E-mail marketing continues as a very effective marketing medium, but deliverability remains a big issue and rules and best practices are constantly changing. Retailers who don't keep up with the latest rules and best practices regarding deliverability will find their e-mail marketing programs rapidly becoming less effective. This session will examine the most recent trends in e-mail deliverability and tell retailers about some of the most important but least understood aspects of today's successful e-mail marketing programs. Our speakers will provide details on such issues as:

• New methods of list segmentation, including segmenting messages by IP addresses depending on the message, such as order confirmation; shipping notifications; marketing and so on;
• The importance of making sure your e-mail is free of such threats to ISPs as malware, viruses and Trojan horses;
• How to stay out of ISPs' spam traps, how to know if you're caught in one and how to use ISPs' free services to stay out of them
• The importance of ISPs' white lists and how to make sure you stay on the lists
• What it takes to stay out of the Junk folders in Outlook and other desktop e-mail programs.

The right links are fuel for a retail web site's search engine rankings. But building the right links is among the most difficult, misunderstood and poorly executed aspects of search engine optimization. There are two kinds of links that retailers should focus on to improve such rankings. Links from an e-retailer's product page to other relevant product pages within the site—with relevant, as judged by the search engine spider, being the keyword—is one type. But a retailer can't just put a bunch of links on a site to achieve a higher rank without taking into account whether the links achieve business goals. Such links must make merchandising and business sense, otherwise they will interfere with the shopper's experience and possibly have a deleterious effect on a retail site. The second kind of link is links coming into a site from external sources, which retailers have a lot less control over. A link from a hunting magazine to an outdoor retail site is a link from an authoritative external site and those kinds of links can boost a retailer's search rankings. But they are much harder to achieve because they require persuading the outside site to link to the retailer's site, a mostly manual process. This session will examine criteria for evaluating a link's value, creative link building strategies, link building dos and don'ts, and how to leverage affiliates and social media content. It will tell attendees how seemingly innocent practices can undermine a search engine optimization program and how best practices in search marketing are likely to change in the near future.

Just about the only thing that hasn't changed in online marketing and advertising is the effectiveness of pay-per-click search engine marketing. As it has for several years, pay per click's ROI continues to be about the highest in the advertising industry. But that doesn't mean retailers can't find better ways to do things. This workshop will bring retailers up to date on the latest specific techniques in pay-per-click marketing, such as how to track keyword buys to profitable sales and not just sales; how marketing certain keywords at certain times of day increases clicks and sales; and geo-targeting, in which keywords that perform marginally in one geographic area perform better in others. This workshop will also examine ways that retailers can use to their benefit Google's and Yahoo's rules for searches outside the U.S. Our speakers in this session will provide specific information on pay-per-click techniques and tactics that increase sales and profits.

Almost simultaneous with the birth of online retailing was the birth of comparison shopping sites. At first just technology that scraped retail web sites for product and pricing information, comparison shopping sites have grown into very sophisticated, important parts of the online selling business. Online retailers today must manage their listings on comparison sites the same way they manage their appearance in Internet search engine results, with the same outcome: Those who know the rules and stay on top of the game will trounce those who take a more laissez-faire attitude to comparison engines. This session features an expert who helps retailers manage their presence on comparison shopping engines and retailers who make extensive use of comparison shopping sites. They will lay out everything a retailer needs to know about getting the most out of comparison shopping sites, including how to determine which sites your products should appear on, how to keep information up to date, how to manage pricing to the best advantage, what besides pricing influences shoppers to buy, how to manage ROI on comparison shopping engines and what kind of staff is required to execute an effective comparison shopping strategy.

