Main Day One: Tuesday, August 13, 2024

Albertsons Cos. Was nominated this year for a Webby award for its digital app experience. In this fireside chat, hear how they created a set of tools that helps to bridge the online and in store shopping experience to make a more personalized and seamless customer journey and drive long term loyalty. 

Not only is eTail Boston celebrating its 25th year, but so is Zappos. Hear from CMO Joe Cano, as he shares how Zappos brings the Wow to the customer experience and hear how they approach storytelling, giving back to the community, innovation and more.

While a seamless DTC experience is essential for many companies, it's clear that shoppers more and more are turning to omnichannel experiences to interact with their favorite brands. Hear about the importance of having both a strong digital and brick and mortar retail strategy and how to understand consumer behaviors and the changing retail landscape. Sandy will: 

• Share insights into Warby Parker’s extensive retail expansion and the strategy behind it 
• Discuss how and why the retail landscape has evolved in recent years, and the shift in shopper behaviors that require brands to have a holistic, omnichannel experience 
• How brands can scale and implement retail growth with their brand mission in mind

Jill Manoff

Editor & Chief
Glossy

See Bio

Sandy Gilsenan

Chief Retail & Customer Experience Officer
Warby Parker

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Presentation 1: 9:40-9:50 

Presentation 2: 9:50-10:00 

Storytelling is such a buzzword right now, but how are you really differentiating with your brand content strategy? Discover how to captivate your audience, build emotional connections, and drive brand loyalty through the power of storytelling with insights from LALO, Bombas and VS. Expect to hear more about: 

• Using narratives to build lasting connections with your community 
• Crafting authentic, relatable stories to help create a sense of belonging and encourage active participation 
• Leveraging storytelling to achieve remarkable business growth

Michael Wieder

Co-Founder, President & CMO
LALO

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Kate Huyett

Chief Customer Officer
Bombas

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Jill Smith

Director, Marketing
Victoria’s Secret

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Brendon Witcher with Forrester will deliver a rapid fire what’s hot and what not presentation and share what strategic commerce initiatives retail pros around the world are saying they're investing in now and what's being put on the backburner. 

Brendan Witcher

VP and Principal Analyst, Digital Business & Strategy
Forrester Research

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Presentation 1: 11:15-11:25 

Presentation 2: 11:25-11:35 

AI is everywhere right now and definitely the talk of retail events, but what is actually working? Hear the ways in which AI is transforming the retail landscape and impacting this diverse group of retailers from personalized shopping experiences to dynamic visual merchandising. Discuss ideas for: 

• Evaluating where artificial intelligence makes sense across your company by doing a strategic assessment of your business  
• Instituting quick wins with easy to integrate solutions like chatbots and AI voice assistants 
• Finding places across your front and back office where AI might help create efficiencies (ie. Content writing, search algorithms, customer insights)  
• Looking at all forms of generative AI to see where you could be using different free programs to free up time

Dan Marques

SVP, Global Digital Marketing & Growth
Crocs

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Sada Kshirsagar

VP, Digital Product Management & Operations
Tractor Supply Co.

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What are the strategies, tools and resources needed to truly embrace a fully omnichannel approach? Hear from Quip, Dossier and others as they discuss they ways in which they have reengineered their business to be full omnichannel and how it has positioned their brand for sustained growth. Expect to hear more about: 

• Cultivating a digital-first mindset and ensuring that your team is equipped to navigate the digital landscape 
• Prioritizing the customer experience across all touch points 
• Baking agility and flexibility into all processes 
• Investing in the right tools and tech to integrate data and systems across channels 

Meredith Glansberg

Chief Revenue Officer
Quip

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Sergio Tache

Founder & CEO
Dossier Perfumes

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At eTail’s C-Suite Retreat, you will be surrounded by senior level retail peers who want to meet for “Open Innovation.”Hear a keynote panel discussion followed by interactive roundtables where executives can exercise their minds, build a brain-trust, and leverage those who truly have their pulse on the future of retail. Together, discuss retail’s current environment, and where you think areas of growth (or decline!) may be. Validate your ideas. Inspire others. Discover partnering opportunities. Get an “outside-in” unique point of view to discover diverse thinking that can transform your mindset—for both you and your business. 

