Vice-President and Principal Analyst, Forrester Research
Read our exclusive interview with Sucharita
Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do.
I’m at retail analyst at Forrester Research, one of the world’s leading technology research firms. I’ve been covering retail for Forrester for 6 years and before that spent a decade at various multichannel retailers in the US. I live in Charlotte, NC in the US with my husband and two young daughters.
Can you give us a sneak peek of what you will be speaking about at Online Retailer 2012?
My presentation will be called “All that Glitters...Don’t Follow the US Lead” starting with Groupon. Seriously, while the US leads on a lot of retail trends, many of those trends are more hype than reality and you can waste an awful lot of time keeping up with the Joneses so to speak. So I’ll try to spend some time demystifying some of the hype, but at the same time pointing out what still is working.
What’s the number 1 piece of advice you have for Australian retailers?
There’s no need to learn from your own mistakes when you can learn from the mistakes of the Americans. What is the expression, a wise man learns from this mistakes of others...
What do you think the secret is to online retail success?
The best web retailers all have great assortments that are reliably and rapidly fulfilled with fair pricing and free shipping. Lots of free shipping. Free returns if possible too.
Why are you inspired to speak at Online Retailer 2012?
I’m looking forward to learning more about how differently retailers in other parts of the world (Australia and Asia-Pac) are executing their own web and multichannel strategies. Are there any players that are unique and special with learnings that are applicable to other parts of the world? Plus, I love Sydney, it’s one of my favourite cities.
What was the first thing you bought online?
That was so long ago I’m not sure I remember, but I’m sure it was on Amazon.com. I usually buy at least one thing online every week, often more. I don’t have time to go to stores any more, other than the grocery store. I remember the most recent thing I’ve bought—Nespresso pods.