Australia Post Retail Foundations Stage

AUSTRALIA POST IS SUPPORTING AUSSIE BUSINESSES LIKE NEVER BEFORE WITH THE LAUNCH OF ONLINE RETAILER’S FIRST RETAIL FOUNDATION STAGE

10:50am

Opening address Retail Foundation Stage

Stage sponsor: Australia Post

Chair: Jessica Ruhfus, Founder and CEO, Collabosaurus

10:55am to 11:40am

Online retail opportunities

Australia is ranked 10th in the world for online sales, and produced $32.65 billion in ecommerce sales last year alone, and that figure is set to grow. Online and multichannel retailers rode the tide of the global pandemic, which saw a seismic shift in how customers shopped, as a result of lockdowns, pandemic rules and working from home.

• Bringing shopping to shoppers
• Insights from Ecommerce brands who have achieved phenomenal growth
• The importance of delivering incremental value
• What are the key facilitators of CX? (Platforms, payments, last-mile)
• What are the key metrics to focus on in an early-stage start-up?
• How can start-ups succeed against established ecommerce giants?

Sandradee Makejev, Founder and CEO, St Frock

Doron Kushlin, Director, KG Group

Guy Nappa, Co-Founder & COO, Oz Hair and Beauty     

Peter Knock, Non- Executive Director and Specialist Advisor

Moderator: Jessica Ruhfus, Founder and CEO, Collabosaurus

11:40am to 12:10pm

Riff Raff Sleep Toys – reimagining sleep-time

Launched with zero experience and $8,000 and turned it into millions of dollars in sales and over 200,000 happy parents. Crowned 2019 ORIAS Small Online Retailer of The Year, join the Founder & CEO of Riff Raff Sleep Toys as she explains how she launched her eCommerce business though low cost launching and scaling. Emma will unpack how she led Riff Raff to success

• Idea, design and sourcing
• Launching and first sales
• Scaling your business

Emma Kruger, Founder & CEO, Riff Raff Sleep Toys

12:10pm to 12:40pm

The Evolution of the Online Shopper

Following two years of phenomenal growth, online shopping behaviours have shifted in Australia. With 9.2 million households spending a total of $62 billion at the online checkout in 2021, opportunities abound for retailers. Where do Australia’s Super Shoppers live? How much does sustainability influence purchase behaviour?  What are the top locations for online shopping now and into the future?

In this session, you’ll hear about the key themes and insights shaping the eCommerce landscape today – as well as the opportunities ahead.

Rose Yip, Head of eCommerce Data Analytics, Australia Post

12:40pm to 13:10

From Physio to eCommerce founder

How to turn over 2 million profits in under 2 years hear the successfully strategy behind Midnight Mischief’s success. From zero experience, a small budget and a big goal to grow your eCommerce business into a multi-million-dollar brand. Sounds impossible? How do you do it?

Founder and CEO, Tess, sheds light on the roadmap taken by her e-commerce brand Midnight Mischief to the heights of rapid success with no prior business experience. An eCommerce success story that saw a 250% increase in revenue growth in 2020 through leveraging timely media placements, precise influencer strategy, and a marketing plan which helped in generating unprecedented growth and a brand following.

Tess will cover several key topics including:

• How it all started and how it’s going
• Her business journey and marketing strategy
• COVID19 from challenge to opportunity
• Branding and why brand positioning mattered
• Partnering with the right team and creating alignment with brand goals & ambition

Tess Nguyen, Founder and CEO, Midnight Mischief

14:00 to 14:30

How to build a multi-million-dollar e-commerce company off a shoestring budget

So you're starting or currently own a small e-ss business. How do you take the business from you (and perhaps a few others) into a thriving organisation without external funding, nor investing copious amounts of money? In this talk we explore a number of practical and easy-to-implement strategies to drive the growth of your business based on first-hand experience. Covering a number of key topics including Marketplaces for acquisition, outsourcing overseas (benefits and traps), leveraging the right technologies (either from the "right" technology providers, or by developing your own), customer engagement, third party review sites, supplier partnerships, learning basic digital marketing, developing automation.

Jay Bonaretti, CEO, Amino Z

14:30 to 15:00

Fire-side chat: Creating the next big thing

Priscilla Hajiantoni’s commitment to deliver on simple, effective skincare and ability to create an obsessed customer-base have seen her more away from the world of corporate finance to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in just two years.

• The roadmap to creating sell-out brand
• Understanding your brand purpose and then delivering on it
• What it takes to create a hit brand in two years

Priscilla Hajiantoni, Founder and CEO, Bangn Body

Moderator: Jessica Ruhfus, Founder and CEO, Collabosaurus

15:00 to 15:30

Building CX resilience

How well do you know your customers? The past few years has really highlighted the need for retailers to innovate and deliver on CX, seamlessly across channels. MI Academy, partners with retailers to help them build capabilities needed to drive enhanced marketing performance, customer experience (CX), design thinking and organisational change.

• How to build CX resilience
• An overview of the Voice of the Customer (VoC) program
• Customer engagement 101 – the channel marketing rules

Alita Harvey-Rodriguez, Managing Director, MI Academy

Natalie Khoury, Director of Customer Experience, MI Academy

15:30

End of Retail Foundation day one

10:30am

Day two welcome address Retail Foundation Stage

Stage sponsor: Australia Post

Chair: Chana Imsirovic, Podcast Host - Female Voice in eCommerce, eCommerce Specialist - Owl and Monk

10:40am to 11:10am

How to make customers fall in love with your brand

Customers and employees are the core of Miss Amara’s continued growth and on-going success. With a clear and defined mission to create the best rug-shopping experience worldwide! Since launching in 2014, Miss Amara has experienced rapid growth and is now regarded as one of the emerging e-commerce leaders in the APAC. We've received industry recognition for our innovation, customer-first mindset and growth trajectory

• Creating an amazing employee experience is crucial for CX and your bottom-line
• Why being a values-based business matters?
• Delivering best in class experiences

Lydia Bertini, Head of Customer and People, Miss Amara

11:10am to 11:40am

THE CIRCULAR FASHION COMPANY ENABLING GLOBAL BRANDS:  AZURA FASHION GROUP

The world needs to grow the circular economy and sustainable fashion - and Azura Fashion Group wants to be a major facilitator of this.

