Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition (IRCE) 2014 Guide by IRCE

FEATURING:

eBay Inc. John Donahoe Chief Executive Officer & President

Wikipedia Jimmy Wales Chief Executive Officer & Founder

Wayfair.com Niraj Shah Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder

Joyus Sukhinder Singh Cassidy Chairman & Founder

JUNE 10-13, 2014 | CHICAGO, IL

PREVIEW GUIDE MCCORMICK PLACE WEST

• 220 Expert Speakers

DIAMOND SPONSORS:

• 130 Conference Sessions

• 600+ Exhibits

OFFICIAL PUBLICATION AND MEDIA SPONSOR:

• 10,000+ Attendees

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE The Top Benefits of Attending IRCE 2014 ................ 4

Table of

Daily Agendas-at-a-Glance .......................................... 6

Contents

Agendas: Pre-Show, Main Days and Post-Show .....10 Exhibit Hall and Exhibitor Overview ........................ 36 IRCE 2014 Networking: The Event of the Year ...... 39 Hotel and Travel Information .....................................40 Registration and Pricing.............................................. 42 “Thank You” to Our Sponsors ....................Back Cover

2014Overview

Conference

IRCE: CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF CHANGING, CONNECTING AND CREATING

IRCE 2014 promises to be an extraordinary event as we celebrate our 10th year as the world’s largest e-commerce conference and exhibition. An anticipated 10,000 attendees will convene at Chicago’s McCormick Place June 10-13. Online and bricks and mortar retailers, product manufacturers, marketers, distributors and consumer service professionals from around the world attend IRCE to hear from 200+ trailblazing expert speakers and to explore 600+ solution providers in the exhibit hall. If your business is online, IRCE has the education and the technology to help you grow!

E-Commerce Everywhere: Bonding with Shoppers Through Content and Community Creating a bond between a retailer and a customer has never been easier—or harder—than it is today. Consumers are more reachable than ever, thanks to e-mail, texts, Facebook, Twitter and the like. And they are more willing to give marketers personal data than ever. But they also receive many more marketing messages than they used to, and so they’ve become more adept at filtering messages and weighing offers. Despite the challenges, the effort to bond with customers is worth it. Regular customers buy more and are bigger evangelists for your brand than the occasional customer. The Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition 2014 will examine all that goes into creating and cementing the customer relationship. Expert speakers will address such topics as: • harnessing the new power of social, mobile and video to connect with customers • designing and merchandising web sites that convert shoppers into buyers • creating marketing messages that customers relate to • providing stellar customer service that doesn’t break the bank • investing in the right technology at the right time • competing in a global market

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING. • • • •

succeeding in an online b2b market how small retailers can compete against bigger companies key strategies top retail executives must master regardless of company size or vertical how innovative chains remain nimble

VIDEO WORKSHOP: HOW VIDEO WILL TRANSFORM E-RETAIL

NEW for

Consumers watch more than 40 billion online videos a month and spend an average of 20 hours each month watching them. This all-day workshop will delve into the details of creating a video program from conception to execution. It will wrap up with 15 videos that will inspire marketers to create their own outstanding video initiatives.

2014!

AN INCREDIBLE SPEAKER ROSTER The trailblazers of e-commerce come together at the world’s largest e-commerce event. Crafted with the editorial experts at Internet Retailer, the IRCE agenda is designed around industry challenges and speakers are carefully selected to deliver the leading strategies in e-commerce. This diverse group of 200+ experts represents all areas of the industry.

THE LARGEST COLLECTION OF E-COMMERCE TECHNOLOGY, ALL UNDER ONE ROOF IRCE attendees complement what they learn in the conference sessions by visiting the exhibitors in the Exhibit Hall. The Exhibit Hall at IRCE 2014 offers the best opportunity e-commerce professionals will have in the next year to inspect first-hand the latest technologies that are creating the new retail economy. More than 600 companies will fill the floor, making it the largest display of services and technology in the e-commerce industry. See more information about the exhibit hall at IRCE on page 36.

THE NETWORKING EVENT OF THE YEAR Conversations that connect and cultivate clients. Camaraderie. And … a new car! These are some of the powerful lures that draw attendees from all facets of e-commerce to McCormick Place for four days of incredible networking at IRCE 2014. The IRCE Exhibit Hall serves as the epicenter of several fun events that cement the reputation of the world’s largest e-commerce show as the premier networking event of the year for professionals in online retailing. See more information about networking events at IRCE on page 39.

TUESDAY, JUNE 10: PRE-SHOW WORKSHOPS 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Features Three Concurrent Day-Long Workshops 1 Amazon & Me Workshop 2 E-Commerce Technology Workshop 3 Video Workshop

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11: MAIN DAY 1 General Sessions: 8:15–9:30 a.m. KEYNOTE SPEAKER: John Donahoe Chief Executive Officer & President eBay, Inc. GUEST SPEAKER: Jimmy Wales Chief Executive Officer & Founder Wikipedia Plus: 5 Breakout Tracks A Strategies for Top Executives B Retail Chains

C Global E-Retailing D Small Retailers E E-Marketing

THURSDAY, JUNE 12: MAIN DAY 2 General Sessions: 8:15–9:30 a.m. KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Niraj Shah Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder Wayfair.com FEATURED SPEAKER: Sukhinder Singh Cassidy Chairman & Founder Joyus Plus: 5 Breakout Tracks F Fulfillment, Customer Service & Operations G Social Commerce

H Technology I B2B J Design & Merchandising

FRIDAY, JUNE 13: POST-SHOW WORKSHOPS 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Features Three Concurrent Day-Long Workshops 1 Mobile Commerce 2 Search Marketing 3 Social Commerce

CHICAGO, IL | JUNE 10-13, 2014

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE

THE TOP

Benefits of No other event in the world rivals IRCE Celebrating its 10th Anniversary this June 10-13, the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition is the flagship event of the e-commerce industry. A gathering of retail trailblazers across every industry segment, IRCE is THE event to network with and learn from industry leaders of all sizes. Total attendance at IRCE 2014 in Chicago is projected to exceed 10,000. Last year, 12% more people attended the show than the year before and we expect to see extraordinary growth once again for the 10th edition of IRCE. • • • • •

IRCE’s renowned agenda continues to be developed by the editorial experts at Internet Retailer magazine 92% of attendees rate the conference as excellent or very good Our highly qualified audience represents companies of all sizes from every industry segment Our exhibit hall offers an unrivaled collection of vendors to provide solutions for your business As the largest event in the e-commerce industry, IRCE is THE networking event of the year

For all businesses looking for strategies to grow their online commerce revenue, there is no better conference than IRCE.

The Center of the Industry: The consistently high quality of the IRCE conference drives this continual growth. In the annual postshow attendee surveys, attendees consistently give very high ratings to the conference agenda, the unrivaled size of the Exhibit Hall and the quality and management of the overall event.

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING.

Attending

for size, quality and growth

The Highly Rated IRCE Experience:

IRCE is for Retailers of All Sizes and Types:

IRCE draws vendors and attendees from every industry segment. You can network and share best practices with industry colleagues you wouldn’t meet at other events. Retailers of all sizes—from entrepreneurs with less than $10 million in revenues to big hitters with more than $1 billion—attend IRCE to grow their online sales and profits. Our agenda features multiple tracks, including one just for CEOs/Top Executives and one for Small Retailers, to help you design the conference experience that most benefits your business. CHICAGO, IL | JUNE 10-13, 2014

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE

DAILY

9:00 a.m. 10:00 a.m.

Amazon & Me Registration and Breakfast

Technology Workshop Registration and Breakfast

Video Workshop Registration and Breakfast

Technology Workshop Welcome and Introduction

Video Workshop Welcome and Introduction

Amazon & Me Welcome and Introduction Amazon Under the Hood: Where It’s Investing

Get Smart: A Roadmap for Sound Technology Investments

Break (sponsored by ROI Revolution)

Conquer the Pain Points and Capture the ROI of Product Information Management Systems

Break

Going the YouTube Route: The Opportunities and the Challenges

Writing for Amazon: Make it Clear and Concise

3:00 p.m.

2:00 p.m.

1:00 p.m.

12:00 p.m.

11:00 a.m.

Getting and Managing Feedback Navigating Choice: Platform Selection and Implementation Leveraging Amazon’s Infrastructure: Is it for You?

