In today's episode of the eCom Logistics Podcast, we welcome Melissa Minkow, Director of Retail Strategy at CI&T. For this part of our Women in Supply Chain, Retail, and Ecommerce series, we talk about the role of consumer insights when it comes to success in retail.

Melissa shares her early experience with Target Canada and how doing retail coverage at a global research company essentially widened her perspective on retail and commerce overall. She also dives deep into the various models we are seeing today that significantly affect not only the businesses but also the consumers directly.

ABOUT MELISSA

Melissa Minkow is the Director of Retail Strategy at CI&T, a global digital solutions provider for some of the world's largest retailers and companies. Previously, she was a senior principal advisor focusing on omni-channel retail, e-commerce, and social commerce at global research and advisory company, Gartner and was a business analyst in merchandising strategy at Target. 

At CI&T, Melissa is responsible for synthesizing strategy, insights and data to help identify actionable retail services trends and lead strategic sales and client engagements. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Influencer, a RetailWire BrainTrust Expert, and a retail futurist whose methodology is rooted in cross-industry consumer insights and innovation.

HIGHLIGHTS

• 04:18 What happened with Target Canada?
• 09:46 Understanding the model that Shein created
• 16:26 Identifying what is important to the midmarket
• 25:18 The importance of one-to-one creation models
• 29:26 Taking a "less is more" approach to combat expenses in retail

QUOTES

20:07 Start shaping demand as a retailer- Melissa: "So many retail models can be aggregated over time. You'll see maybe there are some types of products in particular that need to be delivered before Wednesday but there are other types of products that people just aren't ordering over the weekend. There's so much advancement that could still happen with demand forecasting that trickles into logistics."

27:03 We need to recognize the fragmentation of interests for consumers - Melissa: "There are so many diverging interests when it comes to both wants and needs at a product level. Retailers that are able to cater to an individual will see repeat business in that way. That's ultimately what personalization is."

Find out more about Melissa in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-minkow/
• Website: https://ciandt.com/us/en-us/our-work/retail-and-commerce

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