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Richard Sexton

CEO
Carolina Rustica

Richard Sexton founded Carolina Rustica 17 years ago after a one year trip around the world to celebrate a voluntary departure from the corporate life. Carolina Rustica is now a nationally-recognized omni-channel retailer of high end furniture which embraces online technology and consumer trends to grow its customer base. The company also maintains a large showroom in Concord, NC. In 2012, the company was sold to Mattress USA, based in Brighton, MI, and Richard continues in his role as President.

Richard has his MBA from Kellogg at Northwestern University with concentrations in Marketing and Economics. His previous speaking credits include several presentations at Internet Retailer, Magento Imagine, Retail Online Integation, and the Interior Design Society.

Follow Richard @CarolinaRustica

Check out the incredible speaker line-up to see who will be joining Richard.

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Web Design & Merchandising Summit

Monday, May 2nd, 2016

10:10 Keynote: Evolving Your Site Merchandising Strategy To Engage And Convert Customers

Online revenue for Carolina Rustica, a leading furniture retailer, has increased over 25% YOY with an increased emphasis on merchandising. In-store traffic has realized a doubling of conversion rates due to better online merchandising that drives brick and mortar purchases from the website experience. And Carolina Rustica has been recognized as a “Beyond the Top 100” achiever by Furniture/Today for the last two years due to its omni-channel merchandising vision. This session is an opportunity to redefine product merchandising in an analytical fashion that will appeal to marketers, webmasters and even heads of finance. Richard will review this process in detail, in the context of a 10 year pioneering effort in omni-channel evolution.

•Recognize that your home page, product categories and site taxonomy are the first determinants in your merchandising strategy

•Base your site merchandising on empirical data provided by your analytics program AND in-house marketing and financial objectives

•Use on-site data provided by ALL third party technology partners to find the hidden gems: on-site search, product reviews, Q&A, email campaigns, chat, and abandoned carts

•Look to offline sources for valuable input into creating an engaging merchandising experience: in-store sales, telephone inquiries, and press mentions as well as off-site social cues

14:55 Merchandising Panel Discussion: The Importance Of Online Assortments To Allow Your Customers To Easily Find Products And Complete The Sale

Optimizing your online merchandising strategies is critical to providing an optimal customer experience. Learn how both B2C and B2B brands tackle this challenge head on, and leave with detailed tactics to ensure your programs facilitate a quick and easy shopping experience.

• What is the strategic importance to your business to expand your assortment?

• How can data power this?

• What is your current online merchandising strategy?

• What is driving this change for your business?