Fulfillment by Amazon: Making Sure It’s Right for Your Operation

The Mobile Revolution Embraces Video

10 Questions to Ask Your Outsourced Video Provider

Lunch (sponsored by ROI Revolution)

Lunch Lunch

Understanding CRM as a Technology and a Process

Going Global: What You Need—and What You Need to Watch Out For

Video Without Breaking the Bank: Creating Professional Videos on an Amateur’s Budget

Advanced Tactics When Using Amazon Services Harnessing Video to Boost SEO Break (sponsored by ROI Revolution)

Mobile Commerce: Get Ready Today for Tomorrow

How an Acquisition Mindset Can Make You a Better Competitor—Even if You Want to Remain Independent

Break

Break Beyond Marketing: Video for Customer Service

Five Hot New Technology Developments

4:00 p.m.

A Chance to Ask About Everything Else You Want to Know About Amazon

Welcome Reception in the Exhibit Hall

6:00 p.m.

Amazon & Me Workshop

Using Video to Keep and Attract Shoppers— and Create Sales What All Marketers Should Know About Online Videos in 2014

Selling on Amazon’s Third Party Marketplace: What All E-Retailers Need to Know

5:00 p.m.

TUESDAY JUNE 10, 2014: PRE-SHOW WORKSHOPS

8:00 a.m.

7:00 a.m.

Agendas at–a–Glance

E-Commerce Technology Worskhop

Video Workshop

General event

15 Great Videos That All Marketers Can Grab Ideas From

7:00 a.m.

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING.

8:00 a.m.

Registration and Breakfast

Welcome and Introduction KEYNOTE: Connected Commerce: The New Opportunity for Retailers in an Evolving Retail Environment

9:00 a.m.

SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER: The Wikipedia Story: The Power of Community in the Online Era—and What it Means for Retailers

10:00 a.m. 11:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m. 1:00 p.m. 2:00 p.m. 3:00 p.m.

TRACK A:

TRACK B:

TRACK C:

TRACK D:

TRACK E: Less This, More That: Shifting from Search to Social Marketing

Scaling Your Business in Internet Time

Connecting Digital and Physical Assets to Compete Online

Where Global E-Commerce Growth Will Come in 2014—and Beyond

Leveraging the Difference: Marketing and Merchandising to Make Smaller E-Retailers Shine

National Sales Tax: What All Retailers Need to Know

Strategies to Make the Web Your No. 1 Most Profitable Store

Logistics Strategy to Avoid Last Mile Implosion: How to Adapt to Each Culture

Social Media for Small Retailers: Where Size Doesn’t Matter

Pictures Worth 1,000 Words: Developing a Visual Content Marketing Strategy

How Improving Fulfillment Through Outsourcing Helped Score My Next Funding Round

Refine E-Mail Targeting, Re-Engage Customers—and Rev Up Sales

Lunch in the Exhibit Hall

Lessons from the Internet Retailer Second 500

Fueling E-Mail Marketing Results with More Products, Not Discounts Recruiting Bloggers as Affiliates: Why—and How

Lunch in the Exhibit Hall

How to Compete as a Niche in Today’s Mass Market

Lunch in the Exhibit Hall

Leveraging Loyalty Insights In-Store, Overcoming Infrastructure Woes in Developing Countries Across Channel

Finding the Right C-Level Staff to Lead Your Organization into the E-Commerce Everywhere World

Building Engagement One Tablet at a Time

Preserve Brand Value and Relevance Across Multiple Cultures

Get Ready for Social Scrutiny: How Investors Weigh Your Social Success

Does Your Online Marketing Move the Offline Needle?

How Social Trumps Search to Boost Traffic and Conversion in China

5 Bootstrap Do’s and Don’ts to Grow a Strong E-Commerce Business

Break

A Mandate for Change: How to Align All the Moving Parts When It’s Time to Make an E-Commerce Transformation

How Chains are Selling to Millennials in a Noisy Social Economy

The Patent Battles: How to Do the Right Thing Without Caving in to Unfair Suits

Reducing Markdowns with Store-Based Fulfillment

A World Class Social Campaign for Rebounding from Penguin and More: the World Cup, Brazilian Style Lessons on Google Do the Homework: 7 Questions to Ask Before Entering a Market Abroad

The International Growth Opportunity for Small Retailers

Break Building on Strengths: Why Data Should Change Your Marketing Plan Every Quarter Paid Search Strategies for Multi-Channel Retailers in a Multi-Screen World

Cocktail Reception

6:00 p.m.

5:00 p.m.

4:00 p.m.

WEDNESDAY JUNE 11, 2014: MAIN DAY 1

Beverage Break in the Exhibit Hall

TRACK A: Success Strategies for Top Executives Track

TRACK C: Global E-Retailing Track

TRACK E: E-Marketing Track

TRACK B: Retail Chains Track

TRACK D: Small Retailers Track

General event

CHICAGO, IL | JUNE 10-13, 2014

7:00 a.m.

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE

8:00 a.m.

Registration and Breakfast

Welcome and Introduction

KEYNOTE: Connecting with Consumers by Giving Them What They Want

1:00 p.m.

12:00 p.m.

11:00 a.m.

10:00 a.m.

Beverage Break in the Exhibit Hall

4:00 p.m.

3:00 p.m.

2:00 p.m.

THURSDAY JUNE 12, 2014: MAIN DAY 2

9:00 a.m.

FEATURED ADDRESS: How the Video Experience is Transforming the Way People Shop

TRACK F: Are You a Customer Service Innovator?

Protecting Your Brand Against Holiday Shipping Disasters

Lunch in the Exhibit Hall Win the Wheel and Raffle Drawings

TRACK G: DIY: Build Your Own Social Network and Stock It with Super Fans

Crowdsourcing: You Cannot Tame the Beast—Just Keep It Happy

Lunch in the Exhibit Hall Win the Wheel and Raffle Drawings

TRACK H:

TRACK I:

TRACK J:

Reassessing and Rebuilding: A DIY Approach to Customizing an E-Commerce Platform

Top 3 Metrics that Matter for B2B Marketers in 2014

Make the Most of Your Traffic: Maximizing Conversion

Making Sense of All That Data

The B2B Opportunity: Have You Thought this Through?

Beat the Competition by Personalizing Content and Communication

How Smart B2B Site Design Can Ease Shopping for Buyers and Boost Sales

Name that Price: Price Negotiation on Retail Sites

Lunch in the Exhibit Hall Win the Wheel and Raffle Drawings

Lunch in the Exhibit Hall Lunch in the Exhibit Hall Win the Wheel and Raffle Drawings Win the Wheel and Raffle Drawings Streamlining Mobile Checkout

Spending Smart on Warehouse and Distribution Space: 10 Questions to Ask

Serve Yourself: Improving Site Content to Help Customers Help Themselves

Monetize Social with Shopper Analytics

Storm the Social Scene to Boost Sales and National Stature Listen Up! Consumer Input Improves the Product—So They Buy More

Break

Making Sure Technology Doesn’t Hinder Your Growth

Bringing the Energy Hog Under Control

Mobile Tsunami: Optimizing Your Retail Site for Revenue

Balancing Inventory When your B2B and B2C Selling Seasons are Different

Streamlining the App Update Process to Capture Mobile Sales

Master B2B to Reach New B2C Shoppers and Markets

Sharpening Your Web Site Content by Looking at Your Site as Shoppers Do

Break

Amazon-Level Customer Service— at a Price for the Rest of Us

Conversion Drivers: Go Beyond the Like to Make Social Work for Retail

How to Make Sure Your New Sales Tax Software Will Integrate with Your Systems and Keep You Out of Tax Trouble

How Mobile is Reshaping B2B Processes

Merchandising Via Mobile: Same Old Same Old, or Less is More

Customer Service Gets Social

Damage Control When Social Goes Bad

Tag Audits: How to Know if Your Product Tags are Helping or Harming You

Leveraging B2B Heft to Enter B2C Space

Neuromarketing: Where Science Meets the Art of Web Design

TRACK F: Fulfillment, Customer Service and Operations Track

TRACK H: Technology Track

TRACK J: Design & Merchandising Track

TRACK G: Social Commerce and Marketing Track

TRACK I: B2B Track

General event

7:00 a.m.

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING.

8:00 a.m.