Affiliate marketing programs are often the quiet one of the major online marketing methods. Whereas marketers can view e-mail click-through and conversion rates within minutes of a send and can easily go to Google or Yahoo to see where they rank in search results, it's not so easy to see what an affiliate marketing program is doing. But just as the other marketing methods need constant management, so do affiliate programs. This workshop will examine such important areas as how to streamline the connection process so affiliates can easily link to a retail site and get the latest product and promotional data; how to reward affiliates so that top producers get a higher incentive and how those tiered rewards have changed in the past year; and how to make sure you are competitive with other marketers using your affiliates. In addition, retailers can undertake behind-the-scenes initiatives that help affiliates do a better job, such as providing affiliates with a daily stream of user reviews, which allows pages to be fresh every day to maximize search engine indexing; color swatching, which makes an affiliate site more engaging for a viewer; and links to similar products, which affords an affiliate the opportunity to earn more commissions. Our two retailer speakers this session manage affiliate programs. They will discuss their different approaches and why they manage their programs the way they do and what changes they have observed and reacted to in the past year. Our third speaker is a leading consultant who advises retailers on affiliate management. He will talk about the changes he has seen in affiliate marketing in the past year and assess their appropriateness for different kinds of retailers.

One of the most important basic decisions a retailer can make is about which e-commerce platform to utilize. The first challenge is determining which kind of platform—an all-in-one hosted platform or a go-it-alone platform—suits the retailer's goals best. This session will examine how a retailer decides whether to partner with an all-in-one platform, such as Yahoo Stores, eBay and eBay ProStores, and Amazon, or to go it alone entirely. Our speakers will walk retailers through how to analyze the offerings in each option, what questions to ask providers, and how to make sure that you can migrate to a more robust site when your growth warrants it. It will also look at how retailers make that decision to move to a bigger platform and examine whether it makes sense to be on more than one platform during and after a migration. Finally, it will look at instances when it makes most sense to stay with a third-party. Our speakers all have experience in dealing with all-in-one sites and managing a transition to independence and, in one case, moving back to the hosted environment.

Two elements most crucial to a successful retail web site are design and content. Many small online retailers start with designs they created themselves after buying a book on HTML. Such an approach can get a site going and it can be beneficial for the owner to know the coding and technology behind web sites. But such designs are good only for starting out. The same is true for online content: A retailer may experience initial success by having a site's content manually updated, but once product offerings and customers reach a certain number, the challenges increase dramatically. This session will walk retailers through how to analyze their site design, how to know what needs improving and how to improve it. Our speakers also will discuss the potential cost of a redesign and how to choose a design company. This session will also help online retailers understand the options for product descriptions and images, including creating them inhouse, using standard descriptions and images that manufacturers provide and using descriptions and images that third-party content providers create. This session will also examine how retailers ensure that descriptions and images remain relevant to current offerings and the technology needed to ensure that descriptions and images are applied to the right products. Our speakers will examine real-life examples and provide detailed guidance about how sites can be improved and what results a retailer can expect from making the changes.

As the e-retailing market goes mainstream, all participants will be forced to upgrade their e-commerce platforms. This session will help small to mid-sized retailers determine what they need to do to take their e-commerce platform to the next level. It will look at what kind of functionality the platform should have, what the cost should be of upgrading, how to prioritize investments, what's a must-have today that was optional before, how to choose a vendor and how to hold the vendor accountable. It also will examine the inhouse vs. outsource debate and help retailers weigh the benefits and drawbacks to inhouse operation, outsourcing and the software-as-a-service option. Our speakers this session have experience choosing and implementing technology for small and mid-sized sites.

Some of the promise of the Internet lies in the ability to manage distributed functions. Nowhere is that truer than in fulfillment and distribution. Online retailers can start up with very little investment in inventory by adopting a drop-shipping strategy, in which the manufacturer houses the inventory and ships individual orders at the retailer's direction. A step up from that is to hire a third-party fulfillment company to inventory the merchandise and fulfill orders. And there's the in-house option, whereby a retailer stocks the merchandise and fulfills orders. There also are hybrid options that mix two or even three of these approaches. On top of that are the issues surrounding choosing a carrier. DHL, FedEx, UPS and the U.S. Postal Service all battle for e-retailers' shipping business, meaning even the smallest online retailers can negotiate deals with the carriers that will not only lower costs but speed up delivery. This session will examine the benefits and drawbacks of all the approaches in terms of control of the process, investment in inventory and responsiveness to customers. It will help retailers make their fulfillment and inventory decisions based on their company's objectives and investment goals. And it will specifically address how to negotiate with carriers for the best pricing and delivery terms.

