Carrefour, Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Kingfisher, Ocado and more were all at the World Retail Congress last week. But it took one maverick online auction house to highlight the gulf in attitude, personality and energy between ‘brick’ retailers and those pursuing clicks.

While Carrefour CEO Georges Plassat represented the traditionalists with a heartfelt but comparatively muted defence of big box grocery, Vente-Privee founder and CEO Jacques-Antoine Granjon inspired and informed in equal measure. He deals in heavy discounts, and online at that (Vente-Privee sells luxury fashion, wine and music at steep discounts to its 19 million European members in ‘flash sales’), but grocery could learn a thing or two from his ethos, if not business model.

Granjon argued controversially that e-commerce is dead - and that now it’s about commerce, period. Success boiled down not just to the mechanics of channel, but also to understanding the fundamentals of business, he said. His speech was devoid of references to omnichannel, the phrase du jour. Instead, he attributed his success to having the right inventory coupled with the right deals, and great customer service combined with the power of brand.

On inventory and deals, he said: “You feed your traffic with the offers and the traffic feeds your website. Our DNA is inventory and the internet drives this model. The internet is a mail order company, only faster.”

On customer service: “You need to answer your customer … with a voice that makes them know you are behind the screen and taking care of them.”

And on change: “In the future, people will give phones to their children almost when they are born, because they will want to track them. At Vente-Privee, we do 40% of our sales through smartphone.”

The message was simple: shoppers should be at the core of every transformation. Today, people expect a relationship with retail that is everywhere, instant and personal. Great relationships with customers will deliver profit through ongoing loyalty - in-store, online and mobile.

Simon Hathaway is president of shopper marketing and retail operations at Cheil Worldwide