IRCE day 1 – Workshop Day

IRCE day 1 – Workshop Day

This year, IRCE is called IRCE @RetailX. In addition to its name, the event has changed its form. It means IRCE is only a part of the event, which is for the whole commerce sector. The date has also changed, to later in June. Woolman was represented by Growth Hacker Mikko Rekola. Read on for a summary of the top moments and high points of the first day.

Starting the day

The day began with three parallel sessions, one of which focused on the first steps of growth. In the next, the main focus was on trading on Amazon. The third approached e-commerce from the perspective of technical solutions. The sessions were light and lasted from 15 minutes to an hour.

Between sessions we could network over lunch. We made new contacts from as far away as Colombia, Mexico and Japan. The event was impressively international. 

The fun parts included the Amazon case studies in the afternoon, which were presented by mobile phone manufacturer CaseMate, natural deodorant manufacturer Native and the extremely interesting Nectar, which makes mattresses.

The Nectar speech, in particular, contained the honesty so familiar to Finns and the participants got to see clearly the processes with which the company has grown sales in its online store with Amazon as a central support channel.

Speeding up in the afternoon

The afternoon keynote was held in a large hall, bringing together all RetailX event participants. The much-anticipated future researcher Doug Stephens did not disappoint. Doug’s presentation was comprehensive and full of examples. He talked at length about Amazon’s market position and how it was not a retailer but a giant, dominant data company.

The speech went on to present examples of experience buying from around the world. If you want to make it in online and physical retail, you have to be able to offer experiences. If you only focus on selling goods online, you are a likely victim of Alibaba and Amazon. What’s more, Doug really didn’t like the word “omnichannel”. To wrap up, he encouraged merchants to speak to customers and offer them experiences – no matter what our sales channels are.

After a boisterous round of applause, the fair section of the event opened, and delegates got to meet the exhibitors. Present were several familiar faces such as Shopify Plus, Nosto, Klevu and Loyalty Lion. The size of the area was impressive and the human traffic heavy at times.

The main day of the programme offers events from cock-crow to late evening. Topics include developing email automation, storytelling in modern e-commerce and a presentation of the Bonobos direct-to-consumer case in the keynote.

Text: Mikko Rekola, Growth hacker / Woolman