We must bring Let's go.

>> Let's go.

>> Khan inside of this show. He is the

newly minted founder of Panther

Research, okay? And what is Panther

Research, you ask? I shall tell you.

Retention customer intelligence focused

on fashion and luxury brands, okay? He's

got a Substack, which uh I think uh

putting out some very interesting things

over there tied to everything Zarakh is

doing at Panther Research. We must bring

him inside of the show. Everybody,

welcome to the one and only Zarakh

founder of Panther Research. GET IN

HERE, ZARAKH.

GET IN, ZARAKH.

>> LET'S GO.

>> ZARAKH, appreciate you making time to

join us, brother. Welcome to the show.

>> No, absolutely. It's a pleasure to be

here. Thank you for having me.

>> Man, tell us uh tell us what's going on

with you and where are you? Zarakh, I

you know, whenever I hear of you,

whenever I hear of you, I'm like, this

guy's like double-07, you know,

international man of mystery. Where is

he? What's he doing, you know? In

stealth mode, building and scaling.

What's what's going on with you as of

late, sir?

>> No, absolutely. Well, you know, I like

to uh preserve my mystique, but right

now I'm at my uh home in London, uh

which is where I do a lot of my work

recently. And um no, absolutely. Just

just a little bit quickly on Panther

Research cuz you cuz you asked.

>> Yeah.

>> As most people know, I've been media

buying for the last 10 years, and

particularly within the scope of

fashion, luxury, and design led brands.

And I've been looking at the

macroeconomic situation. I've been

looking at how ads have been doing and

what I want to do. And I think

or I thought that the genuine next step

along this progression would be to go,

number one, upmarket, and then also uh a

different point in the funnel. I saw

what was happening with ads and creative

velocity and all these Andromeda

changes, and while it's still very

fruitful, um

I think a lot of what comes down to

fashion and luxury is not necessarily

how much you test and how much output

you have, uh but more so what you decide

not to do and where to hold back on. And

I think the post-purchase experience

alongside the intelligence layer and the

research is really where brands can make

an everlasting impact, especially to

hedge against these rising and

ever-changing ad costs and these

introduction to new platforms. I think

now is more of a time than ever uh to

really nail down that post-purchase

experience and more so for fashion and

luxury brands,

um not necessarily mimic, but bring that

in-person experience that people are so

used to online.

>> I like that. Smart.

>> I'd love to talk about, you know, one of

your main thesis, which is the this

email generates 25% of our revenue trap.

I would love for you to dive into that

and how you are thinking about this now

in 2026.

>> Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know,

it's a case of attribution and then it's

a case of messaging and paying yourself

today instead of tomorrow. Um number

one, we have to decide, of course, if

that revenue attribution could have

happened outside of the campaign

naturally and if it's actually

incremental or if it's just attributing.

Um

and then on top of that, it's also about

what you kind of put out. So, I'll kind

of give you give you an example. A lot

of what retention has typically been is

we need to have this many flows, this

many campaigns, and

sending SMS, which as part of the funnel

is important, but it's very much

dependent on the category and the

customer type. Um if it's a

utility-based product like um

a phone charger or it's something like

uh a dishwasher, you know, maybe you can

um

depend a little bit more on that

messaging. But I think for fashion and

luxury, what's super important is the

compounding of the brand equity. And you

might be able to put out a message out

tomorrow and say we have a 25% markdown.

And I'm sure revenue-wise it's going to

be very fruitful, but it comes at the

expense of the brand's positioning,

which I think is super important. And

you have to kind of decide, do we want

to do this now or do we want to invest

in some more long-term brand building

exercises,

which allow us to perhaps sell at full

price and develop a customer base which

isn't so dependent on offer and markdown

and last-minute opportunities? Um of

which a lot of I think typical DTC

brands do is

there's so many offers and opportunities

and promotions that it very much

desensitizes the customer along the way

to not take them seriously. And then we

must ask, what are the long-term

implications of your brand not being

taken seriously? What does that do for

your enterprise value, your potential

exit, um and your your off-season?

>> Wow.

>> You know,

there's a lot there. There's a lot.

>> I'd say that. 100%.

>> I I I think something that you've hit on

at the front, Zarik, is

I think should be

underlined more in the context of just

our ecosystem. A lot of times when

people say retention, what they think is

email alone. You know, it's just like

retention equals email. It's almost like

they're interchangeable interchangeable

terms. But that's that's that's not the

case. And something that we

covered earlier this year, we had on

Alex Greifeld who who brought this up.

