Creating the Future of Retail

Creating the Future of Retail, keynote by Ross Dawson
Retail is being transformed by new technologies and by customers who expect considerably more. Success now turns on four domains: experience, personalization, immediacy, and community. Retail has an extraordinary future for those willing to create and shape its new era.

Ross Dawson has delivered keynotes and executive sessions for retail chains, shopping center groups, main street and precinct associations, retail payments and technology providers, and consumer goods companies.

Keynote overview

Experience. Immersive and social technologies are what bring people into stores. A store that is only a place to collect goods has no defense against delivery.
Personalization. Data lets retailers treat customers as individuals at scale, and customers now read that as the baseline rather than the premium.
Immediacy. Expectations for speed are set outside retail, by the fastest service a customer uses anywhere.
Community. Precincts and main streets hold the one asset a corporate shopping center cannot manufacture, which is people who already know each other.
Humans + AI in retail. AI takes on forecasting, pricing and routine service, while judgment about assortment, place and brand becomes the distinctive human contribution.
The danger of being generic. A retail area with one of each of the same shops as the next one gives nobody a reason to visit. Uniqueness is now the most visible asset a retailer has.

Who it is for

Retail chains and groups, shopping center and precinct operators, main street and town center associations, and the payments and technology companies that serve them.

Recent keynotes

Creating the Future of Online Retail, iMedia Online Retail
The Technology Trends that will Shape the Future of Retail, Retail Leader Forum
Creating the Future of Retail, Verifone Retail Payment Conference
Creating the Future of Business, Mainstreet Australia Conference

Ross has also delivered keynotes and sessions for Walmart, Woolworths, Metcash, Procter & Gamble and Petstock.