Johnny Russo

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Amazon Canada Feature: Supporting Outstanding Canadian Businesses

November 8, 2020 by Johnny Russo Leave a Comment

For Holiday 2020, Amazon Canada asked to interview me about one of the largest growing brands on their platform, Jellifish Kids. It was a feature to support Canadian businesses during the peak 2020 Holiday season. They also prepared a digital lookbook to share with media and customers during the key Holiday season. Below are some images and links to the feature.

Thanks to Amazon Canada for all their support.

Here is the excerpt of that article as it appeared:

Johnny Russo, VP of Marketing and E-commerce, Jellifish Kids, Montreal, QC

How did Jellifish Kids get their start:
Jellifish Kids is part of The Kersheh Group, a manufacturer and marketer of sleepwear established in 1978. The brand was started to fill a void in the kids sleepwear market. Jellifish Kids is all about comfort and focuses on fun, colourful and playful themes in its designs. We also have an established line of licensed sleepwear, including partnerships with Disney, Universal, Warner Bros., the National Hockey League, the National Basketball Association and more!

Tell us about your role and why it’s important to Jellifish Kids:
When I joined the business in 2019, the core focus of my role was developing our brands – most crucial of which was Jellifish Kids – and scaling the e-commerce business across Amazon, various other marketplaces and our own e-commerce sites. It’s been amazing to see the support the company has put behind this role and, most importantly, being supportive of the vision we have, which is to become the largest sleepwear destination in North America.

What does it mean for a small business like Jellifish Kids to have a VP of Marketing and E-commerce:
I was asking myself the same question during the hiring and recruiting process before I joined. For me, it meant Jellifish Kids was seriously getting behind developing their brand and launching their e-commerce division. I’ve had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with our executive committee and I can tell you they are all big believers of what we’re building. I’ve got a great team that embraces challenges, supports each other, is adaptive and is positive along the way. After all, we sell pajamas, so we have some fun throughout the journey.

Check out the entire feature article and see all the great Canadian businesses supported by and with Amazon.

Here are some of the images featured in their lookbook highlighting the Jellifish Kids brand and products.

Take a look at the entire Digital Lookbook Amazon put together to support successful Canadian businesses during the peak Holiday 2020 season.

Filed Under: Ecommerce, Transform, Uncategorized / Personal Tagged With: Amazon, Digital, Ecommerce, Jellifish Kids, Social Media, The Kersheh Group

The Road to Omni-Channel: Long, Ugly, and Crucial

October 28, 2015 by Johnny Russo 1 Comment

The Road to Omni-Channel: Long, Ugly, and Crucial

Every multi channel retailer has uttered the words omni-channel in the last 12 months. If they haven’t, they probably won’t be around in 12 months. But that’s another topic. It’s more than a buzz word; it’s a crucial element in all future strategies that make the customer experience optimal, and not average.

A few months ago, Worldwide Business Research (WBR), in conjunction with Canada Post, Magento, and OSF Global Services, came out with a study called “Canadian Brands Take the Next Step Into Omni-Channel Retail.”

As the study notes, many retail brands are indeed thinking of omni channel, but very few are acting upon it: “The implementation of strategies and technologies that enable true omni channel shopping has been less consistent.”

In fact, only 28% of the respondents in the study noted that they have many or some omni channel capabilities already implemented.

What is Omni Channel?

Before we get too far, let’s define what omni-channel means from a customer or consumer point of view. Omni channel retail is about actually eliminating channels. So you can buy online, and pick-up in store; reserve online and pick up and pay in store; buy in store, and have the item(s) shipped to you, or walk out with some items, and have the rest shipped to you; buy online, return to store; buy with your mobile phone while in-store, and walk out with the merchandise you just purchased. The customer also wants a real-time view of inventory for all stores that can be viewed online, be able to buy and use cross channel gift cards, and have cross channel loyalty programs applied.