Many small and mid-sized retailers believe they are at the mercy of the card companies when it comes to discounts and fees for accepting credit cards. But that is not true. Small and mid-sized retailers who possess a track record of low fraud and low chargebacks can qualify for lower rates from card companies. In addition, the payment processing marketing is becoming more competitive as PayPal and Google offer payment and checkout services and a number of alternative payment providers coming into the market. This session will provide retailers with tips on how to shop for the best payment services, compare offers, negotiate lower rates and analyze alternatives to credit cards. Our speakers are a payments consultant who will explain to attendees how to analyze card deals and a small retailer who has negotiated favorable terms with payment processors.

Online marketing is incredibly complex and a lot of small and mid-sized retailers have learned through trial and error what works and what doesn't. But learning that way is expensive and small retailers can often ill afford such lessons. This workshop will dissect the advertising and marketing options for small retailers, help them navigate their marketing options and lay out a way to determine the ROI on each component. It will discuss such issues as: how to balance the costs of pay-per-click search engine marketing and search engine optimization and how to know when to do each; tips and tricks for low-cost e-mail marketing that creates profitable sales; how to manage an affiliate marketing program that produces results but does not unduly tax the retailer's resources; and how to control costs on comparison shopping sites. In addition, our speakers will tell retailers where they can find objective, outside information that they can use to make their marketing decisions.

Among vendors to e-retailers, the most numerous are search engine marketing and search engine optimization companies, with scores of companies offering such services. The choices are so numerous they can overwhelm small retailers and create decision gridlock. This session will lay out in detail the criteria by which e-retailers should choose a search engine company. It will cover such topics as: analyzing a search company's client base and the results the company has achieved for those clients; determining whether the size of your company fits appropriately into the company's client mix; analyzing search companies' promises to determine which are reasonable and which are pie in the sky; what performance guarantees a retailer should expect; reasonable fees for certain services; and more.

In the early days of e-commerce, some retailers jumped onto the Internet without a clear idea of where online retailing would lead. But they could see that the Internet would change the whole retailing industry and they wanted to be leaders. The same thing is happening with m-commerce. Few retailers or analysts will say with confidence what mobile commerce will look like five years from now. But many look at the forces behind the mobile revolution—an always-connected, on-the-move younger generation that is influencing their parents and who will not sit still to be connected via a computer. These retailers are experimenting with all kinds of m-commerce and much of what they're doing today is building a foundation for what mainstream retailers will be doing in the not-too-distant tomorrow. Our keynote speaker this session heads up the m-commerce initiative at Moosejaw Mountaineering, an outdoor equipment online and store retailer that has decided it wants to master m-commerce now, when there is still market share to be moved by an m-commerce strategy and the costs of failing in a test are low. But the funny thing about Moosejaw Mountaineering's m-commerce approach is that it has tried a lot and failures have been few. Gary Wohlfeill will discuss what Moosejaw has tried with its entertaining and innovative m-commerce strategy, what it plans to try and the benefits the company has gained as a result.

There are many reasons to sell and market via mobile devices and many ways to undertake such initiatives. As with any emerging way of doing business, though, there are as many ways to analyze success as there are approaches. This session will help retailers understand the best approach for their business. It will examine such issues as the size of the m-commerce market (60.8 million U.S. consumers browse the Internet from their cell phones), who's buying via m-commerce and what they're buying. It will then look at product categories that are likely to experience near-term success in mobile and which categories will take longer-term planning. Our first speaker implemented the mobile strategy at American Greetings and now is an investor in various mobile retailing and marketing ventures. He will help retailers understand how the market is developing and how to determine which products are likely to experience the most success in m- commerce. He will be followed by a retailer who is selling via m-commerce and who will walk attendees through all the steps his company took in making the determination to sell through m-commerce.

