VTEX DAY 2022 – Recap & Event Highlights

Introduction

VTEX Day took place in Sau Polo on April 12^th & 13^th. Now into its 10^th year VTEX Day has become biggest technology, innovation, and retail event in Latin America, and undoubtedly one of the biggest in the world. It was two full days of talented speakers, presentations from online retail experts from all over the world at the largest event dedicated to digital transformation in Latin America.

It had 192 exhibiting companies, over 22000 people in attendance and over 190 speakers over the course of two day. This year it was an in-person as well as digital event. Along with the new features of this in-person edition, for the first time, VTEX added an online experience in which the participant had access to a schedule with different content in parallel to the in-person event.

VTEX day has been running with the motto of “One Day Changes Everything” and this year it perfectly captured the mood of things getting back to normal with the return of in-person business events. It set the tone of optimism for enterprises trying to set up their business in the Latin America market. This closely tied in with the overall theme of the event, which is transformation.

McFadyen Digital at VTEX Day

Tom McFadyen, CEO of McFadyen Digital was one of the key note speakers at the show. He presented the topic “Own The Disruption – How To Drive Scale With Retail Marketplace”. McFadyen Digital distributed over a 1000 copies of his book “Marketplace Best Practices”, an Amazon best seller to a select audience. You can refer to his LinkedIn post that has some great marketplace stats. The topic presented stuck a chord with audience as it took the theme of the event further by addressing disruption marketplaces are causing. A very good case in point is Mercado Libre, the largest ecommerce company in Latin America. As per the latest research 78% of ecommerce in Latin America happens on marketplaces, according to a study by WebShoppers. Other analysts estimate that more than 60% of North America ecommerce transactions happen on marketplaces.

Some of the Noteworthy Sessions

While the two-day show had a wide array of topics covered by world renowned experts, we will just be focusing on few of them due to constraints of time and scope. Here are some of the most notable ones.

1. Sir Lewis Hamilton at VTEX Day – Off course this was the headline event at the show. Sir Lewis Hamilton, the biggest GP winner in the history of Formula 1 , and one of the biggest athletes of the world was a keynote speaker on the second day of the event. He spoke about his career trajectory, starting off with humble beginnings to becoming the biggest sports personality of the world. His presentation had themes of human resilience and staying focussed in the face of adversity that many businesses could learn from. His presentation also touched upon the topic of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion)..
   
   
2. Scott Galloway, Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business – Scott’s session was based off his book “From Crisis to Opportunity: What to Expect Post Corona? It was a fantastic session. It was almost like gazing into the future with a great mix of data, stories, humour, and insights. Scott is serial entrepreneur. In 2012, he was named one of the world’s best business professors by Poets & Quants. He has founded nine companies, including Prophet, Red Envelope, and L2.
   
   
3. Tom McFadyen, CEO McFadyen Digital – Tom’s session on “Own The Disruption – How To Drive Scale With Retail Marketplace” was very received with over 5000 people in attendance. The presentation was rich with practical insights that come from 33 years of building integration and 15 years of making marketplaces for Fortune 500 clients. McFadyen Digital has a long history of delivering award-winning online marketplace and ecommerce shopping experiences, with over 250 successful projects involving platforms like VTEX, Adobe Commerce (Magento), Mirakl, Shopify Plus, Oracle Commerce Cloud, Unirgy, and more. Learn more about their customer successes here.
   
   
4. VTEX Demo – VTEX had a demo for some of the new features that are soon being rolled out into their product. These were around three key areas; Live Shopping, Cross-border Shipping, and Conversational Commerce. This session was presented by Marcela Garcia, Head of Live Shopping at VTEX Brasil and Manu Garcia, Head of Live Shopping at VTEX Global. The session helped understand why Live Shopping is the great market disruption tool for exponential growth.
   
