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It's Time for E-Retailers to Reinvest, Refresh and Recommit
As we prepare for our sixth annual 2010 Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition on June 8-11 at Chicago's new McCormick Place West, nearly everyone in the online retailing industry has good reason to breathe a collective sigh of relief. The worst recession since the great depression, which had us in its grips just a year ago, is over, and GDP is on the rise. And e-retailers, whose businesses continued growing in 2009 even as retail store sales slumped, have good reason to look forward to the real prospect that online merchandising will resume its storied double-digit sales growth.
That's really good news, but it comes with a formidable challenge. During the recession, many e-retailers, including some industry leaders, took a bit of a break from their practice of continually reinventing their e-commerce businesses. Given the severity of the past year's economic storm, that was understandable. But the Great Recession of 2008-09 also exposed the underlying shift taking place in retailing from offline to online. This shift has been underway for years, but when retail stores and sites were both growing, it was easy to overlook. The recession put the image of this long-term trend in stark relief; online sales grew, store sales declined. Suddenly, those retail chains and consumer manufacturers that had given their web businesses short shrift got the message and began pouring financial and human resources in retail web development. The result: in the holiday season just ending, the big retailers who had made the investments in the web grabbed a bigger share of online seasonal shopping.
The Time to Reboot is Now
So, as e-retailing returns to double-digit growth in 2010, the message to all e-retailers—large and small and from every industry segment—is crystal clear: Resting on laurels, standing pat on web development, and ignoring advances in e-retailing technology and business practices are an express ticket to oblivion. More than ever before, 2010 is the time to reconnect and recommit to your online retail business. The stakes are huge; so is the opportunity for growth.
IRCE 2010 Is Designed to Meet the Challenge
The Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition became the world's largest e-retailing event—double the size of the two other shows combined—not by being the first but by being the best at meeting the e-retailers' needs for comprehensive, detailed and unbiased information on the ever-changing requirements for retailing success online. As e-retailers gear up to meet the challenges created by their industry's return to double-digit growth, they will find that IRCE 2010 is more than ready to help.
Here's what you'll find at IRCE 2010 to help you reboot your e-retailing business in the coming year:
- An Unrivaled Conference Agenda: There are 91 conference sessions covering every current e-retailing trend and all address this year's conference theme—the rebooting imperative.
- The Largest and Most Expert Speaker Faculty: Fully 175 e-retailing pros make up this year's speakers' roster—all selected independently by Internet Retailer's editors based solely on their expertise on their subject matter and not on commercial relationships.
- The Largest Exhibit Hall in E-Retailing: With 375 exhibiting companies, the Exhibit Hall at IRCE 2010 offers visitors the chance to see the world's largest display of e-commerce technology under one roof. Even if you can't attend the Conference, the Exhibition alone is worth the trip to Chicago's McCormick Place this June.
- Excellent Conference Management: Our expanded conference management team is prepped and committed to providing the incomparable service and attention to detail that distinguishes IRCE events in the eyes of attendees and exhibitors (check out their reviews).
You may notice that my invitation for you to attend IRCE 2010 is not peppered with urgent "must-attend" conference marketing hyperbole. But it does come with this solemn promise: What you learn at IRCE 2010 will help you prosper and grow your e-retailing business, and you will return home knowing that your investment in attending will pay dividends for many years to come.
Kindest Regards,
Jack Love
Publisher
In his annual open invitation for IRCE 2010, Internet Retailer Publisher Jack Love explains why this year's conference focuses on the urgent need for e-retailers to reinvest and reinvent their online retail businesses in the wake of the recession in order to capitalize on the industry's certain return to double-digit growth. See Publisher's Invitation
As the world's largest e-retailing show, at IRCE, every key industry is represented—retail, catalog, manufacturing and consumer service companies that specialize in e-retailing. Virtually all of the Top 500 e-retailers attend as well as hundreds of smaller players that fall outside this prestigious group. Of course, all notable vendors in e-commerce are represented along with scores of finance, research, consulting and publishing enterprises. See Attendee Demographics