The team headed to the beautiful Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas for Shoptalk U.S. last week alongside over 9,000 attendess (the largest turnout in Shoptalk history!)
One thing is for certain. Live events are back and better than ever. ?
During our time we heard from industry leaders from Vera Bradley, Hot Topic, Pacsun, Target and so many others on what is currently impacting the industry and where they see it going.
We sat down with tech companies and solution providers like Microsoft, Coveo, Adlucent, Afterpay, Instacart and more to discuss how they’re changing the retail landscape.?
We also had the opportunity to meet many of our #TRI2022 members IRL – some of which we even got to interview while on the floor.
Check out our Shoptalk U.S. recap video and stay tuned for more insights and fresh takes soon.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Krystina Gustafson:
Hi, I’m Krystina Gustafson. I’m the SEP of content at Shoptalk. I can’t even tell you how excited I am to be back at a live event. Just the energy that you get from attendees, even though it’s an exhausting couple of days of the conference organizer. You really just feed off of the excitement that people have to be back in person, back hearing in-person content and back meeting with people face-to-face. The turnout is better than we expected. Our largest Shoptalk event previously was 8,000 people and we are over 9,000.
Krystina Gustafson:
So it’s the biggest Shoptalk that we’ve ever had, which if you had asked me six months ago, I would’ve never thought those words would to be coming out of my mouth. It almost feels like a giddy energy, which is kind of a funny word to describe c-level executives coming into the speaker launch and feeling giddy. I think there was one moment in time where I think we checked in 4,000 attendees within an hour at the registration desk. And typically for us as organizers, we think, oh, wow, that’s way too long. People shouldn’t be waiting in line that long, but people were so happy to be here. They were like, no, we’re happy to wait. We just want to be here. We want to be back in person. And so I think it’s just a really palpable energy.
Simeon Siegel:
It’s been a great conference so far, exhausting. I’m not sure how I’m still standing, but you know? You do what you have to. It’s nice to see people in real life again.
Richard Kestenbaum:
The show is awesome. And of course, it’s so great to be back with people in 3D.
Melissa Minkow:
It’s been a lot of fun, definitely a ton of sessions. It is a jam-packed agenda. So it’s been go, go, go, super busy.
Andrew Smith:
This is actually my first ever Shoptalk, which I’m embarrassed to admit. So I’m excited to be here. The energy is immense. Like they’ve labeled it retail’s big reunion. And it definitely feels like that. As people are engaged, excited, they’re bringing energy.
David Naumann:
It’s great to be back at Shoptalk and as a live event after a year off. And it’s great to reconnect with other colleagues and friends in the industry and network with different retail leaders.
Marshall Kay:
The energy here really is tremendous. I know people talk about it, but you just have to be here as you’re seeing and you’re finding out yourself, it’s great and it’s a much bigger event than it ever was before. And it hasn’t had any impact on the quality. This is a high-quality event with high-quality conversations.
Krystina Gustafson:
We’re doing a really big deep-dive into the metaverse of the show this year. And it seems like it’s coming up in conversations even when the sessions aren’t intended to be about the metaverse. So it seems like that’s emerging as a really big trend.
Michael Zakkour:
Trying to think about the metaverse is the best definition is it’s a fundamentally different way that we are all going to experience the internet.
Liza Amlani:
Because consumers are more savvy than they’ve ever been, they have more access to information, especially around values that are important to them like sustainability, like ethical ways of sourcing products.
Steve Dennis:
Direct to consumers has actually been around for a really long time. First in mail-order catalogs. But if we bring it a little bit more into the modern era, you have a lot of companies that people would be familiar with.
Trevor Sumner:
Key challenge is how do you unify all these different channels into one view of the customer knowing that those paths are so disparate.
Melissa Gonzalez:
It’s exciting to see what’s going to happen with herd civilization so we can understand what each individual’s journey is going to be versus trying to create all these segments.
Katia Walsh:
Today we are entering the space of fashion tech and Levis can lead that and disrupt the whole industry and that entices people who want to make a difference, who want to make an impact.
Nikhil Balaraman:
How do we create great omnichannel experiences? How do we create digital experiences that extend beyond just your desktop or your mobile device, but really start to help personalize the in-store shopping experience?
Alex Fisher:
So all of the things that consumers have gotten used to online, like alternative payment methods being one, like Afterpay, they’re going to be expecting the store environment. So I think it just raises the stakes and means we’ve all got to continue to evolve and push the limits as folks go back to stores.