Embrace change, says Kijiji founder
Bannister speaks at Opportunity South Summit
The Opportunity South Summit, hosted by the Lethbridge and District Chamber of Commerce, got off to a roaring start on Wednesday morning at the Sandman Signature Hotel with an all-star lineup of guest speakers.
About 200 people attended the event from various local businesses and organizations to hear the comments from the speakers and take part in breakout sessions. The focus of the Summit was to seek out new paths and understandings on how Lethbridge and southwestern Alberta businesses can continue to grow to take advantage of the opportunities out there today and going forward into the future.
“There is so much opportunity in southern Alberta,” said Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce executive director Karla Pyrch, “so if we have the chance to highlight that through high-profile speakers and bring attention to our city and our region, the chamber is always happy to do that. Overall I hope (those coming out) will gain optimism and enthusiasm for our region, and what the possibilities are going forward.”
One of the keynote speakers at this year’s summit was Janet Bannister, the former eBay wunderkind who returned to Canada to found Kijiji about a decade ago. Bannister said she was thrilled to be in Lethbridge to speak about her business experiences, but was also aware of the how much of an impact her generation of online shopping pioneers had changed the retail game profoundly in Canada and throughout the world.
“I would say to the offline retailer or anybody that this technology is upon us,” said Bannister in frank comments to the media prior to her larger address to the summit. “The online world is changing our lives, and I think we all need to think about how we can win, how we can thrive in this new economy.
“So for an offline store, or small storefront in Lethbridge — yes, on the one hand, you may lose some local customers because those people are buying on Amazon or elsewhere. But on the flip side, they can leverage technology to access a global customer base. So whether they should be thinking of opening a shop off iStore or figuring out how to sell across Canada or in other countries. My advice is the world today is all about rapid change and always learning, and that change is only accelerating. We all need to be embracing that. We can’t resist that. (We need to) figure out how we can thrive to take advantage of that.”