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Transcript

Hello, good morning. My name is Elise Trusco. I’m the sales manager of our Greenfield team here at ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ. And today on this stage I’m going to be joined by three industry thought leaders. I’ll get you to all come up if that’s all right. So rather than me introduce you, I think we should hit the mics and I’ll get you to introduce yourself. Hey, Carolina. So when we talk to these customers, all of these business models across each of these customers is so different. Some are global, some are here in Australia, some have supplies overseas but I think there’s really three commonalities that really comes up from a theme perspective. So first one is that all three businesses have an online and an offline tool. They’re all very interested in innovation and optimizing their business models. And last but not least, definitely couldn’t have an ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ conversation with customers without the mention of Gen AI. So all three of these customers are really focused in this space to see what the improvement across their business and across their customer experience is that they can create by using these tools and innovations. I’ll start off with Carolina. Carolina, do you want to just introduce yourself, where you’re from and what your role? Hi, everyone. I’m Carolina. I come from Krispy Kreme. As part of my role, I predominantly look after all our digital solution and digital channels, so including e-commerce, third party, CRM infrastructures. And as a really big priority for us specifically the next three years is leveraging and optimizing our digital channels at a consumer centric model and obviously super excited to see what ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ has to offer to help us. Nice. Excellent. Hussein? Morning. It’s Hussein from Aussie Ties. I’m the director of the company, Aussie Ties. We are a franchise model. We sell retail wholesale online. E-commerce is probably the largest part of our business with being just the major catalog for the business and driving the whole business into the retail experience. And yeah, just looking forward to seeing new technology with ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ and what we can implement in the business. Sounds good. Sounds good. Thank you. And Haig? Hi, I’m Haig, general manager of DigiDirect. I used to be head of digital at DigiDirect and was involved in building the first DigiDirect website 18 years ago before we were in physical retail. So we’re one of those retailers that were e-commerce first and very excited to learn what the experiences of my colleagues were all about. Excellent. All right, let’s kick off. So first question, how can businesses adapt to staying ahead of consumer behaviors and preferences in an increasingly connected world? We’ll start with you, Krispy Kreme, Carolina. I know that data is a big focus for you. Can you share us some insights here? Yeah, absolutely. Look, just to give a bit of background, for the last four years, I’m going to say we’ve gone through and made a transformation within our own e-commerce platforms and at a forefront owning our consumer data, so our first party data has been a really key focus for test learning and optimization. And I think that’s critical. That ownership, that enriched data and reachable data, it’s so key in any framework and technical solution that we’re building. We’re always, as most of us would know, our consumer needs and demands change so often. And so it’s really important for us to be analyzing with any launch or any optimization on any product. Thank you. Hayek, I’ll jump over to you. Yeah, look, for us, I think it’s about staying in the conversation. And that takes a literal form, but also abstract sometimes. I think the conversation includes understanding that there are always players that are bigger than you, better resource than you, and they’re going to be investing in, iterating, developing and testing technologies that you can benefit from by being on the listening side of the conversation. You know, seeing what a large global player in e-commerce is doing in the US or China these days, and learning from that, understanding what is working for them, what isn’t, determining what you can adapt to your own business, and then testing it with your own customers and starting a conversation there. And of course, the loudest voice in the room should always be the data. You know, if you’re testing right, understanding and interpreting the data from those tests, I think you’ll usually come up with a successful formula to match your experience with expected behaviors of consumers. Yeah, great. And look, when we’ve spoken in the past, you’ve really got your radar on some key players globally. Can you share who you feel the players are from a Digi Direct perspective of who you really focus and follow in regards to what they’re doing? Other than Krispy Kreme and Aussie Tires, yeah. So I think definitely the largest marketplace players around the world. I mean, if you talk about 18 years ago, we were looking at what eBay was doing, you know, and more recently, obviously, the Amazons of the world, why not Teemu, we’re looking at, you know, Pindodo and some of the sites gamifying commerce and, you know, connecting manufacturers closer to the doorsteps of, you know, even consumers in faraway Australia, that sort of, you know, speeding up of