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Retail Excellence

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Retail Excellence eCommerce Conference 2018

by Aoife Murphy, Think Global Forum Europe Managing Director.

I battled through Storm Ali to attend the Retail Excellence eCommerce Conference 2018 in Dublin.

As part of the Think Global Forum (TGF) initiative, I will be hosting our second Retail & eCommerce gathering in London next week so it was great to hear from the experts on the latest hot topics in the industry ahead of our own event. My interest lies in the impact that these trends will have on the professional community whose focus it is to ensure ‚going-global‘ success.

Some great insights and experiences were shared, providing me with plenty of food for thought:

  • Personalisation is widely acknowledged to be the future of successful eCommerce.
  • You need to bring people on a cross channel journey, prompted by personalised onsite product recommendations, emails, popups and social media ads at different stages.
  • It is no surprise then that behavioural data accounts for 98.4% of all data generated by shoppers.
  • The 2019 E-Commerce KPI Report created by Wolfgang Digital is well worth a download.
  • If your website is not responsive /mobile friendly, you are behind already.
  • Ashley Mc Donnell from Christian Dior spoke about how we can learn a lot from Chinese technology in retail.
  • This New York Times video tells us about the WeChat phenomenon.

 

  •  ‚Get in there quick!‘ Ctrip (now trip.com), is a travel platform used extensively by Chinese travelers. It is barely used by retailers in Ireland so there is a huge opportunity for first mover advantage to make your brand visible to Chinese travelers visiting Ireland.
  • A recent study found that 49% of US consumers turn to Amazon first when shopping for products online. What does that tell us about where we should be spending our SEO budget?
  • The person who engages with you through Facebook or other social media channels is twice as likely to buy from you than through your website. Facebook now provides analytics which is a huge step forward considering its importance for retail engagement.
  • For SMEs and local retailers, providing a Click & Collect facility is key to survival but it needs to be well planned and executed.
  • Brexit, the ubiquitous elephant in the room, is a huge challenge for most companies, but is it an opportunity for ferry companies to become floating shopping centres with duty free 🙂 ?

There is a lot of conjecture about the impact that digital transformation will have on retail; keeping up with ecommerce trends is key to weathering the storm. I’m really excited about continuing this conversation with our expert Think Global Forum Executives when I chair the boardroom session in London for the upcoming Think Global Forum Retail and eCommerce event at the Corinthia Hotel, Whitehall, London.