IRCE 2008 Session Descriptions

The Internet has created retail opportunities that didn't exist before and that were inconceivable before the Internet. For instance, there was no such thing as print-ondemand books before the creation of the web. Now there are several companies that enable authors to upload manuscripts and format them for printing. The books are printed only when a reader buys one. Similarly, in the old days, amateur photographers took their film to local outlets for developing and printing or mailed it to a lab, where they ran the risk of it getting lost in the mail. Today, photographers can not only upload their pictures to numerous photo sites, but they can do all kinds of things with them that they could never have done—or done only for a high cost—in the pre-web world. Our speakers head up two innovative online retailing companies. They will talk about how they came up with the ideas for their sites, what it took to execute them, how they convinced investors that the sites had a future and what areas of expansion they might move into.