In episode 443 of Total Retail Talks, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan interviews Rob Robillard, chief merchandising officer of HSN, a leading interactive and lifestyle retailer that is part of Qurate Retail Group. Listen in as Robillard provides an overview of HSN’s history in enabling video commerce and live shopping (1:00), the retailer’s increased focus on streaming (3:10), identifying successful brand partnership opportunities (6:05) and its customer acquisition strategy (9:25).
In addition, Robillard details the unique, spontaneous experience that live shopping customers love (11:00), the metrics HSN utilizes to track engagement and loyalty across channels (14:00), and how real-time data plays into merchandising decisions (16:40). Lastly, he shares how HSN is continuously working to evolve its video commerce offerings across channels (18:50), including short-format video (21:00).
Rob Robillard is chief merchandising officer at HSN, part of Qurate Retail Group, overseeing the brand’s buying, planning and programming operations. Prior to this appointment in March 2022, Robillard most recently served as senior vice president of merchandising, home, culinary, electronics and merchandising operations for QVC and HSN. He first joined Qurate Retail Group in November 2017 to lead the U.S. beauty business for all the commerce platforms, including QVC, HSN and Beauty iQ. In this newly created role, Robillard focused on new business growth strategies, customer engagement and merchandise strategies for beauty, expanding on the current offerings and further developing existing vendor relationships.
Following 10 years with L’Oréal, Robillard’s career has focused on innovation and product development. He joined L’Oréal’s marketing team for color cosmetics in 1998 and quickly took on leadership roles of increasing responsibility, including senior vice president of marketing for L’Oréal Paris. Robillard was named worldwide general manager for Kiehl’s Since 1851 brand, playing a key role in developing unique and diverse, global multichannel distribution strategies. After L’Oréal, Robillard was named president and CEO of Living Proof, where he transformed a small research and development organization into one of the fastest growing prestige beauty companies in the industry. Most recently to joining Qurate Retail Group, Robillard led Sensible Organics, developing a small natural/organic manufacturer into one of the largest certified organic skincare companies in the natural beauty market.
Robillard has a successful multidisciplinary track record in retail and a passion for developing and energizing customer-centric teams that innovate to positively impact the bottom line. For his contributions to the industry he has been recognized by many organizations, including Crain’s 40 Under 40, CEW, and WWD.
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