IRCE 2010 reports a 34% growth in registrations

Pre-show registration for the 6th annual Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition, June 8-11 at McCormick Place West in Chicago, is running 34% ahead of last year’s pace, Internet Retailer announced today. As a result, the company projects total attendance at IRCE 2010 will exceed 6,000 and set an attendance record for any e-commerce event.

“Last year our total attendance at IRCE dropped 6% to 4,826 because of the economy’s deep recession,” Internet Retailer president & CEO Jack Love says. “We were planning on a solid comeback this year, but none of us expected anything quite this good.”

The company reports that IRCE’s registration growth is coming from the top four sectors of the e-commerce industry:

• Web-only retailers, traditionally the largest group of attendees, account for 28% of current registrants, compared to 26.5% last year.
• Retail chains make up 19% of this year’s registrants, up from 17% last year.
• Catalogers account for 12% vs. 9% in 2009
• Manufacturers account for 12% of this year’s registrants, compared to 10% last year.

“The industries that are leading the e-commerce business are the same ones that are benefitting from the return to double-digit growth in that business in the last six months,” Love explains. “More than anyone else, they understand the need to revitalize their web sites in order to capitalize on the industry’s growth. That effort begins by learning the competitive e-commerce practices our speakers teach at IRCE.”

The only sectors with a smaller share of current paid conference registrations are financial services, which account for 3% this year vs. 5% in 2009, and e-commerce solution providers, which accounted for 17% of conference registrations in 2009 but just 11% so far this year. “The financial service players are still licking their wounds from last year’s financial crash,” Love says. “They’ll be back in force whenever mortgage and other types of consumer lending return to health.”

Love attributes the decline in paid conference registrations from e-commerce vendors to the 10% growth in exhibits at IRCE 2010. This year, the 170,000-square-foot Exhibit Hall at IRCE will house booths from 405 industry vendors, compared to 368 a year ago. “More e-commerce vendors are attending the show this year by purchasing a booth instead of buying a pass to the conference,” says Love, pointing to the growth of the Exhibit Hall as another sign of the strong recovery of e-commerce activity. “Once again, IRCE’s Exhibit Hall will host the world’s largest display of e-commerce solutions under one roof.”

Full details on the Internet Retailer Conference are at www.irce2010.com.

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