Britain’s largest retailers to converge to share best practices in the rapidly changing omni-channel commerce sector
Reading, UK — 23 May 2012 — RichRelevance®, leading provider of dynamic personalisation for the world’s largest retailers and brands, today announced ’The Future of Shopping’, a three-city roadshow beginning in London on 30th May and culminating in the San Francisco Bay Area in California in September. Featuring David Selinger, former head of Amazon’s personalisation practice and CEO of RichRelevance, and Paco Underhill, retail expert and best-selling author of the books Why We Buy, Call of the Mall and What Women Want, the programme will delve into the convergence of consumer demand with the advancement of mobile technologies and social media applications, and the profound impact this has had on retailing and branding.
This invitation-only event will arm marketers and e-commerce professionals with the data, insight, and best practices they need to successfully integrate online, offline, and mobile channels to create a customer-centric user experience. Panel discussions will be held, including speakers Christine Bardwell, Research Manager at IDC Retail Insights EMEA and Matthew Tod, Partner at PwC’s Logan Tod Digital Analytics and Optimisation division. Attendees will benefit from an energetic programme full of practical information and take-aways, including a look at how to leverage existing assets to maximise the customer experience and an insight into who is succeeding and who has an opportunity to improve. The programme includes:
- Sharing best practices from leading retailers and brands around the world that are innovating in the new “omni-channel” retail and branding environment
- Turning ‘big data’ into ‘smart data’ to develop key insights to drive the strategy and tactics for the future of your retail establishment and brand in shopping
- How to cultivate a brand that uses local, sustainable and community-nurturing practices that the new customer environment demands
- New ways to remain competitive with online-only retailers and serve customers by leveraging the advantage of the physical store
- Understanding how women are becoming the most important segment for the future of your business
“Technology for technology’s sake is a dangerous road for retailers and brands to travel. The temptations are great given the plethora of tools, widgets and apps that have been presented to marketers lately,” said Paco Underhill, CEO of Envirosell. “Our goal with ‘The Future of Shopping’ is to construct a clear and viable path to utilise these innovations to create customer engagement, loyalty and ultimately profits in this highly competitive market.”
“Retailers today have more data and insight about their customers than ever before, but unless they know how to translate that data into a better understanding of their customers and use that understanding to drive strategy, the data will be meaningless,” said David Selinger, CEO of RichRelevance. “During ‘The Future of Shopping’, we will show attendees how to use data to enrich the customer experience and create a more engaging and successful omni-channel experience.”
About Envirosell
Founded by Paco Underhill, Envirosell is the premier consumer behavior research and consulting agency for commercial environments, integrating analysis of layout, merchandising and operations. With 25 years of experience conducting in-store research for major consumer product manufacturers, retailers, banks, restaurants and design agencies, Envirosell boasts a client list that includes almost half of the Fortune 50 list. To each project Envirosell brings internationally recognised experience and unmatched processing skills, understanding the dynamics of shopping behavior and the factors that impact the customer experience as well as the actual purchase decision. Envirosell is based in New York with offices in London, Seoul, Bangkok, Tokyo, Milan, Mexico City, São Paulo and Bangalore.
About RichRelevance
Over 350 million times per day, RichRelevance is powering the personalised shopping experiences for consumers shopping the world’s largest and most innovative retail brands like Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, Walmart, Sears and Target. Founded and led by the e-commerce expert who helped pioneer personalisation at Amazon.com, RichRelevance helps retailers increase sales and customer engagement by recommending the most relevant products to consumers regardless of the channel they are shopping. RichRelevance has delivered more than $5 Billion in attributable sales for its retail clients to date, and is accelerating these results with the introduction of a new form of digital advertising called Shopping Media which allows manufacturers to engage consumers where it matters most—in the digital aisles on the largest retail sites in world. RichRelevance is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in London, New York, Seattle and Boston. For more information, please visit www.richrelevance.co.uk.