   
5. Case Studies of Successes in Latin American Market – Many of the global players shared the secrets of how they succeeded in cracking the Latin American market. Renner case study talked bout how customer centric culture is driving digital transformation, this was presented by José Galló, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Renner and moderated by VTEX. Carrefour case study threw light on the digital transformation of one of the largest retailers in the world. This was presented by Adriano Ciarletti, Carrefour’s Head of Ecommerce and moderated by Rafa Rezende, VP of Customer and Partner Experience at VTEX. Banco Inter Case study talked about how they BRL 96 million in GMV in a single day. Infact Inter Shop, Banco Inter‘s marketplace, topped the BRL 1.1 billion mark in total gross merchandise value (GMV) in a single quarter, according to the bank’s operational preview for Q4-2021. These sales figures were driven by Black Friday and Christmas. One of the interesting sessions “How to future-proof brands in Europe and Africa with the growth of digital channels around the world” was presented by Greg Walsh, Head of Omni-channel Systems da The Foschini Group and Dan Sturza, Vice President Of Business Development da Elefant and moderated by Dani Jurado EMEA General Manager da VTEX. Case study from Decathlon talked about the The 8 features that have positioned Decathlon as one of the best omnichannel cases, this was presented by Rennan Pinheiro Ecommerce and Omnichannel Director at Decathlon and moderated by Rafael Forte Co-founder and President of VTEX Brasil. Then there was AB InBev and Zé Delivery Case study that presented itself as “The #1 Digital Transformation Story in the Fortune 500 Top 100”, the session was taken by Guilherme Lebelson, Co-Founder & Head of Ze Delivery, Global VP of DTC at AB InBev and moderated by Mariano Gomide de Faria, Founder and co-CEO of VTEX.
   
   
6. Other Noteworthy sessions – Zia Daniell Wigder, Chief Content Officer at Insider Intelligence spoke about how retailers are implementing tools of the Chinese mega-marketplaces (e.g. #Alibaba #Tmall) like live shopping, cross-border shipping, & personal shoppers. VTEX offers these tools out-of-the-box. Many LatAm retailers & #marketplaces have launched their own Retail Media Networks (RMN), or advertising platforms. Leonardo Soares, Marketplace Exec Dir Magazine Luiza spoke about how Magalu marketplace grew third party sales 4x in 2 years with 160,000 sellers and 61 million offers. Within 5 years their marketplace sales grew to exceed in-store sales for this $10B retailer. Stores fulfill both 1P & 3P goods.
   

Wrap Up

VTEX DAY in the past have hosted names like Fernando Henrique Cardoso (2015), Joaquim Barbosa (2016), Richard Branson (2017), Bruce Dickinson (2018), Luiza Trajano (2019), and Barack Obama (2019) and this year it was Sir Lewis Hamilton. As always there was rich content at display through stories from retail, digital transformation told by executives who overcame many hurdles to build profitable initiatives. Debut of Tom McFadyen’s Marketplace Best Practices book in the Latin American market was one such example.

The physical scope of the event was massive, it was 43,000 sq meters of exhibition space with booths, product and technology demonstrations, and more than 190 exhibitors that showcased the most innovative solutions in ecommerce space. The huge space worked out very well for practical demonstrations of digital solutions of tomorrow for digital commerce and retail.

With a highly qualified audience the stage was perfect for networking and for enterprises to scout new opportunities, product ideas, explore new markets. It provided the audience limitless networking opportunities.

Thiaguinho’s closing concert was a fitting finale to the biggest digital transformation event of Latin America.

About VTEX DAY

VTEX DAY is the largest digital transformation event in Latin America. For almost ten years, it has brought together people and companies interested in technology, business, and entrepreneurship. In addition to offering participants quality content of global excellence – communicated by speakers of international recognition –, VTEX DAY has become a great business opportunity, due to the volume and credentials of the people and companies impacted by their experiences.

About VTEX

VTEX (NYSE: VTEX) provides a software-as-a-service digital commerce platform for enterprise brands and retailers. VTEX platform enables customers to execute their commerce strategy, including building online stores, integrating and managing orders across channels, and creating marketplaces to sell products from third-party vendors. Founded in Brazil, VTEX has been a leader in accelerating the digital commerce transformation in Latin America and are expanding globally. Their platform is engineered to enterprise-level standards and features. It is trusted by more than 2,000 customers with over 2,500 active online stores across 32 countries, who rely on VTEX to connect with their consumers in a meaningful way. Visit www.vtex.com to learn more.