Registration and Breakfast

Mobile Workshop Welcome and Introduction

9:00 a.m.

Social Workshop Welcome and Introduction

A Year Later: The Impact of Enhanced Campaigns

How E-Retailers Use Social to Enlist Artists as Ambassadors to Become a Globally Recognized Brand 10 Most Important Components Your Social Presence Needs

Staying Ahead of Mobile Shoppers’ Rising Expectations

10:00 a.m.

Mobile From 360 Degrees: Putting Mobile at the Center of Everything Break

Combining Search and Social Media to Guide Marketing Boost Conversion without a Social Cast of Thousands Break (sponsored by ROI Revolution) Break (sponsored by Social Annex)

Streamlining Paid Search for Mobile

11:00 a.m.

Mobile’s Key Role in Building a Digital Brand

Testing Mobile Applications: Benchmarking to the Best

‘Answer Me When I Speak!’ The Price and Payoff of Attentiveness and Social Customer Care

Rounding up the Whole Story: Google’s Search Tweaks

Taking a Pulse on Posts to Refine Promo Content and Timing

1:00 p.m.

12:00 p.m.

Mobile Design for Each Device—One Size Does Not Fit All

Lunch (sponsored by ROI Revolution) Lunch (sponsored by Social Annex)

Lunch

What Matters in Mobile Apps

Two Approaches to Responsive Web Design: Pure and Hybrid 2:00 p.m.

FRIDAY JUNE 13, 2014: POST-SHOW WORKSHOPS

KEYNOTE: How an App Played a Crucial Role in Launching a Brand

Search Workshop Welcome and Introduction

Smarter Bidding Boosts an E-Retailer’s Returns from a New Google Ad Format Fight the Fake: How to Combat Fraudulent Product Reviews to Preserve Conversion 10 Tips on Creating SEO-Friendly Content One Moment, Before You Hire that Social Media Strategist…

Break Break The Wide-Open International Opportunity for Paid Search

Dealing with Playground Bullies in Social Channels

3:00 p.m.

Mastering Management Challenges of Multiple M-commerce Sites

Break (sponsored by Social Annex) Spiking Sales with Mobile Coupons

4:00 p.m.

Live SEO Reviews

How to Get Your Site Busting at the Seams with User-Generated Content

Where to Start a Redesign: M-Commerce? E-Commerce? How About Both?

Mobile Commerce Worskhop

Search Marketing Workshop

Social Commerce Workshop

General event

CHICAGO, IL | JUNE 10-13, 2014

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE

Agendas Tuesday, June 10 – Friday, June 13

TUESDAY, JUNE 10

PRE-SHOW WORKSHOP

AMAZON AND ME LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD WITH THE TOP E-RETAILER

All retailers compete with Amazon—but they can also all cooperate with Amazon. Amazon Marketplace offers a marketleading online shopping experience and product fulfillment and it enforces strict content guidelines which force retailers to be better at describing their products and producing better images. But this comes at a price that not all retailers are willing to pay. This workshop will lay out the pros and cons of doing business with Amazon Marketplace and provide practical guidance on Amazon’s selling initiatives so retailers can better compete with the No. 1 online retailer.

7:00 – 9:00 a.m.

Registration & Breakfast

8:45 – 9:00 a.m.

Welcome and Introduction

Scot Wingo, Chief Executive Officer, ChannelAdvisor Corp. The Amazon and Me Workshop chairman will welcome attendees and give a quick view of the state of selling on Amazon, establish goals for the day’s sessions and

provide a framework that will help attendees navigate the workshop content.

9:00 – 9:30 a.m.

Amazon Under the Hood: Where It’s Investing

Colin Sebastian, Senior Analyst, Robert W. Baird and Co. Amazon has built its success on innovations and investments in all areas of operation. This session will look closely at Amazon’s investments in technology, distribution and marketing and help e-retailers understand how and where they should be investing to avoid being left in Amazon’s dust. It will also provide a detailed view of Amazon’s sales, top categories, top geographies and more.

9:30 – 10:00 a.m.

1 Selling on Amazon’s Third Party Marketplace: What All E-Retailers Need to Know

Darrin Walters, Owner, Champions on Display This session will introduce basic, intermediate and advanced concepts for selling on Amazon, providing such topics as customer service, seller feedback, product data requirements, shipping expectations, pricing, policy violations, Fulfillment by Amazon, how to avoid common mistakes and more. It will also serve as a foundation for the following sessions that will provide detail into two of the most important areas of succeeding in the Amazon Marketplace.

10:00 – 10:15 a.m.

Break

Sponsored by ROI Revolution

10:15 – 10:45 a.m.

1 Writing for Amazon: Make it Clear and Concise

Gina DeFrank, Amazon Product Manager, ChannelAdvisor Corp. Writing titles and product descriptions is crucial to e-commerce success. But writing those for Amazon listings takes the art to a new high. Not only will your titles and product descriptions help you compete with the hundreds of other sellers of similar products on Amazon, but they also must meet standards that Amazon sets. If they don’t, Amazon will kick your product off the marketplace, with no warning. This session will provide specific guidance as to how to write titles and product descriptions for Amazon listings, using examples from real life—both the successful and the not-so-successful.

10:45 – 11:30 a.m.

1 Getting and Managing Feedback

David Rifkin, President, Microfiber Products Online; Jeremy Lasson, President, LimitedGoods.com Positive customer feedback is one of the crucial elements in Amazon Marketplace success. Sellers can take a proactive role in encouraging customers to provide feedback; they don’t have to be passive recipients of customer comments. This session will outline steps retailers can take to solicit feedback, what they can do to make sure the reviews they receive are positive and how they can respond to

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING.

correct negative feedback and even get the customer to rescind a negative review.

11:30 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

1 Leveraging Amazon’s Infrastructure: Is it for You?

Eric Moore, Owner, Masterpiece Marketing Group Amazon has spent billions of dollars building an infrastructure that it is now capitalizing on by selling it to other retailers. The prospect of selling online by piggybacking on the system built by the largest and best online retailer has a great deal of appeal. But before retailers take advantage of the Amazon system, they must make sure their eyes are wide open. This session will provide retailers of all sizes with a framework for determining if they should consider Amazon’s Webstore offering. Two retailers will present their own experiences, positive and otherwise, in selling on the Amazon Webstore.

12:15 – 1:15 p.m.

Lunch

Sponsored by ROI Revolution

1:15 – 2:00 p.m.

1 Fulfillment by Amazon: Making Sure It’s Right for Your Operation

Brandon Harden, Owner, Urban Buckle; Jon Greenwood, President, Virtual Exchanges One of the key ways Amazon measures your success on the Amazon marketplace is the efficiency and speed of your fulfillment. You are assured of fast fulfillment if you use Fulfillment by Amazon. You can be equally successful using an outside fulfillment service, but if you do, you must make sure your

fulfillment operation is at least as good as Fulfillment by Amazon. This session will provide practical guidance at the basic, intermediate and advanced levels about how to best use Fulfillment by Amazon. It will also provide insight into how to measure your own fulfillment operation to make sure it compares favorably to Fulfillment by Amazon. Our speakers will recount their success stories and provide insider tips for leveraging Amazon’s massive fulfillment center network.

2:00 – 2:45 p.m.

1 Advanced Tactics When Using Amazon Services

Just getting set up to sell on Amazon is challenging enough. But once a retailer is raking in the sales, it can’t sit still. With thousands of competitors using Amazon, there will also be better ways of doing things. This session will outline some of the more advanced tactics and strategies that retailers are using and help attendees understand if those approaches are right for them.

2:45 – 3:00 p.m.

Break

Sponsored by ROI Revolution

3:00 – 3:30 p.m.

1 How an Acquisition Mindset Can Make You a Better Competitor—Even if You Want to Remain Independent

Abe Garver, Managing Director, BG Strategic Advisors Whether you’re looking to be acquired or not, understanding what the major strategic buyers in the e-commerce market take into account when they make acquisitions can only help you become a better competitor. Our speaker, an

PRE-SHOW WORKSHOPS

Pre-Show, Main Days and Post-Show Events acquisition advisor, will talk about what he has observed as a specific major strategic buyer has made acquisitions over the years. He will examine the consistent themes that have emerged across a wide range of deals (including digital content, payments, products, local, flash, and the supply chain). He will also identify the one criterion that was most important in each deal, and explain how meeting the standards can both increase your valuation and make you a better competitor.

