Retail Technology Show keynote panel discussion: omnichannel hits and misses during challenging times
Retail Technology Show 2023 came to a close last week with a keynote panel discussion entitled, Omnichannel retailing 2020-2023: the good, the bad and the ugly. What key lessons have omnichannel retailers learnt about retailing during unprecedented disruption?
An all female line up (sadly, still a rare sight at retail events) consisted of Chair Kate Hardcastle (aka The Customer Whisperer) and panellists: Cassandra Bergsland, Director Omnichannel, John Lewis & Partners; Marni Allen, Former Director, Consumer Healthcare Futures, Walgreens Boots Alliance; Raine Peake, Former Digital Director, Jigsaw Clothing; Nikki Baird, Vice President, Strategy, Aptos.
Here are our stand out comments from one of the best conference sessions at Retail Technology Show 2023.
Kate Hardcastle: I will start by saying how excited I am at this all female panel. It doesn’t happen enough.
Cassandra Bergsland: When it comes to innovation, you have to fail quickly, so you can pivot the spend.
Marni Allen: What seemed impossible before Covid suddenly became possible. We moved to curbside pickup within weeks.
There will be customers happy to be completely virtual, but many still want physical. There will always be that touch and feel element to the customer journey.
CB: The digital proposition should match the in-store proposition - customers now expect this.
Nikki Baird: The store associate has a lot to offer. What excites me most is retailers redesigning stores around employees.
Raine Peake: Some of our most loyal customers returned the most items.
CB: We are making investments in areas where we can win back customers. We’re working on a major loyalty project and investing in our app, joining up our store and digital propositions.
MA: There is now much more of a fail fast mentality, lots of pilots and so on, which has been very positive.
NB: There is still a lot of friction, especially between stores and e-commerce. Digital can have a different payment provider to in-store, and neither wants to give their’s up.
CB: People are not predictable. The perceived wisdom was that after Covid no one would want to go back to the office again. But people are doing just that and they are also going to the nearby Pret. They are experimenting.
NB: It’s so important to focus on the customer experience, particularly in an age where a reliance on third party data can be so challenging.
CB: The customer experience is a top priority. Product data is key, making sure our suppliers are giving us the right data to sell products, and how we are using that information exchange to make personalised recommendations.
NB: When it comes to in-house tech for omnichannel vs bringing in outside companies, I prefer buy over build, but the picture does get blurry when you factor in the likes of composable commerce, APIs and so on.
KH: Retailer’s don’t always get personalisation right. A few years back, a brand, I believe it was online florist Bloom and Wild, had the idea of telling customers they could opt out of Mother’s Day communications.
Then everyone else started doing it, to the point that I now get hundreds of emails telling me I can opt if I so wish, outnumbering the marketing emails that mention Mother’s Day.
Continue reading…