This Thursday, 4 leading ladies of the Romanian retail and e-commerce met in an online informal talk and discussed about the changes brought in 2020 by pandemics and lockdown to buying habits and customer expectations, what sticks in 2021 and beyond and how transformation can be approached in a consistent, controllable, future proof manner.

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The four speakers represented leading businesses from various product categories, with different business models and logistics organizations:

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Raluca Radu

Country Manager ANSWEAR.ro and Founder MTH Digital, moderated the talk

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Cătălina Nicolau

Project Manager Nemira Publishing

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Cristina Popa

Member of the Board and e-Commerce Director Noriel

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Valerica Motoc

Business & Sales Development Postis

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Among the key insights that were brought to the public’s attention, we noted the changes that affected customers, processes, experiences and technologies:

• Omni-channel is a must have for any type of business. Even in a post-pandemic era, customers will limit the time dedicated to instore browsing experiences and will favor online browsing with home delivery or instore pick-up.
• Customer experiences are key, especially with an ever increasing online competition and limited possibilities for face-to-face interactions. Online events, continuous communication, loyalty programs, web product launches, customer forums, 24/7 online support are all tools to keep customers close to your brand. Transparency, care and closeness even from afar, are all traits of those companies who understood the role they have in society and their relations with customers and built their business with a customer first approach.
• Logistics and delivery grew in importance and now have a strategic role for long term growth. A scalable capacity for fulfillment, with warehouse conveyors, WMS automations or outsourced logistics are all means to cope with large variations over the year, with huge order peaks in holiday times that need to be prepared and delivered in a matter of days. Integrated logistics chains, with brick & mortar stores used as local fulfillment centers come to the help, reducing significantly delivery time and costs and improving stock availability and rotation.
• Delivery diversification is the new mantra for customers and retailers alike. A wider range of carriers improves redundancy, availability, scalability and allows for optimal delivery, choosing the best of each carrier has to offer for the given place for pickup, destination, type of product or customer expectation. A diversified range of delivery typologies also create differentiating customer experiences, with more and more retailers implementing new delivery journeys such as instore pickup, locker or drop-box deliveries, express or planned deliveries.
• To overcome difficulties and uncertainties and thrive in the long run, retailers have to combine process optimization and efficiency with improved stock management and availability and with enhanced customer experiences, in an omni-channel environment or even pure online.
• Digital technologies, open platforms, systems integration, data orchestration, process automation and data-driven decisions, they all play a critical role in providing to retailers the right framework for fast transformation, cost effectiveness, optimal change management, process control, visibility and predictability. Postis Platform provides to big and small retailers all the tools, experience and know-how they need to face the uncertainties which will still be present along 2021 and beyond and prepare their business for the opportunities that will come.

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All these and more, you can learn in the recorded 1 hour and a half of wisdom, know-how and expertise from the leading ladies of the Romanian retail and e-commerce.

Enjoy and we hope to see you soon in our next events.

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