that supply chain. We’re looking at all of these players and anybody else that really enters the market, Bunnings, Woolworths, you know, these are all competitors for eyes, but also, you know, idols in many ways. Yeah, perfect. Thank you. And Hussain, I know SEO is really important for a business like Aussie. Can you talk us through your thoughts across SEO strategies, as well as some success that you’ve had in that space? Yeah, okay. First and foremost, I think social media for my business is very, very important. Important for a number of things. Number one is understanding the market and understanding what consumers are looking for and looking at the current trends of what the consumers are going through, what’s trending. And then, you know, looking at competition also, what they’re doing, what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong, what products are doing well. And then secondly is implementing your own strategies on social media, whether it’s just trying to build a brand awareness, brand confidence, and then different types of strategies to get sales. So are the sales to get e-comm conversions straight online, lead acquisition to fill in forms and so forth, collecting data. But for me, I think social media is leading everything. So it’s our catalogue for everyone. It’s the way we engage with people and we bring them actually to our website. So for my business, it’s forefront. So the marketing team and myself, it’s all about the social media strategy and how we connect with everyone. So it’s probably the most important factor for our business and learning about the market and then actually implementing certain strategies like paid posts and so forth in order to get sales pretty much. And with SEO, obviously, very, very important for us. Organic search engine optimization is key for us. So we want to rank organically, number one, for certain keywords. And then with paid for us, we’ve been using a lot of the Google shopping these days because my business is very heavily driven on images. So if someone’s searching for a certain keyword, having a certain product that matches that sort of genre is good. And just I think breaking it down and just not being so generic and looking at the return on investment, seeing which keywords are working and so forth and just understanding the whole algorithms with Google and so forth with the search engine optimization is key. So a lot of contributing factors. Yeah, nice. I’m going to keep you on your toes. We’ll stay with you. I’ll mix it around. What role do you see emerging markets playing in shaping the trajectory of international commerce in the next decade? I think technology, I’d be talking, obviously, new technology and being able to see all the new technologies out there and how we can implement them into the businesses. I think a lot of interconnecting sort of apps and marketplaces will be coming up a lot. I think maybe seamless payment gateways with maybe cryptocurrencies being able to be implemented where people can seamlessly just pay with their cryptocurrencies if that’s going to continue to go on. And just more better ways on having a better user experience online with technology, quicker payments, example like Apple Pay, just with two clicks you could purchase something instead of going through the whole process of going filling in your details and so forth with checking out and so forth, people changing their mind or whatever. So a whole seamless experience online, speed contributing, having a fast website and so forth. So all these new technologies being implemented on your e-comm platform to stay ahead pretty much. Nice. I think fast speed of sites is going to come up a fair bit today. So I’m sure everyone will hear a bit more about that. What about Krispy Kreme? So obviously already global business in many markets. What’s your thoughts on this one, Carolina? Yeah, well it’s a very hot topic for us right now. So as part of being, having a global equity market, we are always looking at ways that we can support a developing markets because we’re, you know, US, Canada, Korea, Japan and they’re all very different journeys within their e-commerce expansion or digital expansion. And so leveraging more developed markets inside technology is a really key focus for us. You know, in previous years we effectively realized that we were all trying to solve the same issue but we’re not talking with each other and enormous capex going into every single problem. And so it’s not really sustainable business model. So a really cool focus for us is really making sure that anything that we local area can be scalable and then translated into other markets at a meaningful, even a framework, a strategic lending and even an integration element. Of course we’re always looking for ways to integrate, whether there is solutions that can be applied at a global scale, that’s always our forefront. But if not, just best practice requirements and really optimizing and our reach of resources, especially with our industry right now, market is tough. And so having that capex approval is that much harder. And so making sure that we are leveraging our keyword, which is global insights, it gives us all our brownie points to get that capex. Yeah, nice. Are there any examples of where the ANZ business has really led the rest of the global business? You got any examples? Yeah, I think we sit in a really fortunate position. I think Australia and New Zealand specifically, we as a consumer lens have really