Delegates arrive at the hotel to register and check in ahead of the afternoon formalities.
Every sale looks good at the top line. The real question is what survives underneath it.
Across the region, retailers are selling through more channels than ever: marketplaces, social commerce, super apps, stores, retail partners and owned platforms. But every channel carries a different cost. Commission, paid visibility, fulfilment, returns, failed deliveries, payment friction, discounting and promotional funding can quickly turn a strong-looking sale into margin erosion.
This closed-door session puts the uncomfortable question on the table: which sales are actually worth having?
Using market data as the starting point, retailers will examine where margin is leaking, which channels are being subsidised by the rest of the business, and what changes when every order comes with its true cost attached.
Playbook: How to Win in 3 Meetings
Sponsors and solution providers get a straight-talking guide to maximising their 1:1 meetings. Expect insider advice on framing conversations, understanding retailer priorities, and standing out as a trusted partner.
Retail in Motion: Three Days, Five Tensions, One Question
When algorithms control discovery and platforms own the customer relationship, the open question is where the next dollar of profitable growth comes from. This opening frames the five tensions running through the summit and sets the pace for three days of commercially honest discussion.
A decade of subsidised reach let retailers grow without owning the customer underneath the growth, and that access is now repricing. Take rates climb, visibility costs more every quarter, and retailers keep paying because the customer was never theirs to keep.
Jianggan Li puts numbers on how much of the regional customer base is rented rather than owned, what reclaiming it costs, and what to build while there is still margin to fund it. Delegates leave with a working answer to one question: what share of your revenue sits on a lease you do not control.
Growth in the region is getting harder and every investment now carries a trade-off someone has to own. Each panellist commits to where they would put their next $1M, names what they would stop funding to pay for it, and gives the one metric that would prove the call right. Thirty minutes, real allocations, no hedging.
Adyen (AMS: ADYEN) is the payment platform of choice for many of the world’s leading companies, providing a modern end-to-end infrastructure connecting directly to Visa, Mastercard, and consumers' globally preferred payment methods. Adyen delivers frictionless payments across online, mobile, and in-store channels. We focus on finding the best solutions for merchants across our capabilities including payment gateway, global acquiring, risk management & revenue optimization. With offices across the world, Adyen serves customers including Facebook, Uber, Spotify, Bonobos, L'Oréal, Lorna Jane, the Cotton On Group, Nando’s, Freelancer, Kogan, Budgy Smuggler, Movember, Showpo, Rodd & Gunn, and Jurlique.
}', 10='{type=string, value=mrmv6sqigs9a2qj5yuo}', 11='{type=string, value=https://joi.pictures/prod/events/s37ill1ONYBtiopKHTVD/sponsor/6LWSJe0vD4OouWWTZHQ0/logo/moth1vta6g1vtn2b88a}'}]Meet the right people, not just more people. These three curated rounds of fifteen-minute meetings match leading retailers and solution providers based on shared priorities to spark partnerships that move from conversation to collaboration.
Bloomreach is the agentic platform for personalization. Powering autonomous search, conversational shopping, and autonomous marketing, Bloomreach personalizes the entire customer experience. From retail to financial services, hospitality to gaming, businesses create experiences that drive higher growth and lasting loyalty. Bloomreach drives personalization for 1,400+ brands around the world, including SM Retail, Bluebell, Repco, Spotlight Retail Group, and MILKRUN.
}', 10='{type=string, value=mqsu08c0h7c1tu5003h}', 11='{type=string, value=https://joi.pictures/prod/events/YD2kLTpzrMzOsIF2k3j1/sponsor/88qXPNXnRRun3Vwi8Rj6/logo/mm8gtj893hcycekq9ie}'}]Delegates can use this time to refresh, check-in with work and explore the surroundings.
The summit's opening social event, set against the Penang shoreline at dusk. Cocktails, live food stations, and three hours of unhurried conversation with the most senior retail community in the region. This is where the real agenda starts.
Day 2 begins with breakfast and barista coffee!
Marketplaces, super apps and social platforms now decide what gets seen, promoted and bought, and visibility is engineered by ranking systems retailers do not control. Strong products and strong brands still matter, but they matter less if the customer never sees them.
Muliadi Jeo gets inside the mechanics: how products are ranked, recommended and surfaced, when visibility must be paid for, and how to protect margin while paying. Delegates leave knowing which visibility levers they still hold and which they are renting.
