103 – Jeff Fisher of Sunglass Hut and Luxottica – Shades of Transformation

Jun 16, 2016

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Retailing luxury and sports eyewear…

Jeff Fisher, Global Store Experience Director for Luxottica Group (a leader in premium, luxury and sports eyewear) and Sunglass Hut, joins Pavan Bahl, Rob Sanchez, and guest host Robin Copland (VP of Retail for North America) of ThoughtWorks (a global technology consultant and software development firm), on location at the 2016 SHOPTALK retail and ecommerce event in Las Vegas.

Then and now

Fisher touches on the development and history of Sunglass Hut, maintaining a high quality consistency of look and feel across a large volume of stores in a chain, growth of on line sales balanced with majority of volume from retails stores, and how sunglasses are transformative.

Engagement, Community and Technology

Discussion on how Shoptalk focused on technology at the start of the conference and how that was helpful for Luxottica, empowering the salesperson, why stores remain important, switching store formats for engagement, and positioning stores as a community type space. Luxottica’s focuses on a good test and learn environment, employment of face scanning technology and suggesting products based on face shape, shopping the online catalogue in the physical store, and the value of music in the shopping experience.

Big chain, big challenge

Augmented and virtual reality in the virtual try on resource, the brand’s involvement in fashion shows, how Luxottica collaborates on technology, considerations in rolling out product and test internationally, how stores differ across the world, and navigating interaction with people who don’t usually buy sunglasses vs. having a significant selection. Plus the relevance of engagement with associates, and how displays are changing with new technology.

A segment of Off the Grid Questions covers a moment of awe, deep-sea fishing terror, killer whales, and sticky summers in Milan.