RTP Editors Share Their Top RIC18 Sessions To Watch
With the 2018 Retail Innovation Conference less than three weeks away, retailers from all over the country (and globe) will have the opportunity to hear how the industry’s most disruptive brands and innovative thinkers are raising the bar for all merchants.
The event’s keynote speeches, breakout sessions and hands-on workshops will give attendees insights, best practices and ideas that they can apply to their own retail business.
The RTP team reveals which sessions and speakers they are anticipating the most.
Debbie Hauss, Editor-in-Chief: I need to address this question on a high level. #RIC18 is offering a phenomenal two days of content that will inspire and motivate retailers to collaborate across business units and reach out to industry peers, colleagues and experts, to think differently in order to bring positive change to their organizations. What I look forward to most is enabling retailers to learn from each other in a collegial and productive environment. This year we are honored to have many C-level executives on the stage — including Rafeh Masood, Chief Digital Officer of BJ’s Wholesale Club, Miki Berardelli, CEO of KIDBOX, and Romain Liot, COO of Adore Me. We’ll hear from the 2018 Retail Innovator Award winners as well throughout the event. Pack up your laptops and plan to join #RIC18 for all three days, including the pre-show Store Tours on Monday, April 30.
Adam Blair, Executive Editor: I’m looking forward to Walmart CIO Clay Johnson’s keynote presentation, Digital Transformation: Empowering Walmart Associates With Consumer-Grade Technology. I’ve been covering this industry long enough to remember just how dramatic the mindset shift was when we all realized that consumers’ technology had leapfrogged far ahead of retailer-supplied technology. Now, of course, it’s retailers’ technology that strives to be consumer-grade. It’s commonplace today to say customers come into stores with far more information about products, prices and promotions than in-store associates, but that’s a relatively recent inversion of the classic retailer-customer relationship. I’m also interested to hear how Walmart is dealing with this challenge/opportunity. The company certainly has its faults, but it’s shown a consistent desire to take risks and stay on the cutting edge of technological change — behavior that is not always typical of an enormous corporation.
Marie Griffin, Managing Editor: I can’t settle on just one session! Instead, I’ll point out some of the speakers that stand out to me. Danielle DiMaiolo Rendini, Senior Director of Product Management for Barneys New York, will tell us how the 95-year-old retailer continues to thrive through unique in-store events, associate empowerment and personalized customer service (Tuesday, May 1 at 12:45 pm). Jeff Gamsey, VP of Private Brands for warehouse club disruptor Boxed.com, will outline how the proprietary Prince & Spring line helped Boxed.com become a $100M+ business in just three years (Tuesday at 2:20 pm). Aaron Nilsson, Manager of Digital Experience for 128-year-old Carhartt, will talk about the brand’s move to real-time personalization and the organizational shift that went along with it (Tuesday at 3:25 pm). And Erica Yamamoto, Director of Lifecycle Marketing & Customer Experience for zulily, will let us know how the e-Commerce enterprise melded data-driven personalization with the entertainment of discovery-based shopping to get 91% of shoppers to make a repeat purchase (Wednesday, May 2 at 3:00 pm).
Glenn Taylor, Senior Editor: While he doesn’t represent a specific retailer, shopper behaviouralist Ken Hughes is sure to deliver an exceptional blueprint for handling retail’s youngest clientele, Gen Z. With conversational commerce becoming such a large part of the retail upheaval, I’m very interested in hearing Hughes discuss the steps retailers must take to move away from marketing as we know it and build further on true customer conversations. As retailers seek the elusive goal of becoming entirely customer-centric, attendees will surely benefit from Hughes’ analysis of shopper expectations. This isn’t a shot in the dark assumption either. Two years ago, Hughes spoke at #RIC16 identifying four principles retailers need to follow in order to effectively reach the disruptive “Blue Dot” consumers — Personalization, Authenticity, Contextual and Experiential (PACE) — and the keynote was a fan favorite. Hughes captivated audiences in 2016 with his touches of humor and emotion all at once, and I have no doubt that he’ll be able to do the same at #RIC18.
Klaudia Tirico, Features Editor: The Retail Innovation Conference is always such a great time and learning experience. I personally always look forward to the Store Tours, which will kick off the event this year at the Shops at Columbus Circle. Attendees will have an opportunity to learn how retailers deliver unique marketing strategies and leverage innovative technologies to make the in-store experience a memorable one for every consumer. This year, the tour will visit Amazon Books, Sugarfina, TUMI, New York Running Company by JackRabbit and Williams Sonoma. Plus, an executive from each retailer will host their respective visit. In addition to the Store Tours, I’m also looking forward to the panel titled: Influencing With Influencers: How To Win At Retail’s Hottest Marketing Trend. The session will feature influencer marketing experts such as Kamiu Lee of Activate and Patricia Hong of A.T. Kearney, as well as retail execs from Lovesac, Astral Heathy & Beauty and Love Your Melon, who will share best practices, trends, faux-pas to avoid and predictions for the future of influencer marketing.
Bryan Wassel, Associate Editor: My pick for the must-see presentation is Digital Strategies Session: Best Practices for Building A Private Brand In The Digital Era, presented by Jeff Gamsey, VP of Private Brands at Boxed.com, Miki Berardelli, CEO at KIDBOX and Kelly Sayre, Retail/CPG Analyst at IHL Group. Private labels are still sales drivers online, as seen by the success of Brandless, but getting these brands noticed by consumers is a completely different game when you can’t take advantage of shelving and store displays to draw the customers’ eye. Price is the single most important factor for 61% of e-Commerce shoppers, and making sure a retailer’s products stand out among the endless options available across the web can improve both sales and loyalty.
Click to register to attend the Retail Innovation
Conference, held at Convene in
Manhattan from April 30 to May 2.