We brought together a room of retail and ecommerce operators for The Big Connect. No decks, no fluff. Just honest conversations on loyalty, lifecycle and growth. Here’s what stood out, what’s shifting, and what brands are focusing on right now to drive real performance and stronger customer relationships.
Earlier this month, we hosted the second edition of The Big Connect.
A room full of retail and ecommerce operators, advisors, and partners all there for the same reason: to talk honestly about what’s working, what’s not, and what needs fixing.
No big stage.
Just people deep in the work, sharing what they’re seeing right now.
And the best part?
The conversations didn’t stop when the fireside wrapped.
Loyalty isn’t the program. It’s the outcome.
One of the clearest shifts from the night came from Anna Samkova, Co-Founder at Albany Advisory.
Loyalty is no longer about perks, points, or trying to engineer engagement through a program alone.
It’s about understanding your customer and building something that actually matters to them.
This came through clearly from Anna:
Loyalty is an outcome.
And not every customer should be treated the same.
The 80/20 rule came up again and for good reason.
Focus on the 20% of customers driving 80% of your revenue and look after them.
Simple. But often missed.
Automation isn’t “set and forget.”
Automation got a lot of airtime. And rightly so, as surfaced by Justin Bausch, Co-Founder at InHaus Digital.
There’s still a gap between brands that have automations… and brands that are actually getting value from them.
Justin summed it up well:
It’s not set and forget. Keep testing.
Too many flows are built once and left untouched.
No segmentation, testing, and optimisation.
And the result? Missed revenue.
The opportunity isn’t just in having automations. It’s in continuously refining them based on what actually works for your brand.
Not “best practice.”
Just… practice.
Spotlight round & the fireside: Inside the Advisor’s Lens
(pictured: Amy Lowther from Tall Bob with Anna Samkova from Albany Advisory, Justin Bausch from InHaus Data & Soha Hosseini from Customr, along with Felisha Mendoza from InHaus Digital)
Start before you feel ready
There was a recurring theme across the discussion… hesitation.
Hesitation to:
- touch automation
- dig into data
- change what’s already live
And the advice was consistent: Start anyway.
It’s one thing to get it up. It’s another thing to keep testing it.
Whether it’s a new flow, a new message, or a new way of engaging customers, progress comes from doing, not waiting.
The answers are already in your data.
Soha Hosseini, Co-Founder at Customr, brought it back to fundamentals.
Before campaigns, tactics, and tools.
Understand your customer.
There’s a lot that you actually find when you start looking.
Most brands are sitting on the data they need; they just haven’t taken the time to step back and connect the dots.
And while data can feel messy or incomplete…
Soha kept coming back to this:
It doesn’t have to be perfect to be useful.
Looking at the right metrics — not just percentages, but actual volume and impact — tells a much clearer story of what’s really happening.
What stood out…
And it wasn’t just the panel. What made the night was the room itself.
A few things that kept coming up in conversations:
- “Best practice isn’t always best practice for your business.”
- Brands are starting to question default playbooks
- Small changes (done consistently) are driving meaningful results
- And most importantly… people want real insights, not theory
We also heard:
The advisors kept it real and it was refreshing to hear it like it really is.
And that’s exactly the point.
What’s next for The Big Connect?
These events aren’t about presentations.
They’re about creating a space where:
- operators can compare notes
- ideas can be challenged
- and people can learn from each other without being sold to
That’s why the conversations after the fireside often matter just as much as the ones on stage.
If this year’s gathering was anything to go by… there’s more to unpack. And more to fix.
The bar’s been set.
Now, we turn our attention to The Big Connect 3.
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