New Features Reinforce Wine.com’s Position as the Most Comprehensive, Tailored Wine E-commerce Site
San Francisco, Calif., May 15, 2012 – Wine.com, the nation’s leading online wine retailer, announced today new personalization and recommendation features which offer customers a shopping experience that is unlike anything found at a traditional brick-and-mortar store. The new features, developed by RichRelevance, the leading provider of dynamic personalization for the world’s largest retailers and brands, are the latest in a series of product enhancements to help Wine.com customers make informed purchasing decisions quickly and conveniently.
Wine.com is among the first e-commerce sites, and the first in the wine industry, to offer customized pages featuring personalized product recommendations for individual customers. Customers who log into the site will now receive unique recommendations based on their recent purchases, product searches and purchases made by customers deemed similar to them. Shoppers will also have the capability to personalize their own profile page, complete with a picture, recent site activity such as product reviews and searches, as well as wine club and Steward-Ship membership information. Also new to the site is the one click checkout feature to ensure a seamless and speedy shopping experience.
“Wine.com is not just focused on providing a broad selection and a fast, convenient way to buy wines; we are dedicated to helping people make informed purchasing decisions and creating the most tailored shopping experience in the wine industry,” said Cam Fortin, Wine.com Director of Business Development. “By analyzing the data pulled from each purchase and then personalizing the product recommendations, we can enable customers to discover great new wines that fit with their tastes and lifestyle.”
“Wine.com has an impressive understanding of its consumers and has embraced this unique opportunity to leverage technology and data to deliver an experience that surpasses the corner wine shop,” said Diane Kegley, CMO of RichRelevance. “Wine.com’s innovations and vision for a next level shopping experience is setting the bar for online retailers who want to build and maintain lasting customer relationships.”
Another recent site addition made to enhance the customer shopping experience is the Wine.com Tasting Room, an educational resource to help customers learn about and explore new wines. The Tasting Room offers consumers wine recommendations and informative guides across a new theme each month, with exclusive content for three groups: Novice, Enthusiast and Collector. Wine.com’s sister site, WineShopper.com, also allows customers to learn about a featured bottle of wine five days a week, each offered at a significantly discounted price.
About Wine.com
Wine.com is the nation’s #1 online wine retailer, offering thousands of wines, wine gifts, gift baskets, corporate gifts and monthly wine clubs. Wine.com’s mission is to be the ultimate resource for wine enthusiasts, whether shopping for themselves or a gift. Wine.com offers a combination of selection, value, service and detailed product information that is impossible to find in a brick and mortar store. Wine.com is the world’s most visited wine website and also runs the wine flash sales site, WineShopper. Wine.com is majority owned by Baker Capital. For more information: visit www.wine.com, the Wine Notes Blog, Facebook page, Twitter, or download the iPad app. For WineShopper, visit www.wineshopper.com or on Facebook and Twitter.
About Baker Capital
Baker Capital, founded in 1995, is New York based private equity firm with $1.5 billion under management. Baker Capital invests globally in digital communications, media and technology companies at all stages of development. The partners of Baker Capital have extensive private equity and operational experience allowing the firm to provide its portfolio companies with not only capital, but also global strategic thinking and relationships.
About RichRelevance
Over 350 million times per day, RichRelevance is powering the personalized shopping experiences for consumers shopping the world’s largest and most innovative retail brands like Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, Walmart, Sears and Target. Founded and led by the e-commerce expert who helped pioneer personalization at Amazon.com, RichRelevance helps retailers increase sales and customer engagement by recommending the most relevant products to consumers regardless of the channel they are shopping. RichRelevance has delivered more than $5 Billion in attributable sales for its retail clients to date, and is accelerating these results with the introduction of a new form of digital advertising called Shopping Media which allows manufacturers to engage consumers where it matters most—in the digital aisles on the largest retail sites in world. RichRelevance is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in London, New York, Seattle and Boston. For more information, please visit www.richrelevance.com.
