Whether it's eco-friendly cement being used in Paris for the Olympics, products for the conscious consumer, or why TEMU and Shein are quite so successful in a world that's supposed to abhor disposable products, sustainability is constantly on the agenda. Yesterday's eCom Collab Club™ 🥞 London brought together a top notch panel of brands, agencies and tech partners to get stuck into the topic and you can catch up with my thoughts in the latest episode of Recap from Cogent2.

Themes include:

The biggest takeaway for me - and Dylan Connor Fernandez flagged this on Linkedin yesterday - was the incrementality. All of the brands involved highlighted how they'd focused on small steps and trying to do better and kept their focus on constant iteration, rather than searching for a magic sustainability bullet.

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Missed out on the Retail Ops and Tech event of the year here in the UK? Fear not, Recap has your back.

In this bumper episode we break down this new event from Dark Matter Commerce as follows:

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Missed out on Meet Magento 2024 from Jamie Huskisson and the team at JH yesterday? Fear not, Recap from Cogent2 has at least some of the goods for you!

I had a fabulous afternoon at this conference yesterday and was fortunate enough to snag some actionable insight and valuable lessons from a wide range of people.

00:00 - starting at the end - insights from a thoughtful closing panel, hosted by Jamie and including Janis Thomas from Look Fabulous Forever, Eric Erway from ShipperHQ and Matthew Medlyn from Graham and Green

09:40 - Phil Draper from Dotdigital on turning websites into Engagement Hubs

15:08 - Janis on Full Funnel Marketing and why it matters in 2024

19:51 - The secrets of a great CTO panel, chaired by Zac Stevens from akoova and starring Øyvind Valland and Elisabeth Ling

34:56 - Matt Medlyn on Misadventures in Google Core Web Vitals

It's June. The sun's shining here in Blighty (if you're lucky). So obviously it's time to talk about peak and specifically preparing for the BFCM bunfight that the vast majority of eCom brands take part in every year.

eCom Collab Club™ 🥞 London's June session brought together four brands and three tech partners and a paid media agency to get stuck into all things Peak and the latest episode of Recap from Cogent2 gets into the detail in all it's glory.

Kudos to everyone that took part:

and to Nathan Lomax and Adam Pearce for their compering and moderating.

Rather than taking the day to relax after Vervaunt's Pulse event on Friday, I attended Keir Whitaker's Craft+Work agency founder workshop day. I hadn't intended to put a Recap together (and you'll notice that the audio visual Gods clearly don't think it was a good idea), but the day covered a range of interesting themes that when I revisited my notes I realised I should.

So here we go, this episode includes:

01:28 - Tim Richardson on Agency Landscape

05:01 - Elliott Stocks on No Straight Lines

07:42 - Ellen Donnelly on the Entrepreneurial Career Path

09:38 - Conversation Stations (round tables to you and me!)

10:25 - Faye Oakenfull on How to be truly terrible at B2B Marketing

13:12 - Piers Thorogood on Agency Culture

16:57 - Hot Seat takeaways

Iif you get a chance to head to the session's Kier is running in New York and Toronto in September or around the country later in the year then I can heartily recommend it.

I had plenty of FOMO in my DMs - and my LinkedIn timeline - from people who missed out on Vervaunt's Pulse event on Thursday - which seems hard to fathom given who was actually there.

But if you missed out - or if the after party has made it all a little fuzzy, fear not, the latest episode of Recap is live.

This episode includes:

Didn't make it to Day Two of Internet Retailing Expo at the NEC? Fear not, the latest episode of ⁠Recap from Cogent2 has you covered.

In this episode we get into insights from a variety of sessions, including:

Sean Newmarch from Farrow & Ball

Niall Horgan from Gym+Coffee

Joseph Brown from Kubix | Shopify Plus Agency

Emily Mcmorran from Oh Polly

Tom Armenante from GTSE

Leigh Stote and Rosie Bailey talking all things Nibble

and as an added bonus you'll get to hear some additional content from Gordon Hayward, Jigsaw 's Warehouse & Ops Manager.

That wraps up IRX for another year. It'll be interesting to see what shape the event takes in 2025, here's hoping they can build on the content and connections that people clearly enjoyed this year and continue to fly the eCom flag outside Capital City!

In Episode 5 we offer our takeaways and thoughts from Rusty Monkey's hashtag#TheBigHuddle event that was held on Thursday, 9th May 2024 in Nottingham.

The key theme of the day was around making personalisation pay in eCommerce, but there was also plenty of content on brand, omnichannel, customer journey and much more besides.

Watch on to pick up some gems from:

Jonathan Maddams of Footprint Digital on Cookies and leveraging data for personalisation

Alex Defusto of BigCommerce with some excellent examples of how brands are delivering engaging and conversion popping experiences.

Matt Burton of Rusty Monkey on Minimum Viable Audience - so much more entertaining and valuable than I've just made that sound

Chris Goor, also of Rusty Monkey on customer journeys and how not to do them

Luwana Bryan of Tony's Chocolonely on how they've put their mission at the heart of growing their brand

Vicky D. of Dring Digital on strategies for success with personalisation in eCommerce.

Thank you to Emma Ford and Russell Brockett for making everyone feel amazingly welcome. It was an awesome event and I'm looking forward to next year!

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Couldn't get to eCom Collab Club™ 🥞 London on 8th May, 2024? Or you were there but it's all a bit of a blur?

Well worry not, the latest episode of Recap from Cogent2 is here to break down the knowledge and share the wealth.

The centrepiece of May's session was a panel on Data Driven Decision Making, chaired by Nathan Lomax. Taking part were:

Angelica Olszewska from NAYDAYA

Andre Brown from Advanced Commerce

Valeria Granda from rebuy

Hannah Herlihy Lowe from Conjura

Iain Coplans from Stok.ly

You'll have to watch for the full nine yards, but the WHY (thanks to Hannah's offspring) featured heavily throughout and there were some really interesting and actionable insights from everyone on the panel.

That theme of Why fed through into Val's session with Adam Pearce on the Airfryer, which was engaging and thought-provoking as per.

And just to prove that dreams do come true, stoked to have bagged a £100 Amazon voucher for my post-event selfie (if a piece to camera counts for that). Already considering far too many data points and in danger of being paralysed into purchasing nothing...

Thank you to everyone that puts the eCom Collab Club events on - as per this was really enjoyable and if you're in (or around) eCom and can get to London on 12th June I heartily recommend it.

As ever, please leave your thoughts, suggestions and feedback in the comments.

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