Azura Fashion Groups delivers circular fashion on a global scale, by enabling suppliers to sell off-season, pre-loved and end-of-line products on 55 global marketplaces in 17 countries reaching 100 million customers. Azura, through its new platform Azura Reborn is a circular economy facilitator for the world's largest designers and global marketplaces, recycling returns as ‘preloved’ and helping consumers resell and rent out their preloved fashion items. By selling through Azura's platform, premium designers can sell off-season and end-of-line stock, allowing them to reduce waste while still maintaining premium pricing on current season items. Azura has one of the world’s largest preloved fashion catalogs in the world, and by using technology and Online Marketplaces, it is driving the growth of the Secondhand Market, which online resale is the fastest-growing sector of secondhand and is expected to grow nearly 4X by 2026. 

RESALE IS THE FUTURE OF RETAIL, AND IT WILL BE INTERESTING TO SEE WHICH INNOVATIVE BUSINESSES CAPITALIZE ON THIS OPPORTUNITY

• Secondhand Is Becoming a Global Phenomenon, Expected To Grow 127% by 2026 - The global secondhand apparel market will grow 3X faster than the global apparel market overall.
• Technology and Online Marketplaces Are Driving the Growth of the resale market, so how do you tap into it? 
• Retailers Get Into Resale for Sustainability, but Stay to Drive Revenue

Sam Wood, Director, Azura Runway

11:40am to 12:10pm

The Evolution of the Online Shopper 

Following two years of phenomenal growth, online shopping behaviours have shifted in Australia. With 9.2 million households spending a total of $62 billion at the online checkout in 2021, opportunities abound for retailers. Where do Australia’s Super Shoppers live? How much does sustainability influence purchase behaviour?  What are the top locations for online shopping now and into the future?

In this session, you’ll hear about the key themes and insights shaping the eCommerce landscape today – as well as the opportunities ahead.

Rose Yip, Head of eCommerce Data Analytics, Australia Post

12:10 to 12:40pm

How to collaborate and partner with established brands to scale your business

E-commerce brand Aura Bottle, founded in 2018 was created by Yuka Tsunashima to help her stay grounded in her everyday life. Very quickly, she found others had the need to be connected and present as well. 
Yuka realised that to achieve greater sales, brand awareness and credibility as a small business, a collaborative approach was needed. Hear how she grew to a 6-figure business in months by partnering with MIMCO and Seed Heritage, which saw 500 units of Aura Bottle sell out within a few days.

• Finding and choosing the right partnerships
• The roadmap for an eCommerce partnership with omnichannel retailers
• Lessons learned along the way

Yuka Tsunashima, Founder, Aura Bottles

12:40 to 13:10

Fireside chat with Designerex – the rise of re-commerce & circularity within fashion retail

It used to be that you bought designer dresses and outfits, wore them once or twice, which then resulted in them either being thrown away to landfill or stored wastefully. That’s before Designerex, launching a world class and leading platform, meeting market demand for fashion re-commerce with renting, the most sustainable option within circular economy. With over 70,000 designer dresses listed (nearly $50 million worth of retail value) & over 900 brands available, without buying a single drop of inventory. Designerex will talk you through how they have created the new normal when it comes to consuming high end fashion – one which is more sustainable, more accessible, more affordable and can create 30 x more value for consumers than resale and traditional linear consumption.

• The income generating advantage of renting compared to re-sale for fashion 
• Renting is more sustainable than resale
• The shift in purchase behaviour of millennials and Gen Z
• Last-mile within 3 hours and under, innovation 

Kirsten Kore, Co-Founder, Designerex
Costa Koulis, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Designerex

Moderator: Jessica Ruhfus, Founder and CEO, Collabosaurus

14:00 to 14:30

How to grow loyalty through curated retail and subscription services

Join Natalie as she shares with you how she and the team and ECO. Modern Essentials grew their customer base and increased customers’ loyalty through subscription

• Curation services with ECO. Ritual Box 
• Replenishment subscriptions through their ECO. Oil Club
• Access-based subscriptions providing customers exclusivity

Natalie Peat, Finance & E-Commerce Manager, ECO. Modern Essentials

14:30 to 15:00

Retail as a force for good

In an age of conscious consumers, brands need to ensure they have a sustainable and workable CSR strategy in place to ensure they are meeting the altruistic expectations of their customers.

• Shifting consumer sentiment and retail bottom line
• Brands that have a transparent purpose sell more - and there’s data to back it
• Levering the power of the purpose-driven economy; to be relevant, resilient and memorable

Jeremy Meltzer, Founder & CEO, i=Change 

15:00 to 15:30

The Talent Dilemma - an industry solution to attract and connect with the right people

The pandemic has left no sector untouched, with the shortage of talent seen across all industries. Winners of MI Academy’s 2020 hackathon, and eCommerce aficionado Jo Harris have created a solution to give the hiring power back to people and businesses.

• Recruitment and retention post pandemic
• Getting in the game to create talent engagement
• Stevie’s story to create a solution for the industry, by the industry.

Jo Harris, Co-Founder, Stevie

15:30 

End of retail foundation stage