I'd love your thoughts on

uh this this thought that sometimes our

our LTV, you might say, our retention

not just not just based on like what I

sold them or the emails I sent, but but

what I have to offer them,

merchandising, what else inside of my

store can I can I bring to them that

they potentially have and message and

frame that in a winsome way? I mean,

would you agree?

>> You know, I think about LTV as probably

one of the most overrated metrics in any

economy. I'll tell you why. It comes

down to a couple of things. The most

important one is the payback period. If

I acquire a customer and then in the

next 4 years they repurchase twice.

>> Mhm.

>> Theoretically, their LTV has gone up,

but I think what's more important is

purchasing frequency and the cadence in

between those.

Uh also, there's a financial obligation

on the brand. There might be some LTV

down the line, but can the brand fund

that in the interim period when the

customer isn't buying? And then it's

also dependent on what makes the

customer come back, right? You know, if

we're going to throw a sale at them

every November, they're going to come

back, sure. Or if we do something on

Easter, if we do a markdown, they'll

come back. But really, the question is,

how do we get them to come back on their

own accord? And a lot of brands, I

think, put it down to the product

itself. They assume the product if the

product is good, the customer will come

back. A good product alone will not

carry this relationship forward by any

means.

Um and if it's not promotional

messaging, you know, there's so many

alternatives that a brand can do. I

think some of the more played out ones

which have been positioned as

alternatives is early access. Um early

access really just gives you something

24 hours before the wider public gets

it. And if there's plentiful inventory,

then it really means nothing. Um and

then the other one which I think is a

little played out is this

behind-the-scenes look. I think,

particularly with luxury, um there's a

lot of mystique and you don't really

want to see the process or you don't

want to lead with like the material

composition. If I'm spending a thousand

dollars on a sweater, I don't want to be

told how great the materials are. It's

like a baseline expectation.

But we could, for example, take um

ways that we could not necessarily

cross-sell the product, but let's let's

give you an example. I release a new

collection and it's a series of fine

leather goods.

And then you might have someone buy a

wallet and the question is, okay, well,

they bought the wallet. Now, let's try

and sell them the jacket. When actually

what they could be doing is trying to

get people to really immerse themselves

and buy themselves into the collection

itself and maybe we sell them

um a card holder or maybe we sell them a

bag, a backpack, something within that

same family of products. One thing I've

seen which is really good on the women's

side is um and funnily enough, it's

actually Coach which has done this

great. There's this $95 bag charm. It's

the cherry. You know,

>> Yeah.

>> heard about it, right?

>> it.

>> And you think, all right, this is a

pretty low AOV product and it's not that

interesting, but what it does is it

really gives a customer a reason to

immerse themselves in that ecosystem. If

you're going to get the bag charm, you

need the bag. And then

>> Why not get the bag?

>> then you get the tote. And it's a great

way to really personalize things. I

think luxury is always kept a bit of a

distance. And even this transpires into

technology. You can

customize an Android phone far more than

you can customize an iPhone.

And we're shifting into this mindset

where maybe you don't get the new iPhone

every year and brands are becoming a

little more open to you uh adding your

own twist on things. And I think the bag

charm is a really great low entry way of

doing that as opposed to begging the

customer to come back. Maybe we let them

put their own creative twist on it and

buy in incrementally on their own.

>> Interesting.

>> Wow. Dropping bars. I'd love to talk a

little bit about your thoughts on SMS

and how brands should be doing SMS

because you've stated basically that SMS

is often email with worse manners. And I

would love how how you're thinking about

that because it is a

it it's a it's a pretty big thing to

text somebody. It it's a pretty high

leverage to text somebody. I'd love love

your thoughts on it.

>> Well, yeah, it's interesting, right? I

think SMS the way we know it is very

automated in the sense where if I get an

email about something, I might also get

a text about it as well. And what's

great about SMS is the delivery and the

intimacy of the level of communication.

There's a million things in my email

inbox, some things I pay more attention

to than others. Of course, I pay a lot

of attention to your emails. Um but then

on SMS, um it's really uh

down to just my friends and family and

then maybe a few business associates.

So, when I get the text, I'm going to

see it. The problem is is it can be

often a little bit violating and it can

really turn someone off in terms of how

they feel about the brand.