3:30 – 4:30 p.m.

1 A Chance to Ask About Everything Else You Want to Know about Amazon

Colin Sebastian (pictured), Senior Analyst, Robert W. Baird and Co.; Gina DeFrank, Amazon Product Manager, ChannelAdvisor Corp.; Scot Wingo, Chief Executive Officer, ChannelAdvisor Corp. This session will wrap up the Amazon and Me Workshop, summarizing the day’s content and providing an overview of the insights that speakers provided. Our speakers will then open the mikes for Q&A with Amazon experts. Attendees will be encouraged to ask about any topics that speakers did not cover, ask speakers to provide further detail on a topic and provide insights based on their own experience into using Amazon systems.

4:00 – 7:00 p.m.

1 Welcome Reception in the Exhibit Hall

CHICAGO, IL | JUNE 10-13, 2014

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE

TUESDAY, JUNE 10

7:00 – 8:30 a.m.

E-COMMERCE TECHNOLOGY PRIORITIZE, SELECT AND

8:30 – 8:45 a.m.

PRE-SHOW WORKSHOP

EXECUTE FOR ROI

Assessing the latest wave of technology innovations can be overwhelming – unless you have a roadmap. This workshop will orient e-retailers about key technologies that drive e-commerce, heighten productivity and smooth out the wrinkles that can sabotage a great digital experience. Chief takeaways include practical guidelines to ensure your investment will be sound, that various systems work in harmony with one another and useful ways to measure success and quantify results. Attendees will learn how to filter out the noise and prioritize their technology implementations to achieve nearand long-term business objectives.

2 2

Registration & Breakfast Welcome and Introduction

Bernardine Wu, Chief Executive Officer, FitForCommerce The E-Commerce Technology Workshop will kick off with an assessment of the latest technology and some guidelines as to how e-commerce executives can keep up with important changes, filter out those that are fads or mere hype, and be ready for developments that aren’t here but will become important.

8:45 – 9:45 a.m.

2 Get Smart: A Roadmap for Sound Technology Investments

Bernardine Wu, Chief Executive Officer, FitForCommerce; Katherine Goodman, Senior Director Retail, Digital, CVS Caremark This opening session will set the stage for the daylong technology workshop by illuminating the critical considerations of a sound technology investment. Participants will learn about the technology ecosystem to support effective digital

commerce, including core platforms and integrations to third party solutions. Learn how to craft your own technology roadmap, complete with phased system implementations and methods to measure success in terms of key performance indicators and profits.

9:45 – 10:30 a.m.

2 Conquer the Pain Points and Capture the ROI of Product Information Management Systems

Cynthia Maignan, Director, Content Strategy, Management, Office Depot; Ryan Lee, Technology Manager, Gorjana Griffin Product information management systems automate and orchestrate tasks and data associated with creating and maintaining a retailer’s assortment; this data is then published to a variety of channels in various formats. PIM is becoming more critical as multichannel selling, complex assortments, customer requirements and other challenges oblige e-retailers to adopt greater discipline to manage data. This session will examine pain points product information management systems can relieve, ways to implement such systems to drive community engagement and how to calculate ROI for your investments.

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING. 1:45 – 2:30 p.m.

10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Keary McNew, Chief Information Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Lilly Pulitzer; Tonio Fruehauf, Managing Director, Escada Online; Marshall Porter, SVP, GM, International Business, Development, Gilt Groupe Selecting, implementing and managing a global technology solution for your e-commerce organization is complicated whether you are in two countries or two dozen. This session will detail the critical factors to take into account including the need to confine customization, delivery model options (SaaS, on-site or outsourced), understanding localization needs for payments, currency, assortment and logistics. Speakers will provide a blueprint for a global technology platform, including strategies to ensure it will scale as you grow and red flags to watch for as you expand to new markets overseas.

Break

Navigating Choice: Platform Selection & Implementation

Katherine Bahamonde (pictured), Chief Marketing Officer, EVP, E-Commerce, C Wonder; Kim Hansen, Senior Vice President, Marketing, E-Commerce, Winston Brands; Paul Kasinski, Chief Information Officer, Brighton Collectibles; Paul McFarren, Chief Information Officer, C Wonder This session will provide a practical guide to ensure success with a platform selection, including choosing the right technology and implementation partner. Speakers will explore how to align the platform with a sound growth strategy, identify key user experience requirements and how the platform must effectively support the company’s technology ecosystem by integrating effectively with other vital systems. This session also will review how to ensure your organization has the internal capabilities and change management perspective to optimize your technology investment.

12:15 – 1:15 p.m.

Lunch

1:15 – 1:45 p.m.

2 Understanding CRM as a Technology and a Process

Karen Humphries Sallick, President, Founder, The Priority Group; Pam Kruse, Director, E-Commerce, XO Group Often misunderstood and oversimplified, customer relationship management represents both technology and process to engage the customer in all channels, enhance service and drive sales. In this session, speakers will explain how CRM allows retailers to coordinate marketing, branding and customer experience to provide a 360-degree view of customer interactions including purchases and returns as well as dialogue conducted via e-mail and the call center. Speakers will show how CRMenabled segmentation based on shopper history, demographics and online behavior reveals new opportunities to cement shopper loyalty and bolster sales.

Going Global: What You Need— And What You Need to Watch Out For

2:30 – 3:15 p.m.

2 Mobile Commerce: Get Ready Today for Tomorrow

Ed Deutscher, Operational Vice President, HSN; Udi Nir, CTO, ModCloth E-retailers cannot afford to underestimate the mobile demands of customers; whatever they expect today, they’ll want more tomorrow. This session looks ahead at applications in the extended aisle, CRM and point of sale and will examine methods to extract maximum ROI while driving conversion and customer loyalty. Our speaker will dissect the pros/cons of mobile sites and apps and why it’s key to evaluate your existing platform to assess whether your infrastructure will support the demands of tomorrow that are not even known today.

3:15 – 3:30 p.m.

Break

3:30 – 4:30 p.m.

2 Five Hot New Technology Developments

Aaron Mandelbaum, Chief Executive Officer, Icebreaker Consulting; Marta Dalton, Manager, E-Commerce, Digital Strategy, WESCO Distribution; Ryan West, Senior Vice President, West Music; Scott Huddleston, Vice President, Marketing, Motorcycle Superstore The E-Commerce Technology Workshop wraps with a comprehensive examination

of five key technologies in the areas of predictive analytics, testing to improve site performance, geo-location, social media and personalization. Hear how your peers improved search, merchandising and marketing by better understanding online behavior and how to deftly navigate concerns about privacy that swirl around geo-location, social media and personalization initiatives - all with one end result in mind: to heighten trust, lock in loyalty and create an online environment where consumers feel comfortable, safe and satisfied.

PRE-SHOW WORKSHOPS

10:30 – 10:45 a.m.

4:00 – 7:00 p.m.

2 Welcome Reception in the Exhibit Hall

TUESDAY, JUNE 10

PRE-SHOW WORKSHOP

VIDEO WORKSHOP THE ONLINE VIDEO

REVOLUTION WILL TRANSFORM E-RETAILING

Consumers watch more than 40 billion online videos a month and spend an average of 20 hours each month watching them. There is no doubt the Internet has become a video medium. And there’s also little doubt that consumers who are watching videos all over the Internet will expect videos when they shop at retail web sites. Retailers have been slower on the uptake when it comes to videos, but that is about to change as video technology becomes easier to use and some pioneering retailers are proving the return on video investment. This all-day workshop will delve into the details of creating a video program from conception to execution. It will help e-retailers understand how to create a video strategy, how to execute videos, how to test to ensure videos are doing their job, and more. It will wrap up with 15 videos that will inspire marketers to create their own outstanding video initiatives.

CHICAGO, IL | JUNE 10-13, 2014

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE 7:00 – 8:30 a.m.

Registration & Breakfast

8:45 – 9:15 a.m.

3 Using Video to Keep and Attract Shoppers—and Create Sales

10:00 – 10:15 a.m.