ICUBE is a leading digital commerce agency helping retail brands build, scale, and transform their online businesses. With deep expertise in Adobe Commerce, Magento, Shopify, Shopify Plus, and Shopline, we deliver tailored, scalable solutions that create seamless customer experiences and sustainable growth. Our capabilities span digital commerce strategy, platform design and development, user experience, systems integration, omnichannel solutions, and digital marketing. Trusted by leading brands across Indonesia and international markets, ICUBE has worked with clients including Hush Puppies, Nick Scali, Assa Abloy, ASICS, Erha, Fossil, Mitra10, and Urban Icon. More than a technology provider, ICUBE is a strategic partner committed to helping businesses streamline operations, strengthen customer relationships, and thrive in an ever-evolving digital marketplace.
}', 10='{type=string, value=LqUbwPuLr4aGF8U49y0v}', 11='{type=string, value=https://joi.pictures/prod/events/zxwAoSDfHF7wtJ4tV9mg/sponsor/LqUbwPuLr4aGF8U49y0v/logo/mrzpzo4a3ckpm0w031j}'}]Platform-owned customer insight is the most expensive data a retailer never gets to keep. Low Ngai Yuen walks through AEON360's structural decision to rebuild first-party capture from the ground up: what changed in the data model, what it cost, and the measured drop in acquisition cost and discount dependency that followed. The solution provider frames the capability that made it possible, then steps back. One operator, one decision, one number.
Platforms now shape more of the customer journey than most retailers are comfortable admitting, but the sale still turns on moments retailers control.
This panel works through them: pricing, assortment, product content, service promise, fulfilment, payments and post-purchase. Senior operators name the control points they are doubling down on and the ones they handed to partners too easily. Delegates leave with a short list of operational decisions that measurably move conversion, margin and repeat purchase.
Customer-facing AI gets the stage time, but the deployments actually clearing a CFO's bar in this region are operational: demand forecasting, inventory optimisation and supply chain automation. One senior operator walks through a single completed back-of-house deployment: the data it ran on, the process it displaced, and the hard P&L line it produced. Not personalisation, not marketing AI, no capability tour; this is the finished number.
Take a break and refuel with morning tea.
Adyen (AMS: ADYEN) is the payment platform of choice for many of the world’s leading companies, providing a modern end-to-end infrastructure connecting directly to Visa, Mastercard, and consumers' globally preferred payment methods. Adyen delivers frictionless payments across online, mobile, and in-store channels. We focus on finding the best solutions for merchants across our capabilities including payment gateway, global acquiring, risk management & revenue optimization. With offices across the world, Adyen serves customers including Facebook, Uber, Spotify, Bonobos, L'Oréal, Lorna Jane, the Cotton On Group, Nando’s, Freelancer, Kogan, Budgy Smuggler, Movember, Showpo, Rodd & Gunn, and Jurlique.
}', 10='{type=string, value=mrmv6sqigs9a2qj5yuo}', 11='{type=string, value=https://joi.pictures/prod/events/s37ill1ONYBtiopKHTVD/sponsor/6LWSJe0vD4OouWWTZHQ0/logo/moth1vta6g1vtn2b88a}'}]Meet the right people, not just more people. These three curated rounds of fifteen-minute meetings match leading retailers and solution providers based on shared priorities to spark partnerships that move from conversation to collaboration.
Bloomreach is the agentic platform for personalization. Powering autonomous search, conversational shopping, and autonomous marketing, Bloomreach personalizes the entire customer experience. From retail to financial services, hospitality to gaming, businesses create experiences that drive higher growth and lasting loyalty. Bloomreach drives personalization for 1,400+ brands around the world, including SM Retail, Bluebell, Repco, Spotlight Retail Group, and MILKRUN.
}', 10='{type=string, value=mqsu08c0h7c1tu5003h}', 11='{type=string, value=https://joi.pictures/prod/events/YD2kLTpzrMzOsIF2k3j1/sponsor/88qXPNXnRRun3Vwi8Rj6/logo/mm8gtj893hcycekq9ie}'}]Most channel reporting flatters the channels that deserve it least. Commission, ad spend, returns, fulfilment and promotional funding turn strong-looking marketplace revenue into subsidised volume, and take rates are still climbing. This session rebuilds channel P&Ls across marketplace, owned, social and retail partner channels at true cost-to-serve. Bring your own numbers; leave knowing which channels create profit, which consume it, and which the rest of the business is funding.
