From Black Friday Challenges to AI Innovations: Key Takeaways from Retail Rewind
11 Feb 2025
3 min read
At the end of January, as the embers of peak were dying down, we asked some of our friends in ecommerce to join us for an event looking back over the peak period. Nihar Kulkarni from Roswell hosted a small panel discussion with Michael Grillo from Skylight Frames, and Michael Fulvio from SNIPES.
The topics ranged from internationalization, the biggest challenges during the holiday period, calculating the ROI on CX, and of course the impact of AI.
The full video is below, but here are the key takeaways:
The necessity of great CX within omnichannel
Michael Grillo made the point that you need to match customer demands. They want to shop your brand wherever they want to shop your brand, it’s up to the brand to keep a cohesive experience whether that’s in your own site or in store.
Customer Value Optimization (CVO) will be big in 2025
There has historically been a big focus on Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO), but now brands are thinking about Customer Value Optimization (CVO). Michael Fulvio from Snipes pointed out that it’s really an extension of lifetime value which is how they like to approach the customer.
Peak season struggles can be eased with AI
Years previously, Snipes really struggled with fulfillment issues and so Michael Fulvio headed up a fulfillment task force to get to the bottom of it. Part of the challenge was communicating with customers, and having AI-powered automation allowed customer service agents to stay on top of customer conversations. Even if AI is not able to fully resolve queries, people got a partial response which stopped them writing in again and again.
Black Friday planning began in August
Skylight have a number of peaks, including Mother’s Day which is upcoming, but planning for their biggest peak period begins in August. That’s when Michael Grillo and his team will hold planning sessions with fulfilment partners to ensure that flows are working well.
AI-generated content risks creating a “sea of sameness”
The risk of AI-generated content is that everyone relies too heavily on it in terms of brand creation and marketing. So the brands that will stand out will be the ones who can be more creative and more experiential in their marketing.
Using DigitalGenius meant Snipes did not have to hire this peak period
An audience member asked Michael about the impact of using DigitalGenius on hiring, and whether that meant Snipes did not have to hire for the holiday season. The answer: yes. Snipes’ BPO provider Horatio recommended that they scale up support to cope with the holiday season. Michael did, but not as much as was recommended, because he had DigitalGenius in his pocket.
Watch the full talk here.
Find out how you can use AI to manage your peaks better in 2025 and beyond by speaking to our team today.