Break

Warren Sager, Co-Founder, Retail Connection Beyond just putting product or other videos on an e-commerce site, there are many steps retailers can take to increase social sharing, gain exposure on YouTube, earn page one placement on Google and Bing, and perhaps most important, give customers powerful information to compel them to make a purchase and visit a site again. Tenyear-old Knife Depot’s multi-pronged approach to video has given a nice boost to its bottom line. The company uses automated product videos as well as fullproduction product and company videos and tutorials to give customers peace of mind before clicking the Buy button. Additionally, by uploading its full catalog of videos to YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram and other sites, leveraging video on its mobile commerce site and ensuring videos are indexed by Google and tagged with appropriate keywords, the company has gained significant video SEO advantages. The co-founder of Retail Connection (parent company of Knife Depot) Warren Sager will cover Knife Depot’s video strategy and discuss how retailers can use video online to increase sales and brand loyalty.

Grant Crowell (pictured), Video Consultant, CDW; Mark Bietz, Vice President, Marketing, WaterFilters.net Posting videos on YouTube, with a link from a retail site to YouTube, is the easiest way to get videos online. Uploading and linking to YouTube is easy. YouTube offers a high-quality video experience, has great bandwidth so your videos are not limited by technology, and YouTube is itself a search engine so shoppers can find you there. But ease of use comes with trade-offs, among them, less flexibility in creating videos that suit your own image and needs, and the fact that Google directs users who find your videos through web search to YouTube rather than to your own site, meaning shoppers have to take an additional step if they want to buy something from you. Our speakers in this session have extensive experience using YouTube and advising marketers in its use. They will lay out the pros and cons of using YouTube so attendees can go into a YouTube program with eyes wide open.

9:15 – 10:00 a.m.

11:00 – 11:45 a.m.

Jamie Troia, CEO, Greystack; Lynee Alves, Director, comScore Research shows retailers close more sales with video than without. This session will explain the latest trends in video: which kinds of retail sites have videos and how they use them, who watches videos and what they watch, videos’ effect on sales, cost trends and what developments marketers should be looking out for. This session will also provide hard data to help attendees understand what kind of video is right for their sites—products-specific vs. lifestyle, long vs. short—and then guide retailers through such issues as determining what areas the video should

John Boyd, CEO, ShopSavvy.com Not so long ago, no one would have thought that video was suited to a mobile medium. But the advances in smartphone and wireless technology and the wide adoption of tablets have untethered video from the desktop computer. Mobile-based deal aggregator ShopSavvy offers more than 10,000 videos of men’s and women’s shoes, clothing and accessories. ShopSavvy’s CEO will provide live demos of videos and explain how the site optimizes all that video for mobile viewing and how video has increased sales and changed the way shoppers relate to the site.

What All Marketers Should Know About Online Videos in 2014

focus on, where to place video on a site and what to test to make sure video is doing its job.

10:15 – 11:00 a.m.

3 Going the YouTube Route: The Opportunities and the Challenges

3 The Mobile Revolution Embraces Video

11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

3 10 Questions to Ask Your Outsourced Video Provider

Lou Bortone, Principal, LouBortone.com; Rich Fahle, Founder and Creative Lead, Bibliostar.tv Outsourcing video production relieves a marketer of the technical aspects of creating videos. But outsourcing does not relieve a marketer of the most important parts of video—making the merchandising and marketing decisions. This session will walk attendees through the outsource process—how to judge whether the outsource company is right for you, questions to ask the references your outsourcer provides, what to ask about equipment, studios and outsourcer staff ’s expertise, how quickly to expect projects to be completed, what to expect in responsiveness to quick turnaround requests, and more. Our speakers will also address how to communicate your ongoing marketing and merchandising goals to an outsourced video provider. And they will provide some tips as to how to get out of a failing relationship without losing control over the videos that have been created to date.

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING. PRE-SHOW WORKSHOPS

12:30 – 1:30 p.m.

Lunch

1:30 – 2:15 p.m.

3 Video Without Breaking the Bank: Creating Professional Videos on an Amateur’s Budget

Angie Seaman, E-commerce Manager, Marbles: The Brain Store We live in such a video society that many marketers think video must be of highest quality with professional production standards to be effective. Not so. We are early enough in the e-commerce video revolution that a lot of experimentation is taking place. The video executive of a mid-sized retailer will explain how one company provides bare-bones but highly effective video that results in greater shopper engagement and higher sales. Our speaker will show videos the company has created, provide tips for success (e.g., don’t take yourself too seriously), and discuss the equipment and processes the company employs and their cost.

2:15 – 3:00 p.m.

Harnessing Video to Boost SEO

Jamie Salvatori (pictured), Owner, Vat19; Stephan Spencer, Co-Author, The Art of SEO By now most retailers are steeped in successful SEO strategies for traditional web content - they know how to write product descriptions and design pages for SEO success. Achieving SEO success with video is a whole new, much more complex field and one that most marketers have very little experience with. The speakers in this session will explain how to boost videos’ SEO juice by including keywords unique to the video, creating a keyword rich video title and description, creating compelling video thumbnails, syncing keywords in the video description with your regular keywords, and more.

3:00 – 3:15 p.m.

Break

3:15 – 3:45 p.m.

3 Beyond Marketing: Video for Customer Service

Mark Roskowske, Marketing Manager, ShowMeCables.com Videos are great for uses other than marketing; customer service, for instance.

Our speaker in this session experienced significantly reduced customer service inquiries when his company created a series of videos demonstrating how to use certain products, then sent the videos in follow-up e-mails to purchasers. He will explain how the company decides which products are worthy of videos, what it takes to produce and host the videos in house, the feedback he has received from customers and the benefits of the video program.

3:45 – 4:30 p.m.

3 15 Great Videos that all Marketers can Grab Ideas From

Nikki Baird, Partner, RSR Research The Video Workshop will wrap up with a fast-paced session of 15 videos that all contain something that marketers can learn from. Whether it’s humor, production on a budget, really good messaging, an attractive pitch-person or any of a dozen other elements, all videos will contain something that will entertain and inspire and provide attendees an idea they can take home.

4:00 – 7:00 p.m.

3 Welcome Reception in the Exhibit Hall

CHICAGO, IL | JUNE 10-13, 2014

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE

Main Day 1 General Sessions 7:00 – 8:30 a.m.

8:30 – 9:00 a.m.

Registration and Breakfast

KEYNOTE: Connected Commerce: The New Opportunity for Retailers in an Evolving Retail Environment

8:15 – 8:30 a.m.

Welcome and Introduction Kurt Peters, Executive Editor, Internet Retailer

Craig Dooley, Senior Vice President, Group Show Director; IR Events Group

TRACK WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11

MAIN DAY 1

SUCCESS STRATEGIES FOR TOP E-RETAIL EXECUTIVES

Top executives face an evolving group of challenges with competition from big and small retailers increasing and in scrutiny from investors, government regulators and companies seeking to benefit from patents they own. This group of sessions will help top e-retail execs navigate a more competitive marketplace.

John Donahoe, Chief Executive Officer & President, eBay Inc. EBay Inc. CEO John Donahoe will explore a global commerce revolution that is changing the way consumers shop and pay. A leader in mobile commerce and payments, eBay Inc. supports local commerce with new services such as same-day delivery, buy online/pick up in-store, check-in to pay and order ahead. These drive international commerce through cross-border trade, and engage shoppers in emerging markets. Hear how eBay Inc. is leveling the playing field, so retailers of all sizes can compete and win on this dynamic global stage.

10:30 – 11:00 a.m. A Scaling Your Business in Internet Time

Jag Bath, Senior Vice President, Product, RetailMeNot Scaling a business as it grows has always been a critical business issue, but the Internet intensifies the whole process by speeding it up. Where it might have taken years to build a retail business from scratch by geographic expansion, it can take only months online. This session will feature a top executive of online coupon distributor RetailMeNot Inc., which employed 30 when our speaker arrived. A year and a half later, the staff had expanded to 300 and was still growing—and expanding internationally. He presided over similar growth at Gilt Groupe (10 to 800 employees in 18 months and $0 to $500 million in sales) and Weightwatchers.com (3 to 500). He will provide step-by-step details into what retail execs must prepare for as their businesses grow, including

9:00 – 9:30 a.m.

SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER: The Wikipedia Story: The Power of Community in the Online Era—and What it Means for Retailers Jimmy Wales, Chief Executive Officer & Founder, Wikipedia Wikipedia’s communitybased entries have practically put traditional encyclopedias out of business. Its creation directly reflects developments in retailing that have been transformed by the Internet. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales will talk about community in the online era, how the Internet empowers individuals and the importance, especially to e-commerce, of being nimble and embracing change.