It seems obvious that m-commerce is going to happen. Virtually the entire adult population is communicating via mobile devices and new technology such as the iPhone and other smart phones have taken off. But nothing will happen without a mobile webóa subset of the World Wide Web with its own protocols and challenges. This session will explain what the mobile web is and what retailers must do so sites are suitable for the mobile web. It will also examine what it will take to make m-commerce happen and how soon it will take off, addressing such issues as who the big users are today, what motivates them to shop online, which products sell best online and how the market will change as the technology develops. It will also examine projections for m-commerce in relation to e-commerce and discuss the forces that will drive shoppers to m-commerce and examine whether m-commerce will create incremental sales or will displace ecommerce and offline sales. This session will also discuss which products are likely to sell first in an m-commerce world and which will have to wait for the medium to develop further.

The infrastructure for m-commerce is in place already. Except for the most remote regions, the entire US and Canada are covered by Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile cellular networks. But the networks were created for voice and personal use, not for commercial use with the higher volumes and greater demand for reliability that commercial uses will demand. In this session, an analyst will detail what the major cellular providers are doing to make the infrastructure ready for m-commerce and the initiatives they are undertaking to encourage and support m-commerce applications.

Not only is the communications infrastructure that will facilitate m-commerce in place, consumers have the interface device in their hands already. More than 200 million Americans possess and use mobile devices. And many are already use their mobile phones to browse the Internet. In addition, the hype surrounding the release of the iPhone this past summer indicated that many are perfectly willing to give up their current units for more advanced functionality—even at a higher price. This session will look at what's in the marketplace now, what retailers need to know about today's devices to make m- commerce happen, what's coming in mobile device technology, how advanced capabilities of the phones will promote further use of m-commerce and how the entire mcommerce industry of the future will be shaped by the devices.

No one will deny that retailers are hesitant to commit too resources to an untested medium. But a low-cost way to test m-commerce is through m-shopping malls. Such malls perform the translation work of making web sites look nice on small screens and perform marketing activities to bring in consumers. Through such malls, retailers can display products and create offers without huge investments. This session will examine what retailers must do to participate in the malls and what the benefits are. It will also highlight one retailer's experience and evolution as it developed its m-mall strategy.

Just as the Internet won't work as a retail medium without browsers and e-commerce platforms, neither will wireless services work without m-commerce platforms and mobile browsers. This session will examine m-commerce platform decisions and help retailers choose the platform that is right for them. And just as consumers access the Internet through different browsers, so will they access mobile sites. Already developers are creating competing browsers. This session will bring retailers up to date on the latest browsers and tell them what they need to know so their products will display properly in all browsers.

Smart phones with their bigger more sophisticated displays may be on their way, but they're not here yet. So today's mobile sites for the average cell phone should be like haiku, distilling a big retail web site down to its essence. With small screens, browser software from at least seven possible carriers and handset controls that have literally hundreds of small variations depending on manufacturer and model, cell phones are a web developer's nightmare. Stripping things down is only the first step. After that, retailers face a multitude of decisions about images, amount of content and degree of functionality. Our speakers in this session will walk attendees through what they need to know to present the best image to consumers who are shopping via handsets. Our first speaker has studied a variety of mobile sites and he will discuss what they have common and how they differ. Our second speaker has designed mobile sites for a number of retailer clients. He will discuss the challenges that his retailers faced in creating mobilefriendly sites. Our third speaker has implemented a mobile web site and will discuss what he had to do ensure success.

