First time attendee (Retailer)
Thank you for a good first experience at Future Stores in Seattle. As a retailer, it was great to connect with other retailers, to hear more validation for our strategies from others experiencing similar things, and to be inspired. The standouts for me were Sugarfina and Nordstrom. Their presentation styles were engaging, their content and slides were on point, and they were vulnerable and generous in their sharing. My major criticism for the conference was around vendors. There was quite aggressive cold calling before we even arrived at Future Stores which was not a good vibe for Future Stores. Then during the conference it felt like there were too many sales pitches from Vendors - thru presentations and thru the panel discussions. It's important for vendors to help lead the industry and highlight new programs and technologies but it would be great if it was more authentic and less of a desperate sales pitch. It would be great if there was a more innovative way to introduce retailers to vendors, in a short period of time rather than it be a heavily weighted component of the conference. OR allow retailers to attend for free if the conference is going to be more of a forum for vendors to pitch their businesses and products. It all comes down to value and ensuring we feel there is enough value to warrant being out of office, away from our teams and busy schedules. I will still consider attending in the future, but will proceed with more caution.