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Richard Last

Founding Partner at Axcelora

Plano, United States

Founding Partner at Axcelora
Advisory Board, Evergreen Trading
Chairman, Advancement Board, University of North Texas CMHT
Chairman Emeritus of the Board of Directors, Shop.org
Founder and Former President of JCPenney eCommerce LP

Richard E. Last is one of the co-founders of Axcelora, connecting service providers with retailers, and “making the cold call obsolete”. He retired from the University of North Texas in 2016 where he launched and led the Digital Retailing degree program, and was Senior Director of the UNT Global Digital Retailing Research Center. Mr. Last has over 20 years of industry experience in Digital Retailing. Under his leadership, JCPenney began selling merchandise via the Web in Oct.1994, the first Department Store online, and by 2005, the first $1 Billion Apparel and Home Furnishings website. Earlier, he led JCPenney’s international expansion of its catalog business in the 90’s, operating specialty catalog businesses in Japan, the United Kingdom, Mexico, and Chile.

From 2007-11, Mr. Last served as Chairman of Shop.org, the digital division of the National Retail Federation. He served on the Shop.org Board for 10 years. He currently serves on the Editorial Boards of Total Retail and of Retail Touchpoints. He served on the National Retail Federation Board of Directors from 2004-08, and the NRF Foundation Board from 2010-11. He joined the Advisory Board of Evergreen Trading in 2018.

Mr. Last resides in Plano, Texas with his wife, Linda. He is fortunate to have his two children and four grandchildren all residing in the Plano area.

Richard Last Points
Academic 0
Author 5
Influencer 3
Speaker 3
Entrepreneur 110
Total 121

Points based upon Thinkers360 patent-pending algorithm.

Thought Leader Profile

Portfolio Mix

Company Information

Company Type: Company
Business Unit: co-owner
Theatre: United States
Minimum Project Size: Undisclosed
Average Hourly Rate: Undisclosed
Number of Employees: Undisclosed
Company Founded Date: Undisclosed
Media Experience: 30 years
Last Media Training: 07/18/2019
Last Media Interview: 07/01/2019

Areas of Expertise

Digital Disruption 30.14
Retail 38.08
Sales 30.11
Customer Experience 30.24
Emerging Technology 30.05
Innovation 30.79
EdTech 33.39
Business Strategy 30.12

Industry Experience

Publications

3 Advisory Board Memberships
Evergreen Trading
Evergreen trading
August 01, 2018
Unlock greater value for your organization.

Convert assets into investment capital
Invest in media markets ahead of demand
Optimize greater return on investment

Trade enables what we do. We convert assets into capital, which then becomes the engine for our media investment model. Whether you’re looking to improve overall ROI (and who isn’t?), get incremental efficiency from your marketing budgets or find a way to fund innovation, the answer just may be in your assets.

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Tags: Innovation, Retail

SafeRock
SafeRock
April 01, 2017

SafeR​ock is an analytics and strategy firm that advises preeminent US and international companies to improve company value and efficiency. SafeRock leverages strategic partners who are experts in retail technology and strategy for businesses

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Tags: Retail

Retail TouchPoints
Retail TouchPoints
May 01, 2015
We have a combined 50 years experience in retail industry. We specialize in custom content: white papers- ebooks-webinars-custom research-lead generation. Targeted promotions that will get you results!

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Tags: Retail

5 Article/Blogs
Streamlined Sales Tax: Marketplace Fairness…for whom?
linkedin
August 07, 2015
As Back-to-School tax-free weekends make their annual appearance in many states, you can’t help but think about sales tax in general, and a favorite issue for national retailers to commiserate about: online-only and catalog retailers collecting sales tax only in states where they have a physical nexus.

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Tags: Retail, Sales

Who needs one hour delivery when you can have it in two to four weeks?
linkedin
June 18, 2015
A growing ecommerce trend I’ve been seeing in the last several months that is beginning to get real momentum is the ability to buy direct from overseas (mainly China) through the online marketplaces. Some of the more interesting sites to take a look at are “Light In The Box” and, more recently “Wish”. Plus, as the big international players like Alibaba, through their “11 Main” website and Rakuten through “Rakuten.com” (formery Buy.com) establish themselves more and more in the US as competitors to Amazon’s marketplace and eBay, Don’t be surprised to see more direct-from-China offerings appear on their sites as well.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Retail

Responsive design – is it pixels or percentages?
linkedin
May 26, 2015
Responsive web design (RWD) has become a big discussion topic among ecommerce practitioners over the last two years. So what is responsive web design anyway? Simply put, RWD is a design approach aimed at crafting websites to provide an optimal and consistent viewing experience with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling across a wide range of devices by using flexible grids and breakpoints by screen size. Given that half of our online customers access websites via mobile devices, and given that mobile devices can range from smart phones to plus size smart phones to tablets to mini tablets, it follows that RWD is a “no brainer”. Here are some other good reasons to think responsive when it comes to design:

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Tags: Customer Experience, Retail

Ecommerce: Not your mother’s flagship store
linkedin
April 28, 2015
“My ecommerce site is just another store”. “My ecommerce site is my largest store”. “My ecommerce site is my flagship store”. All of these statements are true. However, in order to fully leverage the ecommerce opportunity, your ecommerce site is all of the above, and much more! To optimize your ecommerce, there are two important principles to follow:

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Tags: Retail

Twelve Transformational Digital Retail Technologies Explained (Part 2)
linkedin
March 25, 2015
Will these 12 emerging technologies transform retailing? You decide!

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Tags: Emerging Technology, Retail

1 Board Membership
University of North Texas
UNT
February 01, 2019
As one of the nation’s largest public universities and the most comprehensive in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, we are dedicated to providing an excellent educational experience to our 36,000 students. UNT is a student-focused public research university with 12 colleges and schools offering 97 bachelor’s, 81 master’s and 35 doctoral degree programs, many nationally and internationally recognized.

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Tags: EdTech, Education

1 Founder
Axcelora
Axcelora
January 01, 2015

Axcelora is a sales management consulting firm in the business of helping retail service providers get sales appointments with key purchase decision makers within retail chains. Axcelora offers a shortcut around the typical road blocks to getting personal appointments with the right retail chain store decision makers. Because we personally evaluate and book the appointment, you know all parties have been reviewed, vetted and the stage is set for a positive sales interaction.


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Tags: Retail

1 Media Interview
Advisory Board member
Evergreen Trading Blog
August 01, 2019
Evergreen Trading recently sat down with Board of Advisory member Rich Last to get his perspective on retail. This article is the result of that conversation. Rich has enjoyed a 25-year career in digital retailing including his launch and leadership of the Digital Retailing degree program within the University of North Texas.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Customer Experience, Retail

1 Webinar
Advisory Board Member
Total Retail
November 01, 2017
Richard Last, chairman emeritus, board of directors, Shop.org; founding partner, Axcelora; senior director, Global Digital Retailing Research Center, University of North Texas, offers his insights into the state of the retail industry, including how legacy brick-and-mortar retailers must evolve in order to remain viable in today's digital environment, the technologies he's most bullish on as we enter the holiday shopping season and 2018,

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Tags: Customer Experience, Digital Disruption, Retail

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Richard Last