How The Future of Retail is Like Professional Sports

Retailers short of customers reach for discounts, while sports teams collect season-ticket money a year in advance and keep fans excited all week. Kevin Hillstrom has spent 10 years consulting for more than 200 brands and has analysed close to 10 billion purchase transactions. In this talk he compares how professional sport and retail make money, and argues that commerce does most things the other way round.

You'll learn why, on average, only 37 of 100 customers who bought this year will buy again next year, and why that makes acquiring new customers more important than loyalty. Kevin explains why he sees omnichannel and "engagement" as dead ends and what his most successful clients have in common: low-cost customer acquisition, a plan for new merchandise and pricing integrity. He illustrates it with Nordstrom, Zara, Stitch Fix, In-N-Out Burger, Rapha and Betabrand.