Contact:
Virginia Zimpel or Lauren Lloyd for Wine.com
wine(at)launchsquad(dot)com
415-625-8555
Mickey Nelson for RichRelevance
rr(at)bradypr(dot)com
651-214-4472
Chief Evangelist Jake Bailey discusses how to help the industry fully leverage data surrounding ad context and consumer behavior on iMedia Connection.
The birth of the internet shook the foundation of many markets, in particular our own media industry. Over the past decade and a half, online advertising has blossomed into the potential genius alternative to the more traditional media outlets — wooing media buyers with the promise of “real-time metrics” and the technology that allows better targeting capabilities. It’s all these promises of marketing capabilities that has propelled online media into securing a larger slice of overall budgets — stealing dollars from traditional media bucket. However, in order for online media to surpass traditional media budgets, the industry must further innovate in terms of scale and targeting. This will involve delivering value above and beyond what advertisers are currently capturing from TV.
One of the critical components that will enable the shift in budget allocation is in the one thing that makes online advertising so unique: the underlying power of ad-targeting data. As it currently stands, the digital industry is overrun with data: “Data, data everywhere, but no one has the means to truly leverage it.” The digital ad industry is still a ways off from being able to leverage “data potential” from ad context and consumer behavior.
RichRelevance, which provides personalization services to 28 retailers in the 2012 Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, said this week that it raised $20 million in a funding round.
RichRelevance will use some of the capital to fund expansion into new markets outside of North America, says chief marketing officer Diane Kegley. The company also plans to develop more personalization and digital marketing tools, beef up its consumer data analysis efforts and also add staff
RichRelevance first expanded internationally in 2010 in the United Kingdom by signing office supply merchant Viking Direct, a segment of Office Depot and No. 60 in the 2012 Internet Retailer Top 400 Europe.
RichRelevance’s Darren Hitchcock blogs on Econsultancy.
The importance of fast load times in an online retail environment has been proven time and time again. Online, a shopper’s time literally equates to money.
Now, the research from our recent mobile study shows that it’s a shopper’s time on tablets that should be the focus on your website optimisation initiatives.
In the UK, 82% of mobile purchases are made on the iPad.
Tablets and speed: the stats
This past March, Compuware surveyed shoppers and found that almost 70% of tablet users expect a website to load in two seconds or less. If your mobile site isn’t fast enough, your customers will move along (and quickly) to the next click.
According to the study, a bad web experience will drive 46% of tablet users to competitive websites and 33% are less likely to purchase from that company. Comparatively, a Strangeloop survey reveals that shoppers using a PC are a bit more patient, with the majority allowing a full three seconds before making the jump. A shocking 80% of those users, once they’ve abandoned the site, will not return.
Performance is also key when digging deeper into our mobile study. Not only is mobile responsible for over 10% of all online business; but the study also revealed that browsers spend more time on iPads with page views higher than any other channel.
Chief Evangelist Jake Bailey talks retail targeting on iMedia Connection.
When the movie “Minority Report” was released in 2002, it was pure Hollywood that depicted a world where personalized screens would follow a shopper’s every move — whether walking through a mall or entering the local Gap store. Fast-forward 10 years, and this world of personalized screens is actually a reality driven by the sheer number of mobile devices consumers have access to today. This “ubiquity of screens” combined with the untethering of shopping from physical stores, has created a highly fragmented marketplace making it a greater challenge for brands to engage with consumers in the right context.
However, with change comes opportunity. A consumer’s shopping mode can be turned on at any moment, not just when they’re in the store or watching TV, but when they see something that piques their interest (think of the rapid rise of Pinterest) and want to explore or buy at that exact moment. The smartest brands are shifting their media investments to be in direct alignment with the shopping actions of the consumer by leveraging new and unique marketing channels that directly intersect with the path to purchase.