Panel presentation:
Cathy Chiu: Partner ? Opero Parners, Ramneek Bhasin: Vice President of Product Management - TheFind.com, Jake Bailey: Chief Evangelist ? Rich Relevance, Peri Kadaster: Co-founder ? Coffee Table
Until recently, Multichannel E-Commerce was driving sales, customer communications, and product search across multiple marketing and selling channels such as, online stores, search, affiliates, market places, comparison engines, and more...
Today, the revolution of mobile commerce and social media open new business opportunities deeply impacting established E-Commerce channels.
From a consumer vantage point, consumers do not distinguish between multiple channels. They expect to find the brands and products they want wherever and whenever they please. Brian Walker, from Forrester, even goes further saying multichannel E-Commerce is no longer relevant. Instead, he opines that the connected consumers will seamlessly interact with the company through a series of touch points (e.g. retail, social, Internet, etc) - no longer tied to a specific channel. So, while their search criteria are still dominated by value and price, consumers now factor in convenience and user experience when interacting with the retailer?s touch points. This shift in consumer preference is disrupting the incumbents within the retail sectors and providing an opportunity for a new generation of sellers.
Consulting companies are advising retailers to organize themselves along customer micro-segments that have become available via fine-grained user data from multiple touch points. Traditional sectors like grocery stores and luxury brands are now fully on board or rapidly investing in the multichannel way. Online brands are setting up shop and acquiring market share from new markets and incumbents. Retailers, especially those who have a brand presence, are capitalizing on the finding that their online websites are a major source of customer purchase information even when compared to search engines (e.g., Google vs. Amazon).
Our panelists will help us to examine facets and trends of these new marketing and selling channels, including: Facebook stores, Twitter ads, products aggregators for mobile, etc. As always, we will host a VC panelist who will share their feedback on what they are looking for, and emerging business models. We will also feature emerging companies who will share how these multiple channels are adding value to their bottom line.
Cathy Chiu: Partner - Opero Partners
Cathy is a finance specialist with investment banking, venture capital, and angel investment experience. Highly effective in identifying key issues with penetrating questions, Cathy?s incisive analysis brings clarity to organizational challenges.
Cathy?s professional career in investment banking and venture capital honed her expertise in shaping joint ventures, structuring and negotiating mergers & acquisitions, perfecting equity and debt financing, and investing in startup companies. She has worked at senior levels inside operating companies in financial planning & analysis, fund-raising, and acquisitions. With her broad perspectives on the entire food chain of capital markets, from first-round angel funding through public offerings, Cathy has advised clients on finance and M&A strategy in the technology, internet-retail, channel distribution and real estate sectors, having closed deals ranging from $5 million to $100 million of financing, and $5 million to over $1 billion in M&A.
Cathy is an active angel investor and a member of the Keiretsu Forum, where she also serves on the Due Diligence Process Committee. Cathy is a frequent speaker about the necessary ingredients for startup success, important angel investing considerations and ways to manage the due diligence phase of an investment process.
Cathy received her BS ? Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University, and her MBA from UC Berkeley Haas Business School.
Ramneek Bhasin, VP "Mobile Channel" - TheFind
Ramneek Bhasin is VP/GM for all things mobile & tablets at TheFind.com. He is a seasoned mobile exec with deep experience in both F100 companies and co-founding startups. He brings a global entrepreneurial perspective, including consumer mobile and wireless, web/enterprise software (B2B/B2C), and social media. Most recently, Ramneek was Founder and CEO of Mobio Networks, Inc., focused on the next generation of mobile platforms and consumer wireless services. Prior to that, he held several executive and technical roles at companies such as Schlumberger, Digital Equipment (Compaq/HP) and Synercom Technologies. He has an MS from Louisiana State University, a BS from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, and is a somewhat reluctant blogger.
Jake Bailey, Chief Evangelist - RichRelevance
Jake is responsible for helping the e-Commerce market?retailers, influencers and brands?understand the potential of RichRelevance?s personalization platform and offerings as it relates to their businesses. A recognized thought leader in e-Commerce, Jake?s expertise in creating new and innovative customer-driven marketing channels is based on his experiences in online retail.
Most recently, Jake built RichRelevance?s new offering, Shopping Media, which delivers personalized advertising on retail websites, and empowers retailers to become premium advertising publishers. Jake joined RichRelevance in 2009 from Overstock.com where he was Director of Marketing overseeing all channels (SEM, affiliates, comparison shopping, display and portal relationships) as well as lead generation and Overstock.com?s 60,000-strong affiliate program. While at Overstock.com, Jake launched the international business, which now ships to over 70 countries.
Jake is a participating member of the Shop.org content committee and has spoken at premier industry events including the Global E-Commerce Summit, Shop.org Strategy and Innovation Forum, eTail, Linkshare Symposium, and Affiliate Summit.
Jake holds a BS in Business from BYU and an MBA from the University of Utah.
Peri Kadaster, Co-founder - CoffeeTable
Peri Kadaster is Vice President of Marketing for CoffeeTable, the leading catalog shopping app for iPad. CoffeeTable partners with 150 top retailers ? including Crate and Barrel, Neiman Marcus, Athleta, West Elm and Tory Burch ? to showcase their catalogs and lookbooks in an iPad app and provide unprecedented catalog engagement analytics. Previously, Peri was a Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company, where she advised leading companies in the retail and consumer technology industries. At McKinsey, Peri specialized in consumer marketing and served as interim Director of Client Development for NM Incite, a Nielsen-McKinsey joint venture on social media intelligence.
Prior to McKinsey, Peri was a Marketing Associate at PepsiCo, where she was a brand manager for AMP Energy Drink, and a Senior Associate at The Parthenon Group, a Boston-based boutique strategy consulting firm. Peri received her MBA from Harvard Business School and her AB from Duke University.
RESOURCES
Welcome to the Era of AgileCommerce, Forrester, Mar 2011, http://blogs.forrester.com/brian_walker/11-03-11-welcome_to_the_era_of_agile_commerce
The value proposition inmultichannel retailing, McKinsey, Mar 2011, http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/The_value_proposition_in_multichannel_retailing_2800
Seven Strategies to beat theRetail Apocalypse, McKinsey, May 2012 http://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/dotcom/client_service/Marketing%20and%20Sales/PDFs/McKinsey%20CMSO%20forum%20-%20Seven%20strategies%20to%20beat%20the%20retail%20apocalypse.ashx
Retailer Websites Are Leading Source of Purchase Information, EMarketer, Aug 2012, http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1009306
Grocery Stores plan shift tosocial, EMarketer, Sep 2012, http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1009331
Free for SV Forum Members
$20 for Non Members
Dinner and refreshments provided.
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