high standards versus a US market or a UK. And so although we don’t aim for perfection, because we can get in the perfection loop, what we do have across the globe is perceived as best practice. We are looking right now to expand to our on-demand rate, so it’s very similar to 7-Eleven, but as well nurturing our current business model within e-commerce, so celebration. And that is a very unique business model across the globe that our global team are collaborating with us, with the aim that then we can export this ideology across the globe. So yeah, absolutely. We’re very early on journeys with our loyalty expansion. And as I mentioned, the US are a lot more advanced. But in every market, there is a lot of customizations and specifications. And so they’re looking to see how this behaves in our market. Nice, some good pressure. Haig? Yeah, look, I think in terms of the emerging markets, probably the last couple of decades, it’s been dominant on the supply side and increasingly dominant on the supply side. We saw it during COVID. If there’s any interruptions in countries like China, India, Taiwan, it can significantly impact our ability to sell and serve the customer side of the market. I think that that dominance will continue in terms of emerging markets on the supply side for the next decade and the supply chain that probably connects that supply side to developed countries like Australia. But I’m more interested to see what they’re going to come up with in emerging markets on the customer-facing side for the next decade. I mean, like I mentioned Pinduoduo earlier, to connect agricultural businesses, the pharma in China, with a connected consumer base that is socialized in their purchasing, I don’t think that would have been something that would have come out of anywhere that we live or anybody that lives in the US. But I do think there are models there that can be replicated. And probably instead of the Amazons and some of the global players like Walmart now in e-commerce being those that we are starting to replicate on the consumer side, we might decide that we want to look at the Timus, the Pinduoduo and the equivalents in the Middle East, for example, there’s a lot of innovation going on. So I think the emerging markets on the supply side will continue to dominate. But also, I think on the sell side, they’ll start to innovate and become the envy of some of us in the West. Yeah, great. Thank you. In what ways do you foresee advancements in technology, for example, AI shaping the future of global commerce? Haig, it’s probably worth starting with you. You’ve got a pretty interesting example of where this has impacted your business. Do you want to share that? Yeah, sure. We were trolled. We were trolled by AI. I mean, we’re a commerce company, obviously, but we specialize in consumer electronics, and particularly anchored in photo and video. So a lot of our customers, our loyal customers, our suppliers, they’re all in the photo and video game. And we run a monthly photo competition. And in one of the months, we somehow judged an AI image as the winner of our photo competition, beating all the photographers, meaning if that trend continues, we stop selling cameras. So we were trolled. And as a result, we ended up having a bit of fun with it. We held an AI versus human competition. And it made news around the world because obviously, AI is exactly that. And I think on the AI front, away from the fun, away from the fact that I don’t know if my staff are even writing their own emails anymore, I think there’s a there’s a lot of serious element to it. It’s definitely revolutionary. I think what it’s going to do to almost all industries is a subject of a lot of commentary that I don’t need to add to. The only thing I will say is the revolution is not something that I doubt. It’s about how it will actually settle in our industry and global commerce generally, and e-commerce most specifically. We just don’t know. Some people say it’s going to change everything. Others say it’s going to change a little. One thing we do know that it is going to change. And already, we’re testing AI in search. We’re advancing our personalization through AI. We’ve already started to implement AI into our customer service experience. And I think there’s just it’s just the start of what it’s going to do. We’re going to have to do a lot of testing, do a lot of listening, reading, learning, and ultimately try to stay at the forefront of it because the efficiencies that we’re going to find for both us and our customers are undoubted. I agree. I didn’t realize how bad my emails were until ChatGPT came about. Hossain, you’ve got a pretty good AI example within your business. Do you want to share that? Yeah. Firstly, I think AI in general is still very immature how people are actually utilizing it. So I think everyone’s probably just jumped on ChatGPT and told it to write an email or something like that or ask it a certain question, which you can probably do in Google anyway. But I think the trick for businesses is being able to understand AI tools and how they can actually implement them in the business. So understanding what these tools can do and how they can actually put them in their business. So for me with my business, we implemented a chatbot. So we’ve got a live chatbot on our website where people just jump on bottom corner of the website and they can just chat with it. So we developed it ourselves and we actually made all the prompts. So what I’ve done is I