At the Women in Retail Leadership Summit in Miami Beach last week, Stormy Simon, president of Overstock.com, discussed the top trends in retail and leadership best practices in this exclusive interview with the Women in Retail Leadership Circle (WIRLC).

https://youtu.be/QCCMLftKd-U

WIRLC: What’s your biggest takeaway from the Women in Retail Leadership Summit?
Stormy Simon: The Women in Retail Leadership Summit is going really well. It’s my first time attending, and I think the biggest takeaway is that it’s not just about women, it’s about retail. It’s great to sit in a room with women that may face the tasks or obstacles that I face every day and just hear from them.

WIRLC: What do you think are the biggest retail trends right now and how is Overstock capitalizing on them?
SS: I think the hot topic in retail right now is e-commerce. For Overstock, that’s how we grew up, that’s who we are. You find us online and we’re everything retail once you get there. So we’re one of the pure-plays that’s not a marketplace; we’re just an online department store. While I hear about the brick-and-mortars and the more traditional retailers efforts to get online, even with some of the obstacles they face, what I realize is, because we’re living in a completely different world, we’ve already found some of the answers to that. Not in a competitive environment, but in a solution-oriented environment. So in addition to being a retailer, we have a digital offering that helps retailers go online, which I think is kind of a trend in retail without getting specific to categories, but an overarching question. And I guess if you would turn the tables, you would say, how is Overstock addressing becoming a brick-and-mortar when we’re really not. So I can sympathize and empathize with some of the massive undertakings some of theses retailers will undertake soon.

WIRLC: What are some leadership best practices you can share with our audience?
SS: As far as best practices, for me, I grew up at Overstock, so I knew that hard work and having a voice would make a difference in our company. And I think as a leader, it’s really about listening. It’s building that right culture that’s in the vision of your CEO or top executive and then being able to execute on it.
I think listening is the biggest key, because the people on the front line, they know the answers and if you don’t have people your listening to and trusting, you’re probably not going to make the best decisions.