While attending the IRCE at RetailX conference in Chicago, Total Retail's Melissa Campanelli interviewed John Kennelly, general manager of partnerships at b8ta, a retail-as-a-service company. Kennelly discusses b8ta's 17 stores across the U.S., where online and direct-to-consumer brands can showcase products, and how the brand partners with retailers to help them reinvent their stores and business models though b8ta's technology. He details the b8ta's current partnership with Macy's, where brands use Macy's store space for their products and experiment with physical retail inside a legacy brick-and-mortar store. Kennelly shares the retail trends b8ta is currently tracking, offers his thoughts on pop-up shops, and provides insight into b8ta's plan to increase company investments in technology and open more stores this year.