Retail inMotion offers a unique end-to-end solution for airlines in the area of Onboard Retail. A huge part of this, naturally, is the Duty Free business.
We recently welcomed Joe Harvey to the Retail inMotion team to help us drive our capabilities in Duty Free around the globe. In his role, Joe focuses on the development of our Duty Free business on different continents and drives our capabilities in this area. Joe’s aim is to support the globalization of our Duty Free portfolio and strengthen supplier/partner relationships. He has a long track record of delivering results in the industry and has worked with several onboard retail providers and airlines alike to develop their boutique and onboard retail business.
We sat down to learn a bit more about his approach and what the future of boutique at Retail inMotion will look like.
Welcome to the team, Joe! In your new position, you’re focusing on expanding our boutique business globally – what does that mean exactly?
Currently we have a small boutique business in Europe which is run extremely well. Moving forward, the goal is to become a global retail concessionaire and to participate in large tenders for major scheduled airlines. In order to do that, we need to create a strategic roadmap that allows for it. That includes, at the start, developing strategic partnerships with the different boutique brands to help them get a better understanding of who Retail inMotion is and how we can work together.
Retail inMotion already works with customers on several continents and is continuing to grow very quickly. How does Duty Free fit into this? What’s the vision for Duty Free at Retail inMotion?
There is a huge opportunity for us to continue growing our Duty Free business in new regions and on new continents. We want to look at developing our relationships with existing brands, introducing new brands and creating exclusive products that only Retail inMotion has or can exclusively introduce to the Onboard Retail market. This will attract the major airlines to us even more. Our vision needs to match the current huge success of the inflight technology business at Retail inMotion and we want for airlines to trust that we can also deliver an exciting, innovative and unique boutique offering that will keep them (and us) ahead of competitors.
You have a lot of experience at different levels of the Onboard Retail industry – what attracted you to Retail inMotion?
I was very impressed with the growth of Retail inMotion and its different, innovative ways of doing business. For me, there are two main things I look for when joining a new company:
- As someone who is passionate about what I do, the challenge of the role is very important. I look to see if the vision of the company meets this — and my new role at Retail inMotion certainly does. To be given the opportunity to develop what will become a strategic business unit for Retail inMotion in the future is a real privilege.
- The team at Retail inMotion was the second thing that really attracted me to the company. In the meetings I had before I joined, I was really impressed. The company has a high-paced, challenging environment – which is crucial for me.