Now let’s define what omni channel means from a retailer’s perspective. It is about servicing all of the elements above for a total retail experience (in addition to having a unified customer account and order history to understand customer preferences), but doing so in an efficient and profitable way. So if a retailer’s distribution center is in Toronto, for example, and a customer in Vancouver orders luggage online from a multi-channel retailer, that retailer would set rules which would include looking at a few local stores to fulfill that order, based on location in order to save shipping costs, and also, reduce time for delivery. So the utopia for multi-channel retailers is to save costs by using stores as mini distribution centers, and to increase customer satisfaction by getting the customer their items more quickly. Or having the customer to all the legwork: reserve online and pick up in store, thus saving shipping costs, and also making the customer happy, as they leave with the merchandise in what could be the same day, or even the same hour.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Ecommerce Tagged With: Amazon, Customer Expererince, Distribution, Ecommerce, Fulfillment, Multi channel, Omni channel, Retail, Retailers

Long Live Uber The Disruptor

September 28, 2015 by Johnny Russo Leave a Comment

Uber vs Taxi Drivers

Here’s the scene. It’s the year 2000. Imagine being Sears a company founded in 1886, a company that led the retail industry for over a century, an icon that was copied, yet never matched. Then an upstart comes along with a technology platform that will change retail forever, as Amazon has done.  Well imagine if the government had intervened to stop Amazon and protect Sears, imagine that Sears’ employees threw eggs at Amazon offices, imagine if the government laid out a technology plan to have Sears get up to par with Amazon, but the technology would only be ready in a few years.

While Amazon has had many issues with the government, and numerous court dates dealing with taxes and book publishing licensing issues, it has thrived and completely altered the retail landscape. Amazon disrupted retail like Sears did 100 years earlier.

Uber is Killing it

Now enter 2015, where Uber a popular ride-sharing service that is revolutionizing (killing?) the taxi industry as we know it, and we have the government stepping in to curtail its use. We have the government trying to stop innovation from happening. We have the government not adapting quickly enough to a changing technology and preference landscape. And we have taxi associations crying foul and hiding behind government support, spending more time fighting with paperwork as the weapon, rather than innovation.

In particular, Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa, have had several anti-Uber demonstrations, for the most part backed by the government. The main arguments are as follows: taxi drivers pay exorbitant taxi license fees (Montreal’s is over $200k); Uber drivers are neither licensed, nor insured; Uber is not paying taxes; and Uber drivers are not declaring taxes, even though many of them earn less than the $30k per year required to need a tax number.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Digital Marketing, Leadership, Uncategorized / Personal Tagged With: Amazon, Customer Experience, Innovation, Retail Landscape, Startup

Why Groupon Stores Could Be a Game-Changer for Brands

April 25, 2015 by Johnny Russo Leave a Comment

Why Groupon Stores Could Be a Game-Changer for Brands

Towards the end of March 2015, Groupon announced that it was piloting a project called Groupon Stores.

Everyone’s familiar with Groupon, the pioneer of daily deals, and the incessant emails that follow. However, in the last few years, they have launched cash back deals for groceries, a travel app, a platform that allows companies to set up their own Groupon deals, and now Groupon Stores is set to launch.

Sources inside the Chicago-based Groupon told Re/code that they are testing out a concept with a few brands that will eventually allow any product brand or retail operation to set up its own storefront.

How Does Groupon Stores Work?

In an effort to slowly chip away at Amazon and eBay, the premise of Groupon Stores is essentially to liquidate items. They do not want to compete against your own webstore or Ecommerce site, or to remove your marketplace from Amazon, eBay, or any of the many other marketplaces.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Digital Marketing, Ecommerce Tagged With: Alibaba, AliExpress, Amazon, Digital Marketing, Drop-Shipping, eBay, Ecommerce, Group Buying Sites, Groupon, Retail, Website

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About the Blog

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I have been following blogs for over 15 years. I have also written blog posts for many of the companies I have worked for. So it only made sense that I finally (yes, I said finally) made the plunge and launched my own blog in 2015. So what … Read More

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Experience

Digital Experience - Johnny Russo

I have 13+ years experience in the Retail, Start-up, Technology, and Manufacturing industries. I have led growth and strategies in Ecommerce, Digital Marketing, Marketing, Branding Social Media, Mobile, and Omni-Channel … Read More

Current Project

Working as the Vice President of Marketing & Ecommerce at The Kersheh Group, an apparel retailer and manufacturer that specializes predominately in kids sleepwear. The Kersheh Group manufactures and markets sleepwear for boys, girls, adults, and the entire family. Our cozy, … Read More

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