9:30 – 10:30 a.m.

Beverage Break in the Exhibit Hall

technology, office and distribution space, making sure marketing keeps up with but doesn’t outpace anticipated growth, the sequence of hiring key staff, and more.

11:00 – 11:45 a.m. A National Sales Tax: What All Retailers Need to Know

Carolynn Iafrate Kranz, Partner, Kranz & Associates; Mike Griggs (pictured), President, Strings and Beyond Whether or not the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would require all online retailers to collect sales taxes on all sales, has been signed into law by the time of the conference, all retailers must be aware of the status of the bill and ready to act should it become law. E-retailers will face compliance issues, either immediately if the law has passed or eventually, for the issue will surely not be dead even if it’s not alive at the moment. Our speakers in this session will update top execs on the status of the bill, offer their insights as to the

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING. future impact of the bill and provide some tips as to whether or how retailers should prepare.

11:45 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. A Lunch in the Exhibit Hall 1:30 – 2:00 p.m. A How to Compete as a Niche in Today’s Mass Market

2:00 – 2:30 p.m. A Finding the Right C-Level

Staff to Lead Your Organization into the E-Commerce Everywhere World

Bill Mirabito, President, B2C Partners; Matt Berglass, President, Berglass Associates The new reality of retailing has created a crisis in chains’ C-suite: How does a company led by executives who grew up in the world of stores position itself to compete in the new world of anywhere, anytime commerce? Boards of large retail companies must suddenly learn how to identify top execs who are tuned into e-commerce and m-commerce. And as more companies come to that realization, such executives are in high demand. This session, led by experts in C-level recruitment, placement and retention, will address how to find qualified people at the C-level, how competitive is it to recruit them, compensation packages and how those compare to what C-level execs without e-commerce backgrounds get, how to keep new recruits happy and not listening to other possible offers, how to define their duties and integrate them into your existing organization

2:30 – 3:15 p.m. A Get Ready for Social Scrutiny:

transformation in such a short period. Meantime, the business’s rapid evolution continues: the company is on track to pull in 30% of its e-commerce sales from mobile devices only three years after launching a mobile program. Shop Direct’s head of e-commerce will lay out what it took to transform the business so rapidly and provide pointers to attendees who are facing the same need for urgent change.

How Investors Weigh Your Social Success

4:00 – 4:45 p.m. A The Patent Battles: How to

Linda Gridley, President, Gridley & Co.; Sharon Wienbar, Partner, Scale Venture Partners Almost before the market could understand how to best use social media, social media marketing has become extremely important to e-retail success. As a result, today’s investors are examining social strategies as they invest in e-commerce companies. Our speakers this session will help top execs create a social strategy that will show off their best results to prospective investors. They will discuss what investors look for when they examine a social strategy, how they measure success, how to communicate your social strategy to possible investors and what a sound social strategy contributes to the value of a company.

Jeffrey Drake, Attorney, Miller Canfield; Nathan Decker, Vice President, Marketing, EVO Gear A whole industry has grown up around patent holders’ asserting their rights when e-retailers use certain technologies. Many online retailers have capitulated to patent holders’ demands, fearing the cost of extended litigation; others have fought back and sometimes won. This session will examine the current state of patent infringement suits and provide insights into how to assess the reality of a threat when the legal papers arrive and how and when to fight and when to pay up.

3:15 – 3:30 p.m. A Break

Do the Right Thing Without Caving in to Unfair Suits

MAIN DAY 1

Shelley Nandkeoylar, Chief Executive Officer, President, Founder, The Ivory Company The gravitational pull of Amazon and other big online brands is so great that niche marketers can have a hard time attracting shoppers. But some merchants believe that going niche is the only way to compete against retailers who sell everything. Our speaker, an experienced e-commerce veteran of such large brands as Williams-Sonoma, Home Depot and others, is head of a start-up niche brand. He will discuss why niche is the way to go, how to establish such a brand with consumers and how the niche lessons can be applied to established brands that are moving into new niches.

so they can do what they came to do (boosting the e-side of the business) without alienating the other talent, and more. Whether you are a chain looking to recruit top talent or a retailer looking to keep yours from being lured by greener pastures, you will learn what it takes to recruit and keep top talent.

4:30 – 6:30 p.m. A Cocktail Reception in the Exhibit Hall

3:30 – 4:00 p.m. A A Mandate for Change: How to Align All the Moving Parts When It’s Time to Make an E-Commerce Transformation

Jonathan Wall, Director, E-Commerce, Shop Direct Group Five years ago, the UK’s Shop Direct Group was a struggling old-time cataloger only doing about 20% e-commerce and going into a recession. But then the company went through a merger and brought in a new CEO who laid down the challenge: reach 70% e-commerce within five years. Today, Shop Direct exceeds even that ambitious goal, with 80% of its sales coming in via e-commerce. Few companies of any kind have achieved that sort of e-commerce

TRACK

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11 MAIN DAY 1

RETAIL CHAINS MAKING THE WEB THE DRIVER OF SALES

Retail chains are losing online market share to web-only merchants. In this group of sessions, executives of retail chains will learn how to put the web at the center of chain operations, both to grab more online sales and to serve customers better when they are shopping in stores.

CHICAGO, IL | JUNE 10-13, 2014

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE 10:30 – 11:00 a.m. b Connecting Digital and

11:45 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. b Lunch in the Exhibit Hall

2:30 – 3:15 p.m. b Does Your Online Marketing

Faisal Masud, Executive Vice President, Global E-Commerce, Staples There’s a seismic shift underway at Staples, one of the largest players in the e-commerce space. The office supplies giant is shrinking its retail footprint while investing big time in a host of ambitious - and experimental - web-based initiatives to link mobile, technology, store and services assets to transform how consumers shop. Internet kiosks feature an endless aisle of merchandise via the expanded web catalog while the buy online/in-store pickup service offers new convenience. Clerks equipped with tablets assist shoppers with purchases of larger items, like office desks, the smaller format stores no longer stock. Staples Executive Vice President of Global E-Commerce Faisal Masud, a former Amazon and eBay executive, will detail how traditional retailers can exploit their digital assets and online practices like dynamic pricing to improve their competitive position and thrive.

1:30 – 2:00 p.m. b Leveraging Loyalty Insights

Dennis Shirokov, Director, Interactive Marketing, FedEx; Drew McKenzie, Senior Manager, Digital Media, Luxottica; Jeff Campbell, Co-Founder, Managing Director, Resolution Media For top retailers, less than 5% of total company sales occur online and sites typically convert less than 2% of visitors. With online marketing budgets growing, chains today must know if online advertising and the web site are connecting customers with stores. This session will dissect the pros and cons of several common techniques (e.g. coupons, tracking codes) and dive into advanced methodology top retailers such as FedEx Office and Luxottica are using to measure the sales lift in their bricks-and-mortar stores by marketing channel, by division and by season.

11:00 – 11:45 a.m. b Strategies to Make the Web

Tablet at a Time

Physical Assets to Compete Online

Your No. 1 Most Profitable Store

Bill Thayer, Chief Operating Officer, Loehmann’s Making e-commerce a top priority requires numerous decisions about web site functionality, the underlying platform, integration with critical business systems and choosing vendor partners to help make it all happen. Offprice retailer Loehmann’s, a latecomer to e-commerce, quickly grew sales through its new web site by focusing on the features shoppers care about most, such as real-time visibility into stock availability that enables the chain to make flash sale offers. Our second speaker will outline strategies and technologies that made the web its top sales channel and our speaker from Loehmann’s will detail how it intends to achieve that same goal.

In-Store, Across Channel

Mike Hogan, EVP, Strategic Business & Brand Development, GameStop Though relatively new, the customer loyalty program at GameStop boasts impressive success: More than 30 million members in the U.S. and abroad enrolled over three years. But, like many chains, GameStop faced a challenge in figuring out how a loyalty program born offline to obtain a single view of the customer and track transactions could be leveraged in the digital space to enhance engagement across multiple channels. The video game retailer will detail how investments in tablet apps and free online games further cement its relationship with customers, how data collected through its loyalty program influence how it engages with shoppers and what it is learning about customer behavior in-store, online, through e-mail and mobile and how that will guide next steps in digital.

2:00 – 2:30 p.m. b Building Engagement One Brian Pearson, Chief Information Officer, Stacked Restaurants Tablets are taking on new tasks in stores and restaurants, in the hands of both employees and customers. At Stacked Restaurants, where patrons have placed food orders and paid for them using tableside iPads since 2011, tablets are now playing a key role in building loyalty and engagement. Our speaker from Stacked will detail how the devices and smartphones alert managers when a VIP has arrived, and how customers have embraced and strengthened the program by enlisting friends’ participation through social networking.

Move the Offline Needle?

3:15 – 3:30 p.m. b Break 3:30 – 4:00 p.m. b How Chains are Selling

to Millennials in a Noisy Social Economy

Carlos Gil, Manager, Social Media, BI-LO and Winn-Dixie Today, Millennial Moms use social media to share information related to retail, apparel, food and beverage, and soon Millennials will outspend Baby Boomers. In this session, learn how to create relevant brand awareness for your multi-location retail chain beyond Facebook and Twitter, build meaningful engagement with online shoppers and grow customer loyalty to drive ROI in a noisy social economy. Our speaker from a 700-store grocery chain will show how to leverage segmented content via Instagram, Vine, Facebook, and Twitter and foursquare check-ins to create an “always on” mobile and social strategy that helps your brand thrive in a noisy social economy - online and in-store.

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING. 10:30 – 11:00 a.m. C Where Global E-Commerce

Jason Merrick, Director, E-Commerce, Peter Glenn Ski & Sports; Kevin Lyons (pictured), Vice President, E-Commerce, hhgregg Successful store basedfulfillment initiatives start and end with technology and training. Without the right algorithms to determine which stores should stock inventory and without sufficient training for store staff responsible for picking inventory, in-store fulfillment won’t work. When it does work, as it has for hhgregg and Peter Glenn Ski & Sports, exposure to markdowns is reduced and shoppers leave the store happy. In this session, hear how hhgregg reduced markdowns and shipping costs; our speaker from Peter Glenn & Ski will detail how the initiative improved its competitive edge by speeding products to consumers.

Don Davis, Editor, Internet Retailer It’s no secret that e-commerce in the AsiaPacific region of the globe is expanding fast and will continue to grow, particularly in China and India. Other countries poised for growth in 2014, albeit at slower rates, include Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. This session will provide an exhaustive report, based on Internet Retailer’s own research, on the state of e-commerce in the fastestmoving corners of the globe, the drivers of that growth and the opportunities and challenges for companies willing to make the plunge. Our speaker will also cover Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America, countries relatively new to e-commerce that represent great potential for e-retailers with a pioneering spirit.

Store-Based Fulfillment

4:30 – 6:30 p.m. b Cocktail Reception in the

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11

GLOBAL E-RETAILING FINDING THE BEST

11:00 – 11:45 a.m. C Logistics Strategy to Avoid

Last Mile Implosion: How to Adapt to Each Culture

Exhibit Hall

MAIN DAY 1

Growth Will Come in 2014—and Beyond

TRACK

OPPORTUNITIES OVERSEAS Expanding e-commerce overseas represents a vast opportunity to boost sales for e-retailers willing to get schooled on all the variables of target markets, from cultural, language and currency differences to infrastructure capacity and the nuances of shopper expectations, such as same-day delivery service. This track of sessions features a snapshot look at which markets are ripe for new entrants in the next 18 months and will provide a window into the challenges to expect when crossing over international borders to capture new customers, particularly in China.

Antoine Routaboul, Director, Logistics Bonprix France, Benelux; Uwe Bald, Vice President, International Business Development, Hermes Expanding overseas obliges e-retailers to understand nuances of different markets, not only from the standpoint of shopper behavior, expectations and cultural differences but especially the underlying infrastructure upon which product delivery depends. Failure in the last mile - to the shopper’s door - will cancel out all the great execution that preceded it. Undelivered shipments create unhappy customers and excess cost for retailers. In this session, you’ll learn how to identify and adapt to the unique logistical characteristics of different international markets. Attendees will learn how to craft market-specific logistics strategies and efficient methods to ensure successful global transactions right through to the last mile, taking into account each country’s rates of technology adoption, infrastructure, customs, demographics and geography.

11:45 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. C Lunch in the Exhibit Hall 1:30 – 2:00 p.m. C Overcoming Infrastructure Woes in Developing Countries

Jon Provisor, Chief Information Officer, Guidance; Jonathan Nathusius Chief Executive Officer, Grupo Cemaco Entering a new international market invites uncertainty; put that market in a developing country and complexity is compounded. When Cemaco, Guatemala’s largest home goods and hardware department store, plunged into e-commerce, it encountered countless challenges - not the least of which was a very sparse and undeveloped Internet infrastructure. In this case study, a microcosm of other countries across Latin America, you’ll learn how Cemaco assessed design and fulfillment requirements and overcame obstacles involving payment solutions to tap into the fastest-growing online population of any global region. Our second speaker will place the challenges Cemaco faced in broader context to explore how access by device varies in different regions, credit card penetration, web site design and delivery challenges in countries with substandard infrastructure.

MAIN DAY 1

4:00 – 4:45 p.m. b Reducing Markdowns with

2:00 – 2:30 p.m. C Preserve Brand Value and Relevance Across Multiple Cultures

Laurent Malaveille (pictured), Executive Vice President, Global Digital, CRM, E-Commerce, Groupe Clarins; Rob Garf, Vice President, Product & Solutions Marketing, Demandware Dueling objectives to control the brand at a global level and cater to diverse cultural needs at a local level add complexity to managing the customer experience across all devices, geographies and channels. European-based cosmetics giant Clarins will divulge how it addressed the varying ways shoppers prefer to interact with brands to deliver a superior experience in emerging markets like China, Korea and Russia. Learn how to overcome local complexities, technical and operational constraints to build a global e-commerce

CHICAGO, IL | JUNE 10-13, 2014

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE

strategy for the markets you want to enter today and tomorrow.

conversion for its Chinese web site launched in 2011.

2:30 – 3:15 p.m. C How Social Trumps Search to

3:15 – 3:30 p.m. C Break

Boost Traffic and Conversion in China

Emily Dybwad, Manager, Digital Marketing, Benefit Cosmetics; Valerie Hoecke, Senior Vice President, Digital, Benefit Cosmetics It’s a tall order in China: getting shoppers to bypass the popular marketplaces like Taobao and Tmall and instead navigate to web sites via other pathways, as is routine in other parts of the world. For prestige brand Benefit Cosmetics, the discountladen marketplaces are not the best fit. And paid search is costly and highly competitive. Social and mobile initiatives are key to reaching new customers in China and Benefit Cosmetics’ Shanghaibased social media team is tasked with elevating the brand’s profile on social networks like WeChat. Our speakers from San Francisco-based Benefit Cosmetics will detail what it took to build a social media team overseas, how social behavior and etiquette differ in China and how social initiatives have lifted traffic and

3:30 – 4:00 p.m. C A World Class Social

Campaign for the World Cup, Brazilian Style

Rodrigo Nasser, Chief Technology Officer, NetShoes Social marketing strategies pay highest dividends when there is a genuine appreciation for subject matter consumers care about. Few events stir as much passion as the World Cup. In this session, Brazilian retailer NetShoes will detail its just-launched social initiative that integrates store kiosks, facial recognition technology and social channels like Facebook to encourage sports fans to broadcast their appreciation of NetShoes and the World Cup athletes - while driving sales. Our speaker will share early results of the social campaign that offers creative incentives, such as one-hour delivery to select Brazilian cities during the World Cup tournament, whose dates overlap that of the IRCE conference.

4:00 – 4:45 p.m. C Do the Homework: 7

Questions to Ask Before Entering a Market Abroad

David Wachter (pictured), Executive Vice President, General Manager, Jimmy Jazz; Marcelo Wesseler, Senior Vice President, E-Commerce, Singapore Post Limited Thinking about entering an overseas market should prompt a boatload of questions. Are you focusing on the right markets and how do you know if consumers there are primed to buy online? What research is critical? Do you have a grasp of the logistical issues, digital payments, varying regulations and cultural differences? Hear the key questions one e-retailer asked as it progressed from initial schematic to web site launch and some of the mistakes made along the way. An e-commerce expert will detail successful strategies undertaken by e-retailers entering fast-growing Asian markets.

4:30 – 6:30 p.m. C Cocktail Reception in the Exhibit Hall

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11 MAIN DAY 1

SMALL RETAILERS STRENGTHENING

TRACK

THE BOND WITHOUT BREAKING THE BANK

10:30 – 11:00 a.m. D Leveraging the

Difference: Marketing and Merchandising to Make Smaller E-Retailers Shine

Amit Kumar, Vice President, Yahoo Small Business; Bob Goodliffe, President, Cyberweld.com As e-commerce grows overall, niche retailers must be smarter than ever about their business. Small merchants face increased competition as larger competitors expand their offerings and online outreach. Smaller retailers who thrive against larger rivals will be those that set themselves apart with marketing and merchandising strategies and tactics that their bigger competitors don’t use to raise their brand profile, connect with customers and drive traffic and sales. A top executive of Yahoo’s Small Business platform and a retailer will showcase winning small-retailer initiatives from across the platform that are sure to spark ideas for your own online store.

11:00 – 11:45 a.m. D Social Media for Small

Retailers: Where Size Doesn’t Matter

Ken Burkeen, Founder & CEO, Huetiful; Sam Sisakhti, Founder, USTrendy Many larger online merchants are now putting a big chunk of their marketing budget on social media. But smaller

11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. D How Improving Fulfillment Through Outsourcing Helped Score My Next Funding Round

Karen Williamson, CEO & Founder, Barefoottess.com; Tom Hartman, Senior VP, Business Development, Warwick Fulfillment Solutions Managing supply can be challenging for e-retailers. But by making order fulfillment and inventory management a priority and reaching outside the company for help, online shoe retailer Barefoottess.com made big strides- so much so that the supply chain management improvements were a key factor in attracting investor financing. In this session, hear from the retailer and the outsource fulfillment vendor how these items became key elements that made the difference with potential investors.

12:30 – 2:15 p.m. D Lunch in the Exhibit Hall 2:15 – 2:45 p.m. D Lessons from the Internet

a few of the issues near the top of the list for smaller merchants in particular. This session highlights how the Second 500’s leaders have resolved them. It will dive into data to uncover the trends and practices among the Second 500 retailers that support success. Learn what smaller merchants are doing to fast-track their way to the Top 500.

2:45 – 3:15 p.m. D 5 Bootstrap Do’s and Don’ts to Grow a Strong E-Commerce Business

Josh Neblett (pictured), Co-Founder & CEO, Etailz.com; Sarah Wollnick, Co-Founder & Vice President, Supplier Relations, Etailz.com Bootstrapping an e-commerce business from startup to sales of $25 million within five years provides a wealth of lessons on what to do—and what not to do—in pursuit of that goal. Our speakers learned those lessons first-hand. The co-founders of a now-thriving e-retail company, they will offer a once-green entrepreneurs’ tour though angel investors, personal sacrifice, build it-yourself technology and even competitor acquisition, while chasing and ultimately realizing the dream of a successful e-retail business. You’ll hear an in-the-trenches tale of what works and what doesn’t, as well as tips on proven growth strategies to support your own e-commerce goals.

MAIN DAY 1

Smaller retailers face a particular challenge because of their limited resources when it comes to creating the bond with the consumer. These sessions will help small and midsized retailers understand the next steps they must take to strengthen the relationship with shoppers who have thousands of choices at their fingertips.

e-commerce businesses may actually have the most to gain from marketing on relatively low-overhead, high-return social media platforms, as content on these networks can directly lead consumers to the products they’re interested in while improving brand visibility. In response, many smaller retailers have become masters of the medium. Two retailers will share how they benefitted from using rapidly emerging social media networks such as Pinterest and Instagram to reach audiences with compelling new content, and the results they achieved.

3:15 – 3:30 p.m. D Break

Retailer Second 500

3:30 – 4:00 p.m. D Rebounding from Penguin

Stefany Moore, Associate Director, Research, Internet Retailer The Internet Retailer Second 500 aren’t yet filling the big shoes of the Top 500 retailers, but this competitive set has its own stars. And there are some distinguishing features that unite the Second 500’s leaders. The Second 500 can offer guidance and inspiration to all small e-retailers looking to push their business to the next level. Courting repeat customers vs. spending to attract new, the pros and cons of in-house development vs. outsourcing: these are

Jim Miller, CEO, President, JMX International; Miao Xue, CIO, JMX International The ongoing changes introduced by Google leave many smaller retailers scrambling to catch up. JMX International, the operator of several niche retail sites, experienced a drop in sales after two recent Google changes. In the first, Google released its Penguin algorithm, which lowered the page rank of listings that used questionable search engine optimization techniques.

and More: Lessons on Google

CHICAGO, IL | JUNE 10-13, 2014

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE In the second, it eliminated free product listings in its Google Shopping program in favor of paid Product Listing Ads. This session will detail how the retailer regained lost ground and more by employing a multi-pronged effort that involved hiring a new SEO vendor, adopting a new focus on social media and undertaking a steep learning curve on Product Listing Ads. Our speakers will reveal what any smaller merchant can do going forward to hold a steady course in the face of future changes at Google.

4:00 – 4:45 p.m. D The International Growth

Opportunity for Small Retailers

John McCarthy (pictured), Director of Marketing, iHerb.com; TJ Scimone, Founder, Slice; Mike Effle, CEO, Vendio While the e-commerce market is increasingly global, global growth opportunities can seem far off to smaller retailers struggling daily to build a brand presence and generate more sales at home. Most do not have the dedicated resources of larger businesses to expand internationally. Globally experienced small retailers will share how they leveraged their limited resources to

break out of these boundaries and attract new customers internationally. An executive of an e-commerce sales platform with an international reach will address why-and whether-small retailers should consider expanding globally and provide tips on the tools and technology to make it happen.

4:30 – 6:30 p.m. D Cocktail Reception in the Exhibit Hall

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11 MAIN DAY 1

E-MARKETING THE CRUCIAL FIRST

STEP IN BONDING WITH SHOPPERS

Marketing is the key way to initiate the bond with consumers. If you cut through the marketing clutter and entice shoppers to visit your site, you’ve taken the first major step toward creating the consumer bond. These sessions will lay out important strategies for building that relationship.

10:30 – 11:00 a.m. E Less This, More That: Shifting from Search to Social Marketing

Bob Marino, CEO, CafePress When personalized product e-retailer CafePress made a priority of decreasing its dependence on search, a corresponding increase in social media marketing picked up the difference as the retailer saw a strong increase in revenue from its social media efforts. CafePress is seizing on a change in shopping behavior as consumers move beyond just typing products or categories into the search box to discovering products from their social networks. And it’s seeing conversion rates from social channels exceeding those from search. An executive of CafePress will share how to capitalize on these trends though a variety of social media channels, and how to balance these efforts with search marketing efforts.

TRACK

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING. 11:00 – 11:45 a.m. E Pictures Worth 1,000 Words:

2:15 – 2:45 p.m. E Fueling E-Mail Marketing

3:30 – 4:00 p.m. E Building on Strengths: Why

Aime Schwartz, New Media Coordinator, King Arthur Flour; Jason Miles, Author, “Instagram Power” The rise of sites such as Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter’s Vine has created a groundswell of consumer photo and video sharing online. Retailers and brands are riding that wave and exploring the marketing opportunities unique to the social networks and sites that focus squarely on visuals. A social media expert will provide an overview of how marketers are leveraging visual content to deepen engagement with customers and reach new ones. A retailer whose visual content strategy spans a broad range of photo-based social networks will detail what can be gained from each and how they can all work together.

Marvin Toller, Business Maketing Analyst, Galls.com The small, selected assortment is one approach to putting products into marketing e-mails, but some retailers are finding that that upping the number of products in a marketing e-mail nets more interest, even beating out discount offers. At Galls.com, going from displaying a few products in an e-mail marketing message to as many as 30 produced enough clicks and sales to show recipients are browsing the entire product list in the e-mails—and they’re opening the e-mails at a higher rate than e-mails with a discount offer in the subject line. Our speaker will explain why the multi-product approach works for Galls.com. He will also discuss how Galls.com creates its winning e-mail campaigns and provide tips on how attendees can apply the same techniques