Just as the Internet changed how retailers engage consumers, so will mobile commerce. But the m-commerce format will create even more challenges than retailers faced with e-commerce. For starters, the Internet was made for hours of browsing. But mobile messages will have to grab and engage consumers with a strong call to action. And for mobile devices to work as transaction devices, they will have to present a clear task for consumers to perform and a direct way of completing the transaction. Our first speaker this session will examine the formats that m-marketing might take. Our second speaker will describe how ShopText allows any text-enabled mobile device to trigger wireless e-commerce. The call to action can appear in print, radio or TV media; in stores; online or in mobile media.

The burgeoning field of m-commerce has given consumers the ability to purchase goods from their mobile phones. Now m-commerce and in-store shopping are coming together. One of the first areas where that convergence is taking place is couponing. Some retailers are participating in early projects that deliver coupons to customers via their mobile phones—and the coupons are good only when the customer presents them on the phone screen at checkout. This session will feature an executive from a leading mobile coupon company—Cellfire—who will discuss how the program works and what benefits a retailer gets from mobile coupons that it wouldn't get with paper coupons. He will be followed by a retailer who participates in the Cellfire program who will discuss what it took to be able to offer mobile coupons and the benefits the company has derived.

Yahoo Merchant Solutions offers almost everything a merchant needs to set up shop: the platform, design templates, easy-to-use product uploads, third-party order management systems integrated with the Yahoo Stores platform, e-mail templates, search engine marketing guidance, payment processing and fraud management. This session will detail the steps in deciding if the Yahoo platform is right for you, how to decide which features to take advantage of, how to leverage Yahoo's knowledge in search engine marketing, which features a retailer should integrate from outside the Yahoo platform and which to take advantage of inside the platform. It will also address recent enhancements to the Yahoo Merchants Solution platform and what they mean for retailers' ability to remain competitive.

No other company in history has expanded the concept of retailing as much as eBay has. More than 750,000 people make primary or secondary income selling on eBay and another 1.5 million supplement their income with eBay sales. In addition, eBay hosts 532,000 stores worldwide. Sellers transacted $59.3 billion in sales in 2007—and those sellers included not just individuals who have used eBay to create their own companies but also major retail and manufacturing brands that are using eBay to expand their market shares. But as eBay's popularity continues to grow, the competition to stand out among all the sellers gets fiercer. This session will provide practical tips for small and large retailers alike using the eBay platform. It will examine such eBay platform offerings as designing a site and managing content, creating cross-sells and upsells, making the most of e-mail and search engine marketing options, managing costs and tracking results. This session will also discuss eBay's ProStores platform, which is designed to help growing retailers move from selling on eBay to creating stand-alone stores with their own identities.

Amazon is widely regarded as the retailer that proved the Internet retailing concept. It now offers its expertise in e-retailing to other retailers. Amazon offers the platform, secure payment processing, marketing assistance and other e-retailing functionality. What makes the Amazon platform different from the others is that Amazon Webstore retailers can offer products from the Amazon store in addition to their own products. This session will tell retailers how they can expand their product lines with offerings from Amazon and how Amazon products and a retailer's own product line can add up to a successful online store.

Consumers employ many different methods to find retailers. Among them are the online shopping malls—Yahoo Shopping, MSN Shopping and AOL Shopping. Combined, these malls attract millions of unique visitors a month. This session will explain how to stand out on the shopping malls, how to make sure the malls present your products well, how to make sure that your product listings on the malls are up to date, when to invest in the extras that bring you to the forefront of the sites, how to supplement your listings on the e-shopping malls with marketing of your own and what it takes in terms of in-house staff to manage the relationship.

The day-long workshop will be capped by a leading consultant who will help attendees sort through everything they've heard throughout the day and help them analyze which approaches make the best sense for their particular business. Among the topics this consultant will discuss are: The benefits, drawbacks and challenges of each platform; what skills to look for in staff who will manage the relationship with the platform; how to sync marketing with the capabilities of the platform; how to ensure that the platform provides enough capacity to keep up with marketing spikes and general growth; and how to know when it's time to spread your wings and fly to a stand-alone site.