ones are sort of expensive too. And you would be amazed at what students will do to kind of work around the issues of the e-books, the loose leaf ones that are cheaper, these kinds of things. No, I know it. I'm appalled when I hear that a student tries to get through a course without ever buying the textbook. Yeah, there you go. I mean. That's one. Yeah. Here's another one that I find interesting. Do not come into me as a professor and tell me, gee, Dr. C, do you have an extra copy of the textbook? I can't afford to buy one. And then sit in my office with your Prada bag on your lap and tell me that you could pay $600 for a handbag but you can't afford a used textbook. I just, I cross my eyes and be like, are you kidding me right now? Was that a gift? No, I bought it. Okay, well maybe you should have bought a cheap one at Ross for $35 and then went out and got your textbook. Well, do you know whether, for instance, maybe it's high school or even younger than that junior high as part of the curriculum of learning how to cope with life, you know, the old days where you learned to balance a checkbook and boil water and, you know, do basic things. Are they including things like how to be a good consumer? There are life skills courses but I don't know how deeply they get into kind of the financial management issues and the consumer issues. Now you might get a class say in family nutrition where they will tell you how to prepare a balanced meal and how to do the, how to pick the best produce and stuff like that but I don't think they will go as far as to say, you know, oranges are good for you. They have a lot of vitamin C but there's more vitamin C in a such and such and they're cheaper or buy food in its own season and eat it in its own season. I don't know how far they go with those kinds of life skills. It can have a tremendous financial impact on the way a family structures its resources. So do you think that's something that should be focused on? That there should be more education for Gen Z? Gen Z, I think that there is a need for a lot more education. The trouble is that time is a finite resource and I also think that I would love to see kids taking classes in music and art and literature, getting time for PE every single day, these kinds of things. But if you've only got six and a half hours a day and less than 180 days in a school year to deliver content and then to assess how well a student masters that content, how do you, where do you cut? Right. More important, knowing that you need 8,000 milligrams of vitamin C a day or memorizing Hamlet soliloquy. So of course then parenting skills play an important role in educating your children to be a good consumer. I hope and it should but what do you do when the parents are working, you know each one works two jobs. They cross, you know mom and dad cross each other on their way to and from their various jobs. Meanwhile, oldest kid is maybe putting supper on the table for the younger siblings. Number two child is taking care of the laundry or whatever it is. When does the parenting happen? You know a lot of times kids have to figure it out on their own because there's no mom or dad to ask because mom and dad are at work. So let me ask you a question. So where do you see the future? We talked about Amazon Prime or Amazon purchasing Whole Foods. I know that was one of the original themes of the show. Right. So where do you see all this going? I mean Amazon is going to be the super store food and everything else in between. Well I think the Whole Foods purchase of Amazon's purchase of Whole Foods was a smart move for a couple of reasons. Number one they had been trying to crack the food market via shipping, home chef tight meals etc. And that didn't work. It didn't work. It doesn't work very well. Because if you're not home when the mailman shows up, you're kind of hosed food wise. The other thing is that having Whole Foods as a brick and mortar store would allow Amazon shoppers to say, yeah I'm going to buy all this stuff, I'll pick it up at customer service at the Whole Foods in Colomal. So Amazon is able then to use their supply chain to expand outreach to people who are not home to pick up the mail. So it ends up being good for Amazon, smart move. It will change the way we have to train people to work in the future. People say well we'll lose cashier jobs are going away. That's true. The box that gets shipped, somebody has to pack it and deliver it from point A to point B. So transportation industry type jobs are likely to increase as retail type customer service positions are decreasing. But there's still going to be room for people like me who want to go to the market and actually pick up a piece of fruit and not do shopping online. I hope so. Yeah. Okay. Particularly when we talk about food, the farm to table movement is forcing not only supermarkets but lots of other food retailers to examine the way they sell. There's a farmer's market down here on Fort Street Mall every Tuesday. I cannot imagine a time when you will call the farmer's market and say yo can you send me five pounds of dragon fruit and how are the peaches today. I'm not sure that that will ever happen. So there will always be opportunities I think for that human to human contact as far as as exchange of consideration but how it happens and how often it happens will change. So do you think it's a good thing? So in five years we have more online shopping, less brick and mortar. Do you think that's good for the economy, for our community, for our society? Well that depends on the alternative uses for those brick and mortar locations. I remember a conversation when Liberty House was closing and they didn't know if Macy's was coming but maybe they were etc. So we were chatting in one of my classes about okay so what do we do with that space and they said well what if we turned it into like a capsule hotel for folks that have housing insecurity. How many people could sleep you know with minimal changes to the infrastructure of that building and have a safe location to live to get a good night's sleep etc. So if the substitute uses for that space that is currently retail are good uses then they can certainly improve the way we live as a community. I mean at least I think so. And I'm not going to stop buying thread up because it's cheap. So then do you see Waikiki changing? Waikiki is changing sadly in my opinion because to be honest if you didn't see the signs written in Hawaiian you could just as easily be in South Beach or Puerto Vallarta or San Juan or any other place that has the kind of climate. And none of that stuff I mean I haven't been to Waikiki since I got married. When was that? Fourteen years. You haven't been to Waikiki since not in fourteen years? I haven't needed to. You don't have visitors from out of town who go to Waikiki? I give them my car keys. I see. See ya. But no I don't because there's really nothing in Waikiki that I can't get cheaper or faster someplace else. And Waikiki Beach is beautiful until you see Cayana Point or Kahana Bay or one of the other beaches where you're more likely to hear pigeon being spoken than what you would see in Waikiki. So I'll let the tourists have Waikiki. And then globally do you see online shopping that's the way the future even third world countries? How are they going to survive? Well, look at the Alibaba example in China. Alibaba is actually bigger than Amazon and they make money hand over fist in China by selling everything to everyone in an environment in a market where there are places where there aren't even paved roads. But everybody has a cell phone. But everybody has a cell phone. And I'm seeing a sign that says we're closing in one minute. So what quick advice would you give in one minute about hmm, oh I don't know, what kind of gift would you buy for Minky? Well Minky is low maintenance and as long as I give her food and shampoo and a lot of hugging and loving and she's a good dog. And hugs and love are free. Yes. That's what everybody should do, right? Yes. Let's challenge our audience today to do something like that. Your homework assignment between now and the next time I see you is to go out and hug and love on somebody that needs it. So we'll be back in two weeks for another episode of Working Together on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Cheryl Crozier-Garcia. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you in two weeks. Bye.