Welcome to the first of this year’s Ramsys Future Retail seminars.
Today’s theme is that question right there – can bricks and mortar defeat e-commerce?
Firstly, I’d like to give a warm thanks to our key event sponsors tonight. You’ll get a chance to hear from some of them as presenters tonight and you’ll also see them and some technology exhibitor’s in the bar area after our presentations.
Our first sponsor is the Web Company.
ASB are our wonderful venue host and I’ll talk about them more on the next slide.
Sherpa Systems are a retail employee engagement company who’s innovative product could change the way that retailers manage their workforce and even deploy campaigns
EDIStech are a kiwi firm who are connecting and automating the supply chain for Kiwi retailers
Luminary are an experiential marketing business who specialise in bringing the digital world of advertising into a format that customers can engage with in the real world.
I’m from Ramsys Retail. Our software helps retailer’s engage with their customers from the POS, all the way through to eCommerce.
Each of our sponsors will be present afterwards to talk to
and we’ve got a number of technology exhibitors for you to see some of this stuff in action.
<CLICK>
OK so before we get going in earnest, I’ll cover over a couple of points;
Bathrooms are next to the XXX
Fire exits are XXX
And please, can you all take a second now to ensure that your phones are set to silent.
I’d also like to extend a special thanks to ASB for hosting this event. When we decided to run an event on retail innovation, we sought out innovative partners and sponsors and ASB was a natural fit.
I once worked in a Bank in 1993 and we were about to launch online banking. Even back then, ASB had already beaten us to market with other channels such as eftpos, ATM’s and we were in awe of them. 22 years later, they’ve continued to embrace technology.
This building is the cherry on top of a long, long history of innovation and technology use in an industry where taking risks Banker’s are not renowned for.
I’d strongly recommend, that you grab a business card from someone at ASB tonight and come back and get a proper tour, this building is nothing less than awe inspiring.
So the agenda tonight is as follows;
We’ve got 3 speakers plus me summarising things at the end. Presentations should wrap up before 5:45
And then you’re welcome to stay after the presentations for a drink and to view some of the technologies afterwards in the Cube Bar
We’re looking at closing around about 6.30pm
OK
So, the question that we’re here to talk about is “Can bricks and mortar defeat e-commerce.”
and I’d like to go back a step and talk about why this question?
<Click>
Retail in Crisis
Death of Bricks and mortar
How can bricks and mortar survive?
Thank goodness for the Auckland property market. I say this because at least it gives the press something to talk about other than the death of retail and how eCommerce is killing bricks and mortar.
And really, if it is a war, then Who is winning and how is that measured?
<NEXT>
So the first thing to address is the data.
These figures are from BNZ’s January 2015 Onlines Sales Index.
It’s important to know that a lot of the statistics that are used are relative growth of online vs growth of traditional.
And given that traditional stores are all now looking at online stores, isn’t it expected that online growth would be stronger?
I think, that the most important figure to look at is that according to this data only 6.3% of all retail sales are online.
Lets talk about international vs. local.
Again, thank you BNZ for the data – ASB, pick up your game!
SO international sales growth compared with a year ago is 14.5% for overseas and 3.7 for domestic. Whilst domestic still holds a slight advantage of the overall market.
What this tells us is that our kiwi retailers face their biggest online threat from offshore and that our biggest area of growth opportunity is in domestic online sales.
So, to win the war – we need to define the fronts on which to battle on and then search for an advantage.
That brings me to our first speaker <CLICK>
Ben Thomsen
Marketing Manager | Business Marketing
Now before I start does anyone who’s not from ASB remember this character? <PRIZE>
Ben’s had a career in banking across various roles and different banks.
Starting his career in a Regulatory and Compliance role, Ben quickly realised this wasn’t for him.
A stint as a “real” banker showed a passion for customer experience and desire to influence how that came about.
Ben has built and implemented multi-channel strategies across email, social media and online, worked in Contact Centres, Group Strategy and Brand Experience roles.
He’s now taking that knowledge to help build great experiences for ASB business customers, from SME’s through to Corporates.
Ashley Hudson
Senior Account Executive
Sherpa Systems
Ash has flown over to present today from the country that holds the number two ranking for Rugby League
the number 6 ranking for Rugby Union
but still the best cricketing nation in the world.
Past 15 years worked with technology and marketing services vendors to the retail industry
Projects included customer segmentation and analytics right through to full scale CRM deployments
More recently worked at LinkedIn
At Sherpa – in assisting Retailers optimise the best talent across their organisations and deliver high performance teams
Ray Edward-Paul
General Manager
Worked in the retail sector for more than 25 years both in Australia and NZ . (Myer Stores, Thorn EMI, KBB Music)
Roles held within the retail sector have been;
Auditor, Financial Controller, Regional Sales and Operations Manager and General Manager.
Currently GM of EDIS Tech (1 month)
So the questions stands – can we win the battle?
Well, we’ve heard about bringing the customer to the centre of the world no matter what channel that customer wants to use
We’ve heard about engaging with your workforce and giving them information, data and support so that they can sell more and
We’ve heard about tapping into a collective digital supply-chain
Lets talk now talk about the store of the future. I want to go over some technology that retailers can use now to change the dynamic of in-store experience.
Summary
So what have we talked about?
Data and what to focus on.
We’ve talked about
Staff engagement is a vital weapon against pure play, overseas retailers.
Being smart about how you select, source, purchase and move products is essential in harnessing Gross profit
And finally that there are technologies around that can vastly enhance the personal experience that you can give your customers throughout their journey with your company.
So in summary – rather than trying to defeat e-Commerce, I think that our focus as businesses in the retail sector should be to get much, much closer to our customers and give them a relationship and a real world experience that they can’t get anywhere else.