Meghan Holzhauer

CMO
State Bags

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Kailtin Parker

Chief Digital Officer
Pact

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Customers are more than just customers, they are people who need an escape. If you can interrupt the doom scroll, or better yet, have them crave your content during their scrolling- you've won their hearts (and their wallet will follow). We'll be discussing real and actionable ways to identify how your brand can do this and what kind of runway/results to expect.

Dylan Jones

Chief Marketing Officer
PODIUM Nutrition

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In the ever-evolving digital landscape, understanding the intricate path of advertising dollars is crucial for success. Join us for a keynote session with Ryan McClurkin of JTV where we dive deep into the fascinating world of modern digital media measurement and how it's transforming the way retailers navigate the online advertising ecosystem. Expect to hear about:  

• How JTV decided to transform the way they measured ad spend 
• What was changed about their measurement ecosystem  
• Results of their journey so far  

Ryan McClurkin

Chief Analytics Officer
JTV

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Executive, SheerID

Marc Mullin

Director, Sales Promotions
Sleep Number

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Executive, Extole

Executive, Shirofune

Customers expect options when it comes to buying and delivery. To compete, retailers must provide multiple ways to purchase both online and offline and also a variety of delivery options. Not only that, but customers seek transparency and communication every step of the way. Hear from Clark’s, Famous Footwear and others as they share ideas for: 

• Reviewing current trends in omnichannel purchasing and delivery 
• Catering to varying preferences, ensuring a seamless and flexible buying experience across all channels 
• Providing real-time visibility into inventory across to ensure accurate product availability info 
• Empowering customers to personalize their shopping journeys by being able to modify their orders, delivery methods, etc. 

Caitlin Conway

Senior Global Digital Strategist
Clark's

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Daniel Cornwell

Senior Director, eCommerce
Famous Footwear

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• Exploring the latest payments technologies 
• Reviewing changing customer behaviors around payments 
• Determining the right payments strategy for your brand 
• Reviewing the changing world of mobile payments from SMS, peer to peer and mobile wallet 
• Examining BNPL options and whether it makes sense for your customers and products 
• Discussing social commerce payments 
• Assessing payment partners

Laura Smith

Director, eCommerce Marketplaces & Analytics
Sweetwater

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Will Mavromichalis

Senior Fraud Solutions Advisor
Kount, an Equifax Company

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It’s now becoming clear that the cookie deprecation challenge might be less about targeting but more around measurement and one truth for measurement is no longer possible. In this panel hear how retailers are tackling measurement given the impending loss of cookies. 

Explore ideas for: 

• Reviewing the changes you made or must make to your campaign strategy, activation and measurements in a post cookie environment 
• Adapting your teams and working processes to take advantage of new methods of operating (ie: new data sources, new measurement approaches, etc). 
• Reconfiguring your metrics, processes and systems to support a 360 view in a cookieless world 
• Making sure that your architecture is designed to optimize data collection and measurement, privacy, etc.

Leslie Griffin

Senior Director, Analytics
Peapod Digital Labs

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Rachel Kwon

Head of Digital Marketing
Larson Jewelers

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Leah Bliss

Lead, Performance Driven Marketing
GM

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Join Dan Cornwell with Famous Footwear as he explores the pivotal role of eCommerce within a large-scale omnichannel retail framework. Dan will delve into strategies for: 

• Integrating online platforms into a brick-and-mortar retail landscap 
• Championing eCommerce in a complex, multichannel organization 

Daniel Cornwell

Senior Director, eCommerce
Famous Footwear

See Bio

Digital retailers typically offer millions of products leaving their customers overwhelmed with choice. In this session, audience will learn what it takes to bring the knowledge of customer persona and business specific insights to curate a personalized shopping experience where customers feel confident in their purchase and come back for more. Walk away with ideas for: 

