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Samsonite executive: How the right data makes online shopping more personal (CxOTalk interview)

The luggage maker's global chief e-commerce officer explains how data drives customer experience in e-commerce and how you can improve results in your company.
Written by Michael Krigsman, Contributor

For retailers, the challenge of online customer experience is real.

In the physical world of stores and face-to-face interaction between buyer and seller, empathy and direct connection play a crucial role in the buying process. We talk and feel each other out with intuitive awareness of whether the other person cares about us. Often, we buy more when we think the other person cares.

In the online environment, data can create a personalized experience for each buyer and even help us express a semblance of empathy. With the right data, software can make inferences around buyer intent based on how online prospects behave. If a user clicks the shopping cart, then BAM, that's a signal of buying intent. Mouse movement toward the exit button or spending too little time on a product page may indicate the shopper's lack of interest.

Magnify all this a million times over and you have the modern challenge of translating in-person shopping behavior to e-commerce. It's a pervasive problem that many enterprise software companies, large and small, are trying to solve.

To gain insight into these issues, I spoke with the global chief e-commerce officer of Samsonite, the huge luggage brand with almost $4 billion in revenue. My conversation with executive Charlie Cole took place as episode 350 of the CxOTalk series of discussions with the world's top business and technology leaders.


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Watch the specially edited clip embedded at the top of this page, or read the complete transcript and see the full video to dive deep into the mind of an e-commerce strategist.

CXOTalk offers in-depth conversations and learning with the world's top business and technology executives. Check out our extensive and free video library.  

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