In the run-up to this year’s Internet Retailing Conference 2013, we’ll focus in each newsletter on a different aspect of the conference as well as bringing you interviews with key retail speakers at the event. Today, we start with an overview of the whole day.
The focus at the eighth annual Internet Retailing Conference 2013 (IRC 2013) will be firmly on the fundamentals, with the New Basics of Retail the theme of the event.
It’s a theme that will look at what retailers need to know about the new reality of retail and the underlying basics with which they need to become familiar – fast.
The theme will extend across the three conference streams of the event, where The Customer conference stream will track customer behaviour, experience and interaction. The Business stream will look at how retailers are both matching and exceeding customers’ expectations, while The Industry will look past expected practice to the leading edge that could well be the retail basics of future years.
Opening the event, to be held at the Novotel in Hammersmith, London, on October 16, will be a stellar line-up of keynote speakers. As announced earlier this summer, Sir Stuart Rose, chairman of Ocado, Dressipi and Fat Face, will speak alongside Laura Wade-Gery, executive director of Marks & Spencer, and Ilan Benhaim, co-founder of flash sales giant vente-privee.com. A wide range of other speakers hail from retailers including Fat Face, Schuh, Shop Direct Group, New Look, Dixons, Boots, Kiddicare, Mamas & Papas and Play.com.
Some 500 delegates are expected at the event, where they can also see leading-edge multichannel technology in action courtesy of the 45 exhibitors taking part in the event. There will also be eight free-to-attend workshops taking a more in-depth look at some of the latest industry thinking and capabilities.
Ian Jindal, Internet Retailing editor-in-chief, said: “Over the last eight years, IRC has brought the board-level conversation to life in an intense multi-stream day. The conference is at the nexus of multichannel retail, crossing skill silos, professional domains, business sector and country boundaries.
“From our keynotes to our workshops, via the expert speakers and our compact expo, Internet Retailing is the best use of a day out of the office for senior, strategic commercial leaders.”
