Manchester Digital’s Ecommerce Conference 2024 saw a packed sold-out room at Circle Square for leaders, thinkers and innovators to gather together and discuss the future of the ecommerce industry. The event was introduced and concluded by Manchester Digital’s head of partnerships Kate Wilson, who pulled together the insightful and varied range of topics for the day at Bruntwood’s No 1 Circle Square. 她还感谢了我们的赞助商——先进商务, 和, 零售科技和Bruntwood科技-感谢他们的支持.
Kate Wilson，全球最大的博彩平台数字公司，欢迎各位嘉宾参加本次会议
The morning’s schedule offered two streams of talks from our region’s top ecommerce and tech experts, 涵盖诸如SEO之类的主题, the immersive future of ecommerce and how to create the right omnichannel experience.
The afternoon saw participants gather back together after lunch for a brilliantly engaging keynote speech by Charlotte Todd, who joined British Gas just over a year ago as marketing and ecommerce director. 她在营销和电子商务领域有着辉煌的职业道路, 在多个时尚品牌拥有广泛的电子商务经验, net - a - porter包括, 混乱, 赖斯和误入歧途. This sector experience which focuses hugely on the customer journey and customer satisfaction has now been brought over to British Gas.
夏洛特·托德，英国天然气公司
克里斯Sheard, 高端运动服装零售商Castore的电子商务总监, gave us his 10 lessons learned from his vast experience in working with fast-growth companies. 在过去的七年里, he’s been instrumental in growing two Times 100 businesses - Castore and CurrentBody. 他的团队已经推出了51个网站和4个应用程序, 和纽卡斯尔联队等合作过, 游骑兵队, 费耶诺德, 迈凯轮和红牛.
当天的最后一个环节是小组讨论，题目是, 的自动化, 人工智能与购物的未来, 哪个是由零售技术专家主持的, 演讲者兼作家Miya Knights, 谁是零售技术出版物的出版商.
小组成员包括:威尔·克莱顿, principal consultant at AND Digital; Dan Martin, client partner at Microsoft; Richard Davis, Auto Trader和Simon deploitch的主要产品主管, 和的电子商务总监, (由全球最大的博彩平台机场集团创立).
L-R Miya Knights, Will Clayton, Dan Martin, Simon delich, Richard Davis
Miya Knights posed a number of questions to the panel around what AI means for the future of shopping and ecommerce. 预测性人工智能在电子商务和零售业的应用已经有一段时间了, 为诸如大规模定价项目之类的元素创建自动化, 或者需求定价. 然而, we know t在这里 is a huge amount of potential around how generative AI can be used within ecommerce in the future.
The general panel consensus was that authenticity and a real connection with human experience will always be really important within retail and the ecommerce sector. 然而, AI, machine learning and automation will continue to develop in terms of efficiency, 能够规模化, 并提升整个客户旅程.
上午会议概述:
流1讲座
将人工智能能力与基本的人类层面相结合
马克里奇, 中心频道创始人及首席顾问, discussed how we can integrate AI capabilities into our ecommerce platforms and journeys whilst maintaining the important human touch. Mark emphasised the importance of creating online shopping experiences that provide space, 和平, and meaningful connections rather than feeling like environments people want to escape from. 而人工智能和自动化可以优化效率, the human touch is crucial for elevating experiences from average to exceptional.
沉浸式数字商务的未来
弗拉基米尔•Mulhem, 部分首席技术官, Nuvelica的董事会顾问和创新顾问, shared his insights on the current landscape for immersive commerce experiences and what the future may hold. While full-scale MR adoption may take time as consumers wait for the perfect version, he highlighted opportunities to deploy immersive technologies like 3D commerce, 基于“增大化现实”技术的试用, 和3D配置器. 然而, Vladimir stressed implementing these shouldn't just be for the sake of it - t在这里 needs to be a compelling "why."
弗拉基米尔•Mulhem, Nuvelica
电子商务中让你赚钱的隐藏工具
克里斯McCarthy-Stott, PushON的电子商务副总监, highlighted several underutilised capabilities that merchants often already pay for in their ecommerce tech stacks, 但可以释放巨大的收入机会. This included the likes of category automation, upselling, faceting/filtering, product Q&A，产品评论，搜索同义词和搜索重定向.
MoneySuperMarket Group的人工智能学习
马特·埃文斯, MoneySuperMarket集团的主要发展商, shared an overview of some of their initial learnings from using generative AI over the past year, including their initial experiment with their chatbot "Wheels" to their Google like ‘MoneySuperMarket Site Search’. Some of Matt’s key takeaways were that generative AI can enable personalisation but works best combined with traditional approaches like APIs; its "creativity" can be limited; AI won't solve everything; data privacy considerations are paramount; and for niche queries, 与人类的专业技能相比，人工智能仍然举步维艰.
第二组讲座
电子商务SEO正在发展-如何为2024年的成功做好准备.
亨利·史密斯, 黑马的搜索引擎优化主管, 涵盖了2024年电子商务企业的最佳SEO策略. 这包括利用谷歌的有机产品网格, which many retailers aren’t optimising at the moment and is a brilliant way to increase conversions. 这个选项是在美国推出的, 在英国被释放之前, 因此，我们将继续看到增长. 他还介绍了一些目前最好的SEO人工智能工具.
How to power your microservices journey using continuous delivery and domain modelling
马特·贝尔彻, Codurance的首席顾问, talked us through how to create a better microservices journey through two key strategies - continuous delivery and domain modelling. 单体建筑结构会产生各种各样的问题, 尽管微服务不是灵丹妙药, 它们在扩展和维护方面都更好, 并与业务需求保持一致.
描绘数字贸易的未来
克里斯。希尔, 阿里云欧洲联盟总监, 谈到了生成式人工智能如何极大地改变了电子商务, as well as an overview of the range of different services provided by Alibaba. 他讨论了完全由人工智能生成时装模特的能力, 然后改变它们的体型, 种族和视觉背景来展示产品. This is hugely efficient time and moneywise when working with large scale fast fashion and products.
克里斯·希尔，阿里云
全渠道体验如何使你的业务与众不同
大卫的种子, 产品和工程主管，汤姆·罗兰客户成功主管, 从Lokulus, talked us through how an omnichannel experience can create a completely customer-centric model, 提供全球最大的博彩平台客户的多个信息流, 同时也提供了追加销售的机会. UK online businesses who embraced omnichannel in 2023 saw a 20% increase in sales.
再次感谢所有的活动合作伙伴和出色的演讲者.
了解更多 about how Manchester Digital supports Greater Manchester's ecommerce sector 在这里.
