Personalizing the Path to Purchase One Customer at a Time

The 3rd annual Engage! conference brought together retail executives and solutions providers for three days of education and networking. Held at the Ritz Carlton in Fort Lauderdale, FL, September 7-9, the theme of the event was personalizing relationships one customer at a time, and the majority of the content was focused on finding ways to provide an individualized experience at scale.

The conference kicked off on Wednesday with an offsite retail showroom tour hosted by SATO Global Solutions that allowed retailers to
experience how IoT is revolutionizing the industry. Following the showroom tour attendees gathered back at the Ritz for a welcome reception.
The event got into high gear on Thursday morning when opening keynote and brand evangelist Ted Rubin took to the stage and explored the retail path to personalized engagement. Other highlights from the first full day of content included: a panel discussion on adding the human touch for effective engagement; what makes a digital commerce winner/loser with noted Wall Street analysts Gary A. Williams; an exploration of optimizing customer engagement via social media with Natalie Zfat; and RIS News’ first-ever startup competition.

The final day of the conference started with a morning keynote from Gaurav Pant who presented the results from the “3rd Annual RIS/EKN Engagement Tech Trends Study.” The day also featured a panel discussion of innovative and disruptive technology, a retailer case study on quick wins in the cloud, and a one-on-one discussion between BCBG Max Azria CIO Robert Fort and a BCBG district manager on the changing role of the associate.

Scenes from Engage 2016: A) Honorary chairperson Suzy Monford, CEO, Andronico’s Community Markets kicks off the conference; B) Opening keynote Ted Rubin explored the path to personalized engagement; C) Social media guru Natalie Zfat shared her five secrets to social success; D) The opening day offsite tour, hosted by SATO, displayed the wonders of IoT; E) Plenty of smiles and laughs during the networking reception; F) Disco Melee CEO Coy Pittman won the startup completion with his social sharing video platform.