Um if I'm buying a brand and then

they're texting me about a sale, I mean,

this is a tactic that Domino's is using.

And now that's what

>> Sure.

>> a cool brand is trying to do. But,

funnily enough, luxury has been doing

SMS much longer than it's been around as

like a standalone SAS that you can

attach to your e-commerce store. It's

the manner in which it's done. If you're

giving me a message

which is personal and unique to me, then

I don't mind it coming through a more

intimate

uh channel of communication.

Um and I'll give you an example. For

example, if you buy

uh from Louis Vuitton or Chanel or even

Ralph Lauren,

maybe if you buy three or four times in

store, what you'll see happens is the

associate or your representative will

text you things which are very specific

to you. Ralph Lauren, I'll get a text

from an advisor, but it will be

particularly around a line and a series

of products which they know I'm

interested in. Um Ralph Lauren even do a

private sale which only their VICs can

do, and it's a very generous offer of

30%. There's no public markdown, it's

just what's in the store. So, when I get

a message like

that's [clears throat] very

uh unique to myself, I don't mind it

being intimate. Where I think brands go

wrong is they do general messaging and

then they love the idea of SMS because

it delivers X amount, 70% of people open

it, and it hypothetically creates like

$2 million in revenue. Um

>> But I wouldn't personally do that and

that's what I mean. It's okay for

generic commerce, but when brand equity

is at play, you have to think of

something that's much more unique and to

the person. It's not so much about

looking at it from a channel point of

view and you have to look at how it sits

in that wider relationship with the

customer.

>> I love that. You know, I find Zarik

we we've had a couple of folks

on the show who swim in the waters of

higher fashion and luxury. And I feel

like what I feel like what you are

underlining here

has come out in general, but I love the

specifics you're putting to it. It seems

like it seems like luxury plays on it

plays in a little bit of a different

field. Like there are some things that

apply

like you're talking about.

Can you do SMS? Yeah, you probably can,

but there's like a specific way to go

about it. More of a concierge type

level, personal reach out of you know,

if you sell only happens in the store,

you know, and it's coming from a person

who already knows what I'm interested

in. I feel like this comes has come up a

few times over the year and it seems

like luxury

it's it's a little bit of a different

game than a lot of us are playing in

general consumer

commerce. Is that is that fair?

>> Certainly, it's definitely front end

heavy on the investment to get stuff

like that done. I think if you ask most

people, would you want to sell a product

for a $70 or do you want to sell one for

$300? They'll immediately go for the

$300 cuz there is quote and quote more

margin and room for acquisition costs in

there. It couldn't be further from the

truth. You know, there's so many

exercises you have to do to have that

product desirable at that price point

and build a name for yourself. And it

could be setting up stores which only

200 people touch for the first 3 years

or it could be investing in PR and and

celebrity plays which won't pay off at

all. And if they do, it's going to take

years to go into. In many ways, and not

to get into the real estate debate, it's

it's kind of like buying a house versus

renting a house. And it's going to take

a long time for buying it to be um

more valuable on paper, or at least

that's how it goes in in a typical

market. But, you know, we we did this

study a little while ago. We we

subscribed to 120 brands, all fashion

and luxury. And we could see what

tactics they were using, how much

pressure selling they were doing, and

really, there's no correlation with how

many messages you send and what the

tactics and the pressure is. But, what

has kind of stood out amongst all of

this is, look, the consumer gets smarter

every year. And they know when you're

being presented with something valuable

and when you're not. So, if I spend

$5,000 at a brand, and then they start

texting me personally, I feel like it's

earned. But, if we look at Skims, for

example, which has great creative

direction, you know, Kanye West got the

creative director or the head designer

of Balenciaga to lead Skims on a

creative way. But, what I kind of

quickly found out was

I was immediately graduated into a

loyalty program, interesting cuz I never

bought anything, I never engaged with

any of the emails. That's one thing we

did, we didn't engage with any of the

emails cuz we don't want to influence

the behaviors.

Yet, I was put into like a VIP segment.

And then I got asked to download an app.

And it's all led by offer, and people

aren't stupid. They know they didn't do

anything to get into the VIP program,

and therefore how they value that VIP

program is little to not at all.

And it can really make the program

collapse on itself um when you try these

like quick tactics. And I think in

luxury, these quick tactics come to die

very quickly.

