Wow!  If you missed Dreamforce this year, you missed a remarkable event packed with innovation, empowerment, giving back, fun and most importantly, retail executives sharing their trailblazing successes as they connect with shoppers and employees in whole new ways.  Thus, we have prepared this “Retail Roundup” to provide you a ‘Cliffs Notes’ version of the top 10 Dreamforce takeaways most relevant to retailers looking to better serve their shoppers, empower their employees or generally get a leg up on the competition.

1. Salesforce Launches Commerce Cloud

On the heels of our recent acquisition of Demandware, we announced the launch of the Salesforce Commerce Cloud. The Commerce Cloud offers retailers a comprehensive digital commerce platform--powering commerce across the web, mobile, social and store--that extends the world’s leading CRM to wherever your customers want to transact.

2. Retail Gets Smarter with Salesforce

Shoppers demand seamless and relevant experiences and now Salesforce can help retailers serve their needs even better with Salesforce Einstein, Artificial Intelligence in the Salesforce Platform.  In addition to making each shopper touchpoint smarter, Einstein now allows everyone in the business to build AI-powered apps without the costly approaches of the past.

3. The Future of Retail Personalization

We learned an innovative approach to personalization from John Hazen, VP Direct to Consumer, True Religion.  Rather than delivering personalization as product sets, consider delivering personalization at the brand level through behavior targeted narratives.

4. Personalization at Scale

Scott Hudler, Chief Digital Officer, Dunkin Brands offered sage advice with regard to personalization when he suggested “We need to know what our consumers want before they even know they want it.”  Dunkin’ strengthens its customer loyalty with Salesforce sending more than 1.5 million DD Perks members through onboarding journeys and delivering more than 700 million emails filled with targeted content.  Now that’s a lot of donuts!

5. X-Ray Vision for Retail

What we would all give to have X-ray vision about our shoppers so we could leverage that insight to better serve their needs.  Well, that is exactly what Aldo has achieved by seamlessly connecting online, stores, marketing and service with Salesforce (a concept we brought to life on our expo floor).  As a result Aldo has increased email influenced sales by 70% while reducing email 40%.  You don’t need X-Ray vision to see that those are great results.

6. Salesforce Introduces a New Type of Trailblazer

Trailblazing was a key theme of the week.  A Trailblazer is an empowered individual that thinks outside out of the box and applies smart solutions to drive business value.  Trailblazers are ordinary folks doing extraordinary things by learning and applying new skills and being their best.  One retail Trailblazer we celebrated was Rosemary Leore, Consumer Insights Analyst at Aldo, who was instrumental in helping Aldo improve its customer service processes.

7. Zero to Pop Up Store in a Nanosecond

If you are looking for speed and agility, look no further than the Cloud and Salesforce.  In just two days we set-up a fully functioning, fully stocked vineyard vines Pop-up store in the middle of our expo floor.  Attendees flocked by the dozens to buy standard and Salesforce logo merchandise where all of the transactions were powered by Salesforce Commerce Cloud Store, a mobile-first POS solution from the world’s leading Cloud Commerce provider.

8. Employees Are Pathways to Shopper Delight

We learned from the world’s largest retailer and private employer, Walmart, how they are empowering employees on their talent journey as part of initiative to make Walmart the employer of choice and improve the shopper experience.

9. It’s Not Just Mobile Commerce, It’s Mobile Everything

As well-articulated by Giorgio Armani, Design Within Reach and Ecco Shoes, we live in a mobile-first world.  And while mobile shopping and transaction behavior continues to exceed all expectations, retailers should think mobile-first about every shopper touchpoint and how to bridge the physical and digital with what is becoming a virtual appendage of every human being.

10. A Future Forward Retailer Emerges

Have you ever imagined what a completely seamless 21st century shopping experience might look like?  Well, look no further than Suitsupply, a global menswear retailer from Amsterdam, that sells to over 90 countries online, and through more than 75 bricks and mortar locations across 20 countries.  We hosted a store innovation tour cocktail party at their breathtaking Union Square location where they demonstrated how they are blending the digital and physical shopping experience in its entirety in the cloud, leveraging Salesforce.

Don’t wait until Dreamforce next year to tap into the great insight shared by your peers. The above key takeaways (and many more!) are just a few clicks away. Check out our on-demand webinar here today.