• Learning how to devise winning omnichannel customer journeys 
• Cutting thru the clutter to deliver winning product strategies 
• Elevating customer confidence with frictionless omni-shopping 

Anant Arora

Sr. Director – Digital Category Experience
Lowe’s

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Brian Costello with GM will explore how optimizing marketing strategies based on in-market signal analysis and experimentation can drive measurable results. Hear how they are: 

• Aligning marketing goals to business goals 
• Optimizing to results based on in-market signal analysis, and experimentation 
• Embracing an agile approach to experimentation, testing and in-market results

Brian Costello

Head of Performance Driven Marketing, Corporate Brands
GM

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Executive, Cardlytics

The purpose of stores continues to change, especially in today’s post pandemic reality. Hear how a group of retailers is reimagining their physical stores to drive purchases across all channels, boost engagement and community and increase brand awareness. Review ideas for: 

• Exploring different ways retailers are reimagining the store experience 
• Catering to different generations of customers, or even different segments of customers in-store 
• Examining recent investments (technology or otherwise) that are being made to improve the customer experience 
• Finding the new purpose for your retail stores in conjunction with all other channels 

Scott Fennell

Senior Manager, Omnichannel Performance & Analytics
Groupe Dynamite

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Jordan Neri

Senior Manager, Marketing and Innovation
Sunday

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The post purchase experience can sometimes be ignored as retailers focus heavily on customer acquisition and getting the sale, but post purchase is the key to building lifelong customer relationships. Hear how a group of retailers are reimagining the post purchase experience and expect to learn more about: 

• Recognizing the post purchase path has evolved over time and is more complex than ever 
• Optimizing your return process to balance customer experience and cost 
• Tackling the process of bringing customers back to your brand  
• Avoiding discounting or specific promotions and focusing on content driven post purchase campaigns 
• Using blog content, app content, showcasing new releases of content for complimentary products, how-to guides or instructional content 
• Demonstrating to customers that you care about them long term (beyond just the purchase) 
• Finding technology partners that can support you in these efforts

Michael Yamartino

Chief Executive Officer
Route

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Matt Ezyk

Director, eCommerce
Pet Supermarket

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Zero-party data (data that is willingly shared by individuals), provides more accurate and insightful information about preferences, behaviors, and intentions. So, how can retailers more effectively capture it? Join this group of panelists as they share the ways that they are gathering zero party data all while building stronger, more trusting relationships with customers. Walk away with tips for: 

• Reviewing the benefits of zero-party data 
• Determining tactics for collection including interactive polls, quizzes, gamification, surveys, etc. 
• Understanding the value-exchange—what will your customer get for providing this information? 
• Discussing the results from increased engagement and conversion to increased average order value

• Crafting personalized user journeys based on customer preferences, behavior, and demographics 
• Implementing dynamic content strategies to serve relevant and timely information to users 
• Integrating interactive elements and gamification techniques to enhance user engagement 
• Ensuring your site is optimized for various formats especially mobile 

Berni Fisher

VP, Product
Butcherbox

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• Building more predictive, multi-dimensional data models – going beyond linear segmentation models (RFM models) 
• Using tools (such as a CDP) to process these models and determining data sets that are available to feed into the models 
• Using the tools to do real time model management  
• Building clusters of customers 
• Applying data science and using predictive segmentation  
• Applying these new models to help drive your CX and marketing strategies 

Get ready to unwind and network with fellow eTailers at our exclusive party at Yard House, conveniently located in the Boston Marriott Copley Place! Join us for a fun evening filled with craft beer and cocktails, delicious bites, and great company. Whether you're looking to exchange ideas, forge new partnerships, or simply relax after a day at eTail Boston, this event is the perfect opportunity. So come grab a beer with us and enjoy a memorable evening of networking!