filled in pretty much detail about the business in detail in the prompts. We told the chatbot how to behave. It is plugged in from ChatGPT. So ChatGPT will just pretty much control the whole foundation of the AI and the chatbot. But all the information is fed from myself in the business. So I’m not relying on ChatGPT to give the consumers answers about my business because it doesn’t know anything about it. So we’re pretty much just using the technology of ChatGPT and AI, but I’ve filled in all the details. So different locations, product information, managers in certain locations, opening times, closing times, basic answers and then very detailed answers also. We told the bot to not mention it’s a bot, that it’s actually a person in the customer service. A lot of people say is this a bot? Says no, my name is Brad. I’m from the marketing team and product knowledge team. So yeah, so we developed that. We told it not to break character. We told it our goals. So I pretty much told them in the prompt, I told the bot to say our goals are to build confidence with the consumers to make purchases online. So that’s our goal. When we have someone on our website, we want them to convert. We want to get the sale. That’s our goal. So we told the bot that that’s your goal. So you have to build that confidence and give that information. So other than the bot saving time of customers ringing up and also our sales staff picking up the phone and spending five minutes with someone to talk to them about maybe if they can get a puncture repair, they can do that and get that answer on the bot. Other than that, we receive all the transcripts of each conversation via email sent to us after. So that holds a lot of value. Number one, it lets us know what the actual consumers are asking. So when the consumer is asking something on the website, we then take that into consideration and see how we can implement that automatically on the website. So add that information somewhere. Secondly, it gives us a deep understanding of where the customers are actually getting stuck on the website and where there’s doubt because they reach out to the bot when they want to ask a question. It means that they haven’t got that information on the website. Also with that email transcript of the conversation, we then pass that on to sales teams and then they reach out to these people and then they actually call them up and speak to them and try and actually convert them over the phone. So that’s a perfect example of how we’ve used actually AI in the business. So we’re actually utilising it to assist the business. It’s brilliant, right? Information you wouldn’t have known without it. Krispy Kreme, such a complex business. You’ve got the pressure of consumer walking in at 5pm and wanting a full window of doughnuts, but then you’ve also got the impact of forecasting and the manufacturing and consumer demands. Can you give us some insight to you? Yeah, absolutely. It’s a very simple product with a huge complex operation. We’re a daily fresh business, handmade and that’s at the core of our product. Quality is huge for us and although providing phenomenal consumer experiences and making sure that their product is available whatever time they decide to go. Waste management is absolutely a huge focus for us. We do not want to contribute to landfill waste and so predicting behaviours is a really big part for us, specifically within our forecasting for any channel lead. Within the digital space is definitely a lot more controlled and we do have the ability to gather those insights in an easier shape as opposed to our retail forecasting or 7-11 business. So that’s a little tricky, but absolutely reporting, forecasting, waste management and even a lot more technology advancements so we can continue to fulfil our demands but without having to expand the resource required. It’s a really big one. There is other elements and I think we talked a little bit about content management. It’s a really big opportunity with some of our suppliers that we see them trialling and adapting and leveraging AI and so we are absolutely happy to be a test case to support some of the activations that we do and as well very similarly to you, we’ve implemented with our customer service management bot leveraging AI capabilities. So again we really want to provide personalised experiences and at the core AI is an absolute huge tool for us to be able to do so, specifically within a controlled digital environment. Yeah got it. Thank you, such a complex business. I might actually skip the next question, otherwise I’m going to eat into lunch or other sessions. So I want to get through to the last two questions. How do you envision the convergence of online and offline retail experiences shaping the future of omni-channel commerce? Carolina we’ll start with you. Yeah it’s a huge part for us. We see digital very much as a supporting act for our offline brands. So Krispy Kreme although we expand into different business models such as DFD where you can find us in Kohl’s, Woolies or 7-Eleven, our brand is our in-store experience and that’s something that we protect is our brand representation and it is to bring that nostalgic feeling. So what we aim to do with our digital touch points is to provide that childlike wonder experience within any digital engagement. So that’s one part of the business, providing if we want to be there for your wedding you absolutely can order a wedding tower. But the other element is as well a smooth