Melissa is an experienced conference chair and MC, she also hosts The Retail Tea Break podcast, bringing together retailers, brands and global industry experts. The podcast can be found on your favourite podcast platform.
Melissa is a retail trainer and educator with over 27 years of industry experience. She designs and delivers impactful training programmes and lectures, shaping the next generation of retail talent. She works with teams across international markets to elevate performance through sales excellence, operational standards and customer experience.
Melissa has been recognised as a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert in 2024, 2025 & 2026 and named in Retail Technology Innovation Hub’s Top 100 Retail Technology Influencers list in 2025 &2026.
Day 1 | 16th June
8:50 AM Chair’s Welcome Address
9:30 AM FUTURE COMMERCE PANEL: Building the Tech Stack of Tomorrow: How can you leverage AI and analytics to let customers ‘buy their way’ and improve conversion?
- What technologies can help you connect and personalise the online and in-store experience to increase your share of wallet?
- How can you map out tech touchpoints across the customer journey to uncover hidden inefficiencies?
- What are the benefits of consolidating tech vendors to improve ROI vs working with specialist tools to align business functions?
- How can you optimise vendor overlap to identify cost-saving consolidation opportunities?
- How can you integrate social commerce, so it becomes an important player in improving checkout conversion, not just a marketing platform?
11:40 AM Chair’s Opening Remarks
12:45 PM AI VALUE FIRESIDE CHAT: Scaling AI Impact: How can you move beyond pilots and embed AI into workflows to ensure measurable business value?
- How can you avoid pilot fatigue with so many solutions to ensure experimentation leads to scale not isolated tools and unrealised potential?
- How can you properly embed AI into core workflows instead of silos?
- How can you help to champion the importance of AI literacy across not only technical teams?
Session format: Following the onstage fireside chat, you will break into groups to share real-world challenges and solutions to drive more value from your AI pilots.
5:00 PM ETAIL DRAGONS’ DEN: Join our dragons as they assess the latest innovations from start-up companies pitching their tech in a bid to win first place
Listen up as the dragons review the technology’s benefits to your business, predict their future successes and deliver their verdicts.
The ultimate decision is in your hands though, as the audience get to vote for their favourite!
Will you find the next big thing?
Day 2 | 17th June
9:00 AM Chair’s Opening Remarks
9:10 AM OPENING KEYNOTE: Thriving through Innovation: How we scaled at rapid speed without sacrificing profit, brand purpose, or customer trust
- How can you design an expansion strategy that prioritises the best regions to double down on – identifying which countries offer the best blend of acquisition cost, logistics maturity and customer LTV?
- How can you ensure consistent brand positioning across all channels without diluting local relevancy or core identity?
- How can you build agile fulfilment and returns infrastructure that enables next-day delivery and frictionless returns in new geographies?
- How to lean on gen AI and dynamic content personalisation help to tailor campaigns across markets while maintaining a streamlined team
- What partnerships with local influencers, creators or retail operators help accelerate growth while building trust with new customer segments?
12:10 PM PANEL DISCUSSION: Door to Door Transparency: How can you provide transparent last mile communication that builds customer trust and drives loyalty?
- How can real-time delivery tracking reduce WISMO (“Where is my order?”) contacts?
- How can proactive comms reduce cart abandonment at checkout?
- How can visibility tools boost customer confidence in paying for premium delivery options?
- How can transparency on delays improve trust and loyalty despite setbacks?
12:40 PM eTail’s take on the popular gameshow Who Wants to be a Millionaire
We will test industry experts’ knowledge live on-stage against our studio audience (you) with a series of questions based around key industry topics.
Do you (the audience) have what it takes to beat the experts and become an eTail Millionaire?
1:10 PM Chair's Closing Remarks
Check out the incredible speaker line-up to see who will be joining Melissa.
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