>> Wow. I mean, that's huge. Could you

Could you talk a little bit about some

of that data set where you that you're

having? Who Who are some of the best

players within that space that you found

out were kind of sprinkling to the top?

Maybe one, two, or three that you were

like, "These people are doing an

unbelievable job."

>> Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think what's

what the biggest thing is is

there's obviously the brands which do

things really well cuz they're extremely

commercially successful, the Diors, the

Pradas. But then there's also huge

brands like the DVF which have

absolutely ruined their email program,

or Norma Kamali, or even somewhere

mid-level like Abercrombie where they're

sending on average sometimes two emails

a day.

Um so there is no correlation between

enterprise value and how good and dialed

in their email program is. What I did

see a correlation in quite heavily was

how seriously they take their creative

direction and their messaging. And we

saw a lot of brands really only emailed

once a week, twice a week, sometimes

every month. And I'm sure they were

widely more effective than the brands

pressure selling three, four times a

week.

W- We also saw is there wasn't a huge

focus on

very interactive design. I think a lot

of email agencies will say, "Look at

these great Figma templates we made." A

lot of the greatest brands have

templates I could have probably made in

less than 5 minutes. But it was about

the contents of the message, and none of

these had a block of text which would

take you more than 20 seconds to read.

It was really how the products were

photographed, how they were

merchandised, and also um how they flow

into each other. Prada had a recycled

gold campaign where they were like

recycling gold and creating jewelry out

of it. And it wasn't just one email to

announce the collection, it was a slow

drip of

exposing that collection piece by piece.

Um or if they had like a leather goods

collection, they wouldn't just display,

cuz it was available in I believe four

different colorways, they wouldn't just

display all four of them next to each

other. Instead, they took the most

unique earth brown leather grain they

had and showed all their products in

that one color. So it's small

merchandising tactics, um

but we could very quickly see that there

was a lot of brands where it's like

there's no way I can keep up with these.

Um, but what was also interesting is I

said earlier, I never engaged with these

emails.

Um, so theoretically you would think

after maybe 60-90 days I'd be taken off

a lot of these lists because I'm I'm uh

a dead participant.

>> Yeah.

>> No. You know, maybe I think it was 3% of

the brands actually sunset us away and

everybody else kept paying for us.

>> Keep me forever.

>> [laughter]

>> There's the There's [clears throat] the

cost on your brand from sending these

people messages which they no longer

take seriously, but there's also like

the business cost of not cleaning up

your list.

>> Wow.

>> Wow.

>> Totally agree with that, too.

>> It's interesting. I I can't say I've

ever done a like mass experiment like

this. And this is this is all like part

of your big thrust um at at Panther

Research. Is that right, Zach?

>> No, absolutely. You know, I I think

especially with like the brands we take

on, if they're not already of a large

size, they're very much aspirational to

be one of the ones that we're already

looking at and perhaps even working

with. Um, and it's not because they want

to copy the product or the creative

direction, it's because they want to

copy the strategy. And a lot of these

brands have a really dialed-down

strategy. Um, but what is also quite

prevalent is that it's very unique

because there's so many different

archetypes they go to. You know, two

customers could live in the same city,

both be wealthy, and be of a similar

age, but they have totally different

ideas of what looks cool creatively, and

they have totally different buyer

psychologies. Um, so there is plenty

opportunity, there's just not really

room for a cookie-cutter technique. What

I also think with this type of customer

base is they're much more aligned

creatively and they're much more, um,

tapped in, per se. So, if you try some

of these tactics which might work

selling supplements to a 60-year-old

mom, it's going to absolutely bounce

back on somebody [laughter] who just

walked out of like fashion school who's

going to see right through it. And you

know, these people aren't going to

necessarily publicly complain. They're

just going to silently stop engaging

with the brand. And that's where I think

brands go to die. You know, these ad

costs aren't coming down. They're doing

nothing to monetize it on the back end.

They need to start treating these

existing customers they have as invested

capital. And maybe then they'll get out

of this hole of I'm spending X amount on

ads, I'm making X amount of baseline

revenue. What about the other 80,000

customers I acquired? Where are they?

Well, you know, you're the one who lost

them, buddy.

>> Wow.

>> You know, this is

uh

I think this is an It's a very It's a

fascinating

It's a fascinating corner of commerce

that I think we don't often I I don't

often think about. As you As you talk

about it, I find it very interesting in

the kind of buyer who have a who has a

different buying psychology one from

another. Same age, same city, similar

wealth. I find this very interesting and

very appropriate. Uh and it seems very

fitting for the luxury world, for the

fashion world.

