STORES Convention Daily Preview Issue - 1

Workforce
#1 Retail
Management

NRF 2019 PREVIEW

BOOTH 4001
940949_Reflexis.indd 1

12/20/18 11:48 PM

Big Names, Bigger Impact:
Who's On Stage at NRF 2019:
Retail's Big Show
JOSH LUBER
CEO, STOCKX
Josh Luber is a self-proclaimed
"sneaker head" who talks about his
footwear collection as if it's an everexpanding stock portfolio - fitting,
given the company's business model. The Detroit-based online company
describes itself as the world's first stock
market for things. It's a live bid/ask
marketplace where buyers place bids
on sneakers, streetwear, handbags and
watches, sellers place asks and when a
bid and ask meet, the transaction happens automatically. StockX guarantees
that the sneakers and other items sold
are 100 percent verified authentic, and
the company won't release payment
until that verification is made.
StockX, launched in the United
States in 2016, allows users to see data
like recent sale figures and price volatility from across the internet before
the sale is made. The online platform
recently expanded to the United Kingdom.
Why is it impactful? StockX is
a hybrid concept rethinking the sale
of luxury collectibles such as highly
coveted Jordan sneakers. The company
reports that more than 8 million people
use the platform in the U.S. every
month, resulting in more than $2 million per day in sales.

Where can you hear him? Concurrent session: "Pushing the Boundaries of
Retail."

STACY BROWN-PHILPOT
CEO, TASKRABBIT
You may not know her name immediately, but perhaps the company rings a bell:
A "marketplace" for freelance workers,
TaskRabbit was acquired last year by none
other than IKEA, famous for affordable,
sleek home furnishings but also infamous
for sanity-testing product assembly -
#matchmadeinheaven!
Originally from Detroit, Stacy BrownPhilpot went to Wharton and Stanford
before landing at Google. What may be the
height of their game for many people -
a top position at Google overseeing operations and more than 1,000 people (Sheryl
Sandberg was her mentor/promoter)
- wasn't enough for Brown-Philpot. She
joined TaskRabbit as COO in 2011, was
named CEO in 2016 and sold the company
to IKEA last year.
Why is she impactful? To quote a
recent New York Times interview when
she was asked about leaving Google for
TaskRabbit: "The mission of revolutionizing everyday work - I just fell in love
with it. I mean, I grew up with people who
were hardworking, whose jobs were taken
See "Who's On Stage" on page 22

Josh Luber

Stacy Brown-Philpot

Shelly Ibach

Michael Rubin

Michael Evans

David Hardiman-Evans

2018 in Retail Headlines

L

FAO Schwarz, the former famed toy seller, is back in Rockefeller Center.

ooking at U.S. retail as a whole, 2018
was a pretty calm year. The National
Retail Federation began the year
with a prediction of 3.8 to 4.4 percent sales
growth over 2017. In August, citing higher
wages, gains in disposable income, a strong
job market and record-high household
net worth, NRF raised its projection to a
minimum year-over-year growth of 4.5
percent. Business as usual, right?
Well, yes and no. The industry's
healthy - but those watching the headlines saw it wasn't an uneventful year. In
August, for instance, Apple Computer
reached a market valuation of $1 trillion,
the first of any publicly traded U.S. company to do so. (They're computer- and
phone-makers, true, but it's their skill at

retailing that got them that big number.)
A month later, Amazon also hit the trillion mark.
Walmart, meanwhile, edged up to just
under a half trillion in gross sales. And in
See "2018 in Retail Headlines" on page 19

THIS ISSUE
NYC STORES.......................4
INSTAGRAMMABLE..........8
PIZZA!................................. 16
https://nrfbigshow.nrf.com/session/pushing-boundaries-retail https://nrfbigshow.nrf.com/session/pushing-boundaries-retail https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/business/stacy-brown-philpot-taskrabbit-corner-office.html
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of STORES Convention Daily Preview Issue
