Topic: Opportunities and emerging areas in Multichannel ECommerce
Speakers: Cathy Chiu: Partner - Opero Parners, Andreas Ehn: Co-founder & CTO - Wrapp, Ramneek Bhasin: Vice President of Product Management - TheFind.com, Peri Kadaster: Co-founder - Coffee Table
RSVP: meetup.com/svforum-websig
Blog: wecommercesig.wordpress.com
Description: 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 new opportunities 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.
Speaker Bios:
Cathy Chiu: Partner – Opero Partners, operopartners.com
Cathy is a partner at Opero Partners and 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 financings, 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.
Andreas Ehn: Co-founder / Chief Technology Officer – Wrapp, wrapp.com
Andreas Ehn is the Co-founder & CTO of Wrapp, a mobile gift card service. Before founding Wrapp, Andreas was the CTO of Spotify, where he was responsible for building the technology behind the service. Andreas has described himself as a man who can get interested in almost anything as long as he feels it’s important. Not surprisingly, he is also an angel investor. Wrapp is a fun and easy way to give free and paid gift cards to your Facebook friends. Wrapp’s board of directors include Niklas Zennström (Skype co-founder), Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn co-founder) and Fabian MÅnsson (former global CEO of H&M and Eddie Bauer).
Ramneek Bhasin: Vice President / General Manager – TheFind, thefind.com
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.
Peri Kadaster, Co-founder/ Vice President – CoffeeTable, coffeetable.com
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 an 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.
Useful Links:
Welcome to the Era of Agile Commerce, Forrester, Mar 2011, blogs.forrester.com/brian_walker/11-03-11-welcome_to_the_era_of_agile_commerce
The value proposition in multichannel retailing, McKinsey, Mar 2011, www.mckinseyquarterly.com/The_value_proposition_in_multichannel_retailing_2800
Seven Strategies to beat the Retail Apocalypse, McKinsey, May 2012 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, www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1009306
Grocery Stores plan shift to social, EMarketer, Sep 2012, www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1009331
Agenda:
6.30 pm – 7.00 pm Snacks, Drinks & Networking
7.00 pm – 7.15 pm Introductions
7.15 pm – 8.00 pm Panel Presentations
8.00 pm – 8.30 pm Moderated Panel
8.30 pm – 9.00 pm Q&A and Adjourn
Location:
DLA Piper
2000 University Ave.
E. Palo Alto
(off of Woodland Ave. near the Four Season's Hotel)
Price:
$20 at the door for non-SVForum members
No charge for SVForum members
No registration required
For more information visit: www.svforum.org/Web2.0SIG