Kiri’s Recap of the Retail Innovation Conference (RICE) - Episode 240

DESCRIPTION

In today’s podcast, Kiri shares her experiences at the Retail Innovation Conference and Expo she attended in Chicago. She gives a recap of a workshop she did and an overview of the themes from the sessions. One of the sessions was by the marketplace leader of Albertsons and touched on the software that they use called Marketplacer.

Make sure you tune in to find out more!

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“There was a really good mix of solution providers and brands at this show, and the exhibitors were really busy.”

— Kiri Masters

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Conferences are back in 2022:
- A lot of people said Shoptalk was the big return. RICE a little smaller, following on the heels
- Exhibitors, the solution providers, were very busy, booked out, good ROI for them

Themes from sessions:
- Stores:
  - Designing Connected Commerce: Next-Gen ‘Phygital’ Experiences - bringing digital and physical together
  - Designing & Optimizing Your Omnichannel Roadmap
  - Converging Customer-First and Employee-First Strategies
- Marketplaces - 5 sessions about this topic
- Customer experience
  - Leveling Up CX with Cutting-Edge Tech
  - New Trends in Design & Brand Storytelling
  - Driving Loyalty
  - Connecting Content, Community & Commerce
  - Data-Driven Experiences Across all Channels
- New Approaches to Branding & Advertising
- Revenue Models - 2 themes: FBA Aggregators and BNPL (buy now pay later) are in the midst of big financial pressure
- Supply Chain, Fulfillment and More

Kiri was invited by ChannelEngine to present at one of their sessions on retail marketplaces.
- ChannelEngine - a tech solution that enables brands to launch in many different marketplaces all around the world.
- Kiri - dominating the Amazon Marketplace to enhance their sales in North America - podcast episode linked below

Albertsons/Marketplacer session recap - Jas Krdzalic, Sr. Director of Marketplace Strategy & Partnerships at Albertsons Companies, gave his vision for the third-party marketplace that they’ll be rolling out at Albertsons soon. They launched a retail media network offering as well.
- The assortment strategy is key.
- The value of a marketplace is curation.
- Focus is on discovery, creating a great experience.
- The question is whether to integrate the marketplace into the 1p assortment or keep it as a separate store.