Um you know,

obviously higher purchase price, but a

lot of consideration going into that, a

lot of friendly and brand building. Um

that will that will result hopefully in

money's for everyone. And treating that

that list, that base of customers or,

you know, sign you know, people who have

agreed, you know, to be marketed to,

treating that with with care and

intentionality. That seems very fitting

to me. Sorry, I was cutting you off,

Colin.

>> Oh, good. I I would love your take on

AI now that how it relates to fashion in

2026 because I think there's a world

where these two coexist, but I think

there's also this kind of like judgment

and very much a taste feature that needs

to be involved with AI unless these

fashion brands produce just AI slop,

which is basically unforgivable.

>> No, absolutely. You know, my my view on

AI is that in regards to

parsing data and assisting you with

something, it's pretty exceptional.

There's a lot of work it does which you

just don't want to do and a lot of it is

administrative. But there's a strong

correlation between what's commercially

viable and the effort which goes into

it. So, you know, you can make an AI

image where if it was real, it would

have been a beautiful photo shoot, but

that asset in isolation doesn't really

work because number one,

most people can still kind of see what's

AI and what isn't. Um

but also it's it's a particular industry

where it hasn't been

received with the open arms it may have

been in in tech and in general ATC.

Um

but my personal view on it is from an

operational point of view and a

technical point of view, it's great and

it's great to kind of act as a second

head to think with you. But in terms of

actually producing anything that's

consumer facing,

I think it's less of a matter of is it

there yet and it's more of a matter of

should we be doing this at all.

>> Interesting. That's a great point.

That's a great point. Should you even go

into that lane? That's a great point.

>> And and and I I take you to mean here,

you know, agree, disagree, confirm,

deny. I take you to mean like am I

destroying brand equity by doing so? Am

I causing people to publicly revolt in

Facebook comments [laughter] if they do

or causing people to quietly walk away

in in in the luxury world as you've

described. Is that what you're hitting

on?

>> Absolutely. You know, it's quite funny,

you know, I I actually did have a client

that really wanted to explore AI and the

reason they wanted to explore it in this

use case was we're going to pay a lot of

money for this photo shoot. We want to

see conceptually what that photo shoot

will look like with AI.

And then we produce this content and

they like it so much that they want to

publish it.

I'm actually quite impressed with the

content, and I can't tell it's AI in

this regard. I think it's much more

prevalent when you're doing sketches or

you're doing outdoor shoots, but

something on low exposure with high

flash, it's it's pretty easy to create

it with AI. The safeguard I did when

publishing this as an ad is I put it on

the stories format on Instagram. So, if

you want to comment on it, you can't.

You can only swipe up and go to the

website.

>> [laughter]

>> Okay. Comments is

a huge thing cuz this is an audience

which wants to see what the public is

saying, you know? They want to see does

this have motion? And people go to the

comments, and they can be put off by

people saying this is copying someone or

it's uncool, or they can be put off over

logistical reasons like saying I ordered

this 3 weeks ago and I haven't got it.

You know, sometimes it's best to just

not allow the comments so you can

control your positioning and your image.

And I think the story placement is so

underrated for that. You can't even do

it on Reels. You can comment on Reels.

Story, it's like, look, you can swipe

right or you can swipe up.

>> Wow. [laughter]

A little sauce right there.

A little sauce right there.

A little sauce.

Okay, Zark, man, we

uh we appreciate you making the time to

join us and uh giving us a window into,

you know, retention and and winning uh

for these higher-scale luxury fashion

type brands. A very interesting window

into this world uh that's really a part

of of the e-com and and consumer

ecosystem. And tell us, you know, where

should people find you, follow you, talk

with you? I mean, Panther Research, etc.

Like, give us the whole list of of how,

you know, people should find you and get

involved with you.

>> Hey, if you want to see what I'm up to,

follow me on uh X, and if you want to

give me some money, go to

pantherresearch.com.

>> [laughter]

>> Very straightforward. I love that.

I love that.

All right, go give Zark some money. You

should. He knows what he's doing

especially in

the fashion and luxury world. Man, we

appreciate you making the time to join

us. We look forward to having you back,

brother. See you.

>> Thank you, gentlemen. Signing off.