checkout experience providing that personalised experience which is so enriched for us and as well accessibility. If you can’t go to our shops you can order our Uber Eats, StorDash, you can also just order same day for us or delivery to your work. So we want to provide those experiences whatever the consumer need and demand is within an offline or digital space. Perfect thank you. Hussain, complex business model, franchise business, booking fitments online, how do you do this online offline connection? Okay first and foremost I think the online for myself the online experience should pretty much mimic the retail experience also. So I think that the online should replicate the retail experience so if you have this amazing website and then someone walks into the retail showroom and it looks it doesn’t look the same they’re going to be disappointed and so forth. Also I think online maybe campaigns that you’re running should match when they when they walk into the store. So the whole experience from being online to the actual physical store is matched. Also the having the ability to book for my business for the consumer to choose a fitting store, Aussie Tyres retail store in his area has helped a lot. So we’ve also engaged with other fitting partners so if we don’t have a certain store in a certain area we still wanted to give the consumer that sort of opportunity to get have his products fitted in that. So having that ability on checkout to get your your to to see the product and then realize there’s a store locally and get it fitted has helped us a lot. Thank you. Haig? Yeah look I think there’s a lot of things that you can’t replicate from offline to online and online to offline. But I think you have to look at the biggest advantages that online delivers and see if you can bring that into your store and I think that’s successful omni-commerce. Specifically you know I think you can’t recreate the endless aisle for example offline because you’re limited by square meterage. You can do that online. So some things just aren’t replicatable but the ones that are if I was to pick one thing I would say personalization because I think you know being able to attract somebody from their you know social feed to your online store even when they didn’t think they needed that item at that very second. I think that’s a huge advantage for online over offline and I think once they enter your online store the fact that you can serve them with items that they are likely to be interested in or are likely to have lined up as their next purchase anyway that’s a huge advantage of online. And it is something that these days with technology you can replicate into your store. So I think the more we can personalize that in-store experience like we do offline we’re going to be seeing success in omni-commerce beyond the commentary. So if somebody enters the shopping center where there’s a DigiDirect store to be able to hit them with a notification on the app or an SMS to say hey don’t forget DigiDirect is here. Once they enter our store to be able to identify that customer quickly and to almost pre-package what we know they want to purchase I think that’s a great experience for a customer. Agree and look I’ll stay with you Haig on the last question because I think part of what you’ve just talked through will probably feed through to this one. So what strategies should businesses adopt to stay agile and responsive to rapidly evolving consumer trends and market dynamics? So I’m glad you didn’t put me after Carolina this morning. Every time Krispy Kreme talks my stomach’s rumbling and I don’t know if the microphone is picking it up but look honestly I think in terms of how we can stay ahead there are a lot of things that we’ve already talked about in terms of data in terms of staying in the conversation but probably one of the things that’s helped us stay you know in line and ahead of where we should be and where consumers are I think it’s about something I call reverse ageism and avoiding it. You know one thing that I’ve learned especially dealing in e-commerce over the last couple of decades you’re more likely to attract the purse of the younger consumer than you are for those that are you know planning on how to spend their super. You’re going to get more customers from that lower end because they’re just becoming new customers at a greater veracity than those that have been customers for a very long time. So I think in our business and this is a human answer instead of a you know SaaS technology answer really valuing younger people putting them on the tables where you’re actually talking strategy and planning implementation is key to be able to talk to consumers that look more like them that sound more like them that talk the language they speak and and buy like them you know. I spend probably too much time for someone my age on TikTok but you know I shouldn’t be there these guys are meant to be there that’s where our consumers might be unless you know someone bans it. I think that we really really need to be valuing that that younger person in every single business. Completely agree completely agree. Hussain? Yeah well I think the strategies that businesses should adopt and adapt is pretty much just staying in in tune with the market and the technology just what we’ve been speaking about this whole thing. So number one social media you know that’s pretty much your catalogue that’s your connection with people. Number two going on social media to just look at your