Rithum kicked off the year with close to 30,000 friends in NYC, and it was clear NRF was back in a big way with a ton of energy combined with cautious optimism about 2023. Rithum met with retailers, brands, and influencers from all around the globe seeking our experience and ideas on how to more efficiently connect supply, demand, and delivery to adapt to new consumer demand patterns. And we had a good time doing it.
NRF was also an opportunity for Rithum to demonstrate the value of our recently combined company to serve as a one-stop-shop for retailers and brands to reach and convert more shoppers, expand margin, and enhance the online shopping experience through drop ship, marketplace, digital advertising, and delivery management. There was a ton of excitement about how our extensive commerce network continues to grow, and the capabilities that our expanded SaaS platform is lighting up for customers.
The consistent theme we heard in every customer conversation, keynote speech, media interview and fireside chat was “AGILITY.”
Retailers and brands are looking for ways to be more agile and more flexible in how they get the products consumers want into their hands with less friction and create the best experiences. Everyone is also striving to do it more efficiently given macro uncertainties putting pressure on their business outlook.
Many are leaning even further into their digital strategy, focusing on ecommerce innovation to enable them to be more agile, using data for real-time decision making in place of intuition or what worked before. Areas like merchandising are becoming “just-in-time” with the data our network can provide, and that’s great news for consumers as well as the retailers and brands that serve them. Consumers get better product selection that is more attuned to what they want, right when they want it, while retailers improve profitability and avoid overcommitting in a resource-constrained environment. At NRF, Rithum customers like Macy’s, Lowe’s, Saks OFF 5th, Tapestry, Nordstrom, Home Depot, Belk, and others shared the increasing importance of strengthening their ecommerce business, especially in areas like unowned inventory models that can drive growth with limited investment. And this is consistent with the theme of being more agile and reducing friction.
As Rithum CEO Bryan Dove shared with Retail Today, “It’s important for retailers to embrace versatile platforms that enable them to easily shift gears and optimize their business models, rather than get locked in to a limited, fixed approach…Moving into 2023, retailers have a tremendous opportunity to strengthen supply networks, adopt a range of commerce models and connect to even more sellers. The key is to think in terms of adaptability and flexibility rather than optimizing for just one way of doing business, and to embrace comprehensive platforms instead of one-trick point solutions.”
NRF 2023 was a great event for us to tell this story, and it is a message that clearly resonates with retailers and brands looking to strengthen their business and grow in the coming year. Thanks to all that stopped by the Rithum booth to meet with us. If we missed you at the show, we’d love to connect — to learn more about Rithum commerce solutions, please contact us.