2) Tom Giacalone, Divisional Vice President, Multi-Channel Management, Sears Holdings Corporation

Today's keynote session features highlights and key takeaways from the Third Annual RIS/AMR Cross-Channel Technology Trends Study. Also featured will be executive discussion and live audience polling questions around the Study highlights. Janet Sherlock, research director for retail from AMR Research will present the Study highlights and analysis. Joining Sherlock to provide their in-the-field perspectives will be senior executives from Sephora USA, Sears Holdings Corporation and Sport Chalet, while RIS News group editor-in-chief Joe Skorupa will present the audience polling questions and analysis.

 

 

Channel Expansion Strategies

SPEAKER:
John Dohm, Vice President of IT, True Religion Apparel Inc.

With a clear vision that emphasizes physical stores as the largest element in the True Religion profit picture the phenomenally successful upscale denimwear retailer explains its strategy to expand direct sales into international markets and new product lines. This comes on top of a back-end technology restructuring effort that streamlined key business processes, added new software functionality, and reduced costs while also creating a platform that can support scalability and robust growth (far surpassing that of most retailers mired in the recession). Also in this session you will gain insight into the decision-making process that True Religion will use to set its long-term online strategy by either outsourcing or bringing processes in-house.

 

X-Channel Talk Show with Charlotte Russe

Speaker: Giri Durbhakula, Vice President of IT, Charlotte Russe

Keeping current with 15 to 30 year-old female shoppers means plugging into their favorite communication channels, and few do this better than Charlotte Russe. Giri Durbhakula, vice president of technology, for the trendy apparel retailer tells host Dave Weinand, publisher of RIS News, about recent customer engagement initiatives that include Share and Shop Together Web-site functions that enable customers to make shopping a fun, collaborative effort. Durbhakula also talks about the success of Community Links and Style Tips in a session you won’t want to miss.

Seeing Online Shopping through a Customer's Eyes

Speaker: Kevin Ertell, Vice President of Retail Strategy, ForeSee Results

The only way to improve online conversion rates is to resolve the disconnect between your own understanding of your Web site and the customer's understanding. To do this you need to use customer satisfaction metrics to get trendable data that identifies usability problems and key areas that have the biggest impact on purchase intent and loyalty. Using insights from the Top 100 Online Retail Satisfaction survey Ertell offers simple-to-execute tips that can have a dramatic impact on improving conversion rates. And as a special feature of the presentation he will visit select retailer Web sites and show what they are doing to either drive up or drive down customer satisfaction.

Workshop Leader: Janet Sherlock, Research Director / Retail, AMR Research

As consumers increasingly shop across many channels, merchants struggle to serve them with current multi-channel systems and technologies. AMR Retail's Janet Sherlock shows why smart retailers are focusing on advanced order management as a key to unlocking new levels of cross-channel sales, profits and efficiencies. She explains the benefits of moving toward a unified view of customer transactions, inventory availability, fulfillment alerts and new-order purchasing. Plus she cautions why retailers should guard against rushing into new cross-channel initiatives with substandard systems.