market and seeing what competitors are doing and and also understanding the whole trends and then how you can implement that in your business and in this case implementing it in with your e-comm platform and just being up to date with the latest technology just like AI and the bot that we implemented you know it just just put us ahead and the businesses you know it’s it’s assisting the business. So just adapting and just really looking at what technologies are out there and how you can actually implement them into the business pretty much. Thank you. Carolina? I also want to touch on the consumer segment because that’s a really big one for us but from I guess from an advice and strategy that I would absolutely always recommend to any medium small medium large business is to not get stuck on perfection. By the time you’ve reached that perfection your costs have tripled and the development has already surpassed the time that the consumer needs have already moved on to something else. So just ensuring that you have a scalable solution that meets the consumer requirements it’s so key. It doesn’t have to be perfect every time. A really big part of get something into market use that to get those learnings and then optimize optimize optimize as opposed to having to be perfect from the get-go. I find that a limbo and a limbo that I’ve seen in many businesses and by the time we’re trying to say the business has already moved on to re-platform and we’re like whoa. So that’s a really big one but I and I think and that’s one of our biggest competitors I guess from a QSR perspective that I adore is McDonald’s. They’re so cool to who their consumer is and they very recently launched a new restaurant which is the McCosmics in I think it’s Kentucky which is a restaurant that it’s only focused in beverages and small snacks and they’ve been really clear this is a number one product for Gen Z consumer and they are super so so decisive that that’s the next generation and so they’re not changing their core product they’re expanding their brand into a more product that services those consumer needs because they know that is the next generation that is going to dominate the market and I think that’s a huge learning for every every retailer and if anything listening or seeing what other retailers are doing it’s a great insight I guess for Krispy Kreme is beverage is something that we need to look at as a subcategory or as a sub brand so I I absolutely find that a huge huge game changer for the QSR industry but secondary to it I personally really like to see how on a demographic level how our market Australia New Zealand is translating you know where is it shifting from a cultural perspective even seasonality and this year we have really expanded into new occasions Krispy Kreme is a celebratory brand we positions ourselves as a dozen brand to use for occasions we also support everyday lifestyle that’s each other’s choices but we want to be there in any occasion whether it’s your birthday whether it is your wedding and then what we’ve seen is as the market in Australia has as well expanded from a demographic perspective there is so many other occasions that we can tap on so for this first year we celebrate a lunar new year range and that was phenomenal for us so even from an age perspective there is obviously a lot of attention that we need to see from a generational but also cultural it can we position our brand within our celebratory usp into new occasions that haven’t been predominantly focused or dominant in Australian market but are now translating as our country continues to pick up or is expanding into a multicultural environment. Thank you and look to all three speakers thank you so much for sharing you know your insights as well as you know your opinions and your business there’s definitely some key learnings I think the common theme across all three businesses is that you’re not okay with what you’re doing today you’ve all got innovation you know you’ve all got other industry leaders and having a look in their space at what they’re doing so it’s been great to hear from each of you and thank you for being partners of ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ and I look forward to talking to you through the day. Cheers thanks for joining me. Thanks Elise it’s a great panel there’s also so many things running through my mind then watching that panel and I know we’re sort of sorry no you’re all right firstly Elise I think she definitely hosts a tv show she’s a great host so yeah there’s quite a few things actually that jumped out at me Hussein’s definitely inspired me actually started to build a chatbot on the b2b commerce association and I failed miserably so I’ll definitely be talking to him at some point and the Krispy Kreme donut tower for the weddings was definitely something that got my creative producers going there and I think as well I think it was um hey second last answer to the question which sort of leads us into our our next session was going to be driven by Mike Lynch, ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ Enterprise Commerce Specialist where he mentioned you know the advantage of online being that ability to really personalize customer you know interactions and drive them into your digital commerce environment and really personalize that engagement to drive new revenue and really boost the value of that that experience so I’d like to invite Mike up who’s going to talk to us about customer data profiling cheers.