Effective take rates on social commerce now reach 30 to 45% once commissions, payments and content costs are counted, and fewer than one in five sellers is scaling profitably. This session works the P&L line by line: which categories and price points survive the economics, and what the content arms race really costs. The honest option stays on the table: treat social as media and convert elsewhere. Bring your social channel economics; leave with a clear call on where social earns its place in your mix.
Every operator in the room wants AI and most are tired of how it gets presented. This session has one rule: real deployments only, covering what went live, what it returned, what failed, and the organisational resistance it had to clear, because the blocker in this region is almost never the technology. It is the working companion to the morning's back-of-house case study, open to live and in-flight deployments across every use case. Bring one deployment and its number; leave knowing which use cases earn investment now and which stay in the lab.
A regional strategy can work in Singapore and fall apart in Indonesia, Vietnam or Thailand, because the platform mix, payment behaviour, logistics and customer expectations all change at the border. This session maps where central strategy must give way to local execution: what standardises, what adapts, and where treating the region as one market burns time and money. For anyone carrying a P&L or roadmap across more than one country. Bring the market that is underperforming; leave with a sharper read on whether the problem is strategy or localisation.
Beyond the Bowl: Building a Brand People Come Back To
SaladStop! grew from a Singapore family idea into a regional brand in a category where repeat purchase, food cost, labour and delivery margins forgive nothing. Over dinner, Adrien Desbaillets tells the story of building a brand people come back to without marketplace dependency or discount-led growth. He walks through what the company protected as it scaled, where it took real risks, and how a values-led model survives when cheaper and faster is always one tap away. A founder-led story about building loyalty the hard way: through product, trust, consistency and belief.
Day 3 begins with breakfast and barista coffee!
In a year where geopolitical shocks are still yet to be fully felt, how are the global and regional macro forces impacting consumers in the AP region... a macro to micro approach, leveraging the Mastercard spending data for domestic and cross border consumers, online and offline. How well are mass consumers faring vs. affluent?
Mastercard Services offers a comprehensive suite of value‑added solutions that help businesses grow, operate more efficiently, and protect their customers. Powered by Mastercard’s trusted network, proprietary data, advanced analytics, AI, and deep industry expertise, our services help make commerce smarter, safer, and more personal. We work with partners across industries to deliver insights, protect the ecosystem, and create more engaging customer experiences.
}', 10='{type=string, value=mrn1n5tdfb6uoiqo7li}', 11='{type=string, value=https://joi.pictures/prod/events/YD2kLTpzrMzOsIF2k3j1/sponsor/VfhQyKtGTD7xsBGXB5NT/logo/mncsuo3d4agw38u5can}'}]The most efficient retail machines ever built have been redirected toward this region, and Malaysia and Indonesia are taking the most direct pressure. Cross-border ecommerce reaches $50.37 billion this year and 34% of orders already cross a border, so the question is not whether the entrants are here but how they run: the cost structure behind the pricing, the capital behind the discounts, and the parts of the model that do not travel. This panel is a board-level competitive briefing on where local retailers hold advantage the entrants cannot copy: returns, service, speed, trust and physical presence. It closes with a response map: what to defend, what to concede, and what to stop doing because it cannot be won on price.
Advertisers are not short of places to spend, and most retail media networks being built in this region are not yet credible enough to earn real budget. One retail media builder shows what it takes to prove value beyond reach, and a senior brand buyer applies the test that matters: what earns a line in the plan, what measurement clears the bar, and where retail media still overpromises. Fifteen minutes, one build, one buying decision.
Take a break and refuel with morning tea.
Adyen (AMS: ADYEN) is the payment platform of choice for many of the world’s leading companies, providing a modern end-to-end infrastructure connecting directly to Visa, Mastercard, and consumers' globally preferred payment methods. Adyen delivers frictionless payments across online, mobile, and in-store channels. We focus on finding the best solutions for merchants across our capabilities including payment gateway, global acquiring, risk management & revenue optimization. With offices across the world, Adyen serves customers including Facebook, Uber, Spotify, Bonobos, L'Oréal, Lorna Jane, the Cotton On Group, Nando’s, Freelancer, Kogan, Budgy Smuggler, Movember, Showpo, Rodd & Gunn, and Jurlique.
}', 10='{type=string, value=mrmv6sqigs9a2qj5yuo}', 11='{type=string, value=https://joi.pictures/prod/events/s37ill1ONYBtiopKHTVD/sponsor/6LWSJe0vD4OouWWTZHQ0/logo/moth1vta6g1vtn2b88a}'}]The store carries the highest cost structure in retail and cannot win a price fight against channels built to undercut it. Most leadership teams have still not decided what job the estate does instead: acquisition engine, service layer, data capture, fulfilment node or brand asset, each with different economics.
This session forces the call, comparing what stores are now genuinely best at and how to measure a store's contribution when the sale it influenced closes online. Bring a store P&L question; leave with the commercial job of your estate stated in one sentence.
Acquiring a marketplace customer is easy; converting one into a direct relationship without losing the marketplace volume is the part almost no one has cracked. Most senior leaders in the region say they would slow growth to build owned channels, yet the migration playbook remains thin.
This session works the mechanics: what the first 90 days involve, how loyalty and CRM get built alongside marketplace dependency rather than instead of it, and what an honest conversion rate looks like. Bring your current marketplace-to-owned conversion number; leave with the capability list and the cost to stand it up.
Retail leaders are being asked to deliver more with smaller teams while scaling AI, shifting channel mix and building owned customer relationships at the same time. This session looks at what leaders are protecting, cutting and rebuilding around the new cost reality. The focus is operational: which roles and capabilities matter most now, what can be automated or centralised, and how to decide when the old structure no longer fits the budget. Bring the capability decision you are facing; leave with how peers under the same pressure made theirs.
Every mega-sale trains the shopper to wait, and most retailers know the discount cycle erodes margin without having found a commercially viable way out. This session skips loyalty philosophy and goes to evidence: exclusivity and service a marketplace cannot copy, personalisation that measurably lifted basket and frequency, and membership built on value rather than price. Operators compare the retention mechanics that actually moved a number, and where a well-intended program quietly became a discount scheme with extra steps. Bring a retention number, not a narrative; leave with the two mechanics most worth testing in your business.
Candid Conversations: The Problems You Only Discuss When Vendors Leave the Room
Ten closed-door roundtables of 10 senior retail leaders each, anchored to the summit's six content pillars. The sponsor frames a live commercial challenge, then steps back and facilitates. The value is what the operators around the table share with each other: what they have tried, what broke, what they would do differently, and what they are quietly worried about. Delegates choose the table that matches their most pressing problem. Retailers only in the circle.
Candid Conversations: The Problems You Only Discuss When Vendors Leave the Room
Ten closed-door roundtables of 10 senior retail leaders each, anchored to the summit's six content pillars. The sponsor frames a live commercial challenge, then steps back and facilitates. The value is what the operators around the table share with each other: what they have tried, what broke, what they would do differently, and what they are quietly worried about. Delegates choose the table that matches their most pressing problem. Retailers only in the circle.
Extended lunch and a final round of wildcard 1:1 meetings, the last structured connection point of the summit.
The store carries the highest fixed cost in retail and, in most businesses, produces the least usable data. One operator shows what a single in-store investment produced beyond the transaction: the proprietary customer data it captured, the behaviour it changed, what it cost, and what they would not do again. A single decision and the number that justified it.
Most retail leaders keep their real trade-offs behind closed doors. In a candid on-stage interview, one of the region's most significant operators walks through the calls that shaped their last two years: the growth bet that paid off, the one that did not, and where platform dependency became a strategic question. The sponsor moderates a real conversation, not a product showcase.
Three days of strategy end with the part no framework covers: how a leader keeps making good commercial decisions when restructures, shrinking teams and shifting channels do not let up. This keynote is about judgement under sustained pressure: how the best operators hold their standards, keep their people committed, and keep making the hard call when the conditions are against them. The note to end on before walking back into it on Monday.
Be crowned the Ultimate networker and win a fabulous prize! This prestigious title will be awarded to one outstanding individual who has demonstrated exceptional networking skills using our iMedia app during the event by collecting Ultimate networking points.
Stay in the know! Receive iMedia event news and updates directly in your inbox 