Today was the first day of the Online Retailer conference in Sydney.
There was a lineup of fantastic speakers ranging from the prolific Nordstrom through to our own superstars such as Seafolly.
Here are a list of some key takeaways:
- Customer first and always. There was much discussion of customer insights and building a ‘community’ not simply a customer
- Doing things for the right reason – Thinking of using notifications? is this of benefit to your client or simply a push for dollars? think wisely and always consider the customer
- Build a great team and have a great working culture and plan employees career paths and always let them know the big picture of what you are aiming to achieve. Aaron Smith from Nordstrom reminded us of the classic quote ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast’.
- Know your brand – Andy Dunn from Bonobos discussed his key brand elements as fit, service and fun and they ensure these are embedded into what they do. We also heard stories about how companies such as Disney failed the first time in the retail space because they didn’t go back to the brand story or brand essence – they finally realised their stores were not ‘magical’ like they needed to be and when that did happen it changed everything including the bottom line
- Get to Grips with Metrics While we all talk a lot about big data and metrics some presenters agree we can still be doing a lot better in this space
- Tenacity, Self Awareness and Belief in your Brand – Andy Dunn said you need belief in your brand and the tenacity to keep going in the tough times and reminded us that it’s not easy! Be self aware as a business owner, own the hard conversations with partners and suppliers.
- Research on Aust Retail delivered by Frost and Sullivan: the environment is tough, online channels are growing and omni channel dominates. (Omni channel would be the word of the day!)
The Exhibitor section was lively and some standouts from today included:
Excitehub – Gives managers the bird’s eye view over their offline retail outlets
ShipIt – Cloud based app to simplify the process of delivering online and offline orders. One to watch and just snapped up some business with Aust Post this week
Trustpilot An Australian review site
Styleshot -Premium visual content for ecommerce
Tomorrow is the final day of the conference and we will be scouting out for additional talent and tips. If you can’t make the event follow #retailer2015
Digital Democracy is a Media Partner for the event