Ahead of our eighth annual Internet Retailing Conference (IRC 2013), we’re running a series of newsletter pieces previewing the event. Today we take a look at Stream two of the conference, which focuses on The Business.
There’s so much more to ecommerce and multichannel retailing than what the customer sees. Behind the scenes, there’s serious heavyweight lifting and management that goes into the seamless customer service that can be seen from the outside.
The Business conference stream at Internet Retailing Conference 2013 looks at how retailers are meeting – and even exceeding – customers’ expectations, and at what they are doing in order to achieve that.
“From customer engagement to team development, supply chain and merchandising to IT, systems, operations, warehousing and metrics, this track highlights what the customer doesn’t see but the business must deliver in order for customers to shop whenever, wherever and however they want,” said Emma Herrod, editor of Internet Retailing magazine and conference director.
The stream is chaired by Emma Robertson of Transform, and starts at 11.20am, following the three keynote presentations.
John Watton, senior director, marketing EMEA at Silverpop, opens the stream with Stop sending email messages… start sending multichannel messages that matter. The session will look at how email marketers can use all their sales channels to marshall campaigns that have an impact.
Then at 11.55am, Adam Stewart, marketing director at Play.com takes to the stage with Delivering ecommerce ROI. During the course of the presentation he’ll be looking to identify hurdles that commonly stand in the way of understanding the value that channels add to a business. He’ll also give some practical examples of developing an attribution model that works for real retail businesses.
Shivani Tejuja, ecommerce and multichannel director at New Look, will share the fashion retailer’s experiences of engaging customers across touchpoints and how technology interfaces helps in-store staff to sell. Her presentation, Simplifying the interfaces to close the sale, runs from 12.30pm until the 1pm lunch break.
Then at 2pm, Matthew Keys, digital marketing manager at Hotel Chocolat and James Candy, business development director, Red Technology, team up for Delivering customers individual ordering experiences. During the course of the presentation, the two will explain the challenges Hotel Chocolat faced in international delivery, and flexible delivery options enabled the chocolate retailer to create its own competitive advantage.
A panel discussion on International starts at 2.35pm. Speakers Donna Chen, group strategy, international online development at Alliance Boots, Jan Mehmet, global digital director at Jack Wills, Rob Jennings, ecommerce director, Mamas and Papas, and Ray Fowler, executive director advisory services CIS Retail at Ernst and Young, will share their experiences of trading overseas – and highlight some key lessons learned. The 40-minute discussion will run up to the afternoon break at 3.15pm.
Then, in Simplifying IT for omnichannel, Chris Mangham, IT director at M.Video.ru will share his experiences of turning complexity into omnichannel IT to stay ahead of the growing Russian ecommerce market.
Tanya Lawler, vice-president, UK trading at eBay, looks to the future in her closing keynote. Challenging the future, a retail perspective, looks at how the retail landscape is likely to be different in years to come, from its future best practice to the ideas that are likely to be seen as commonplace.
The Internet Retailing Conference 2013 takes place on October 16 at the Novotel, Hammersmith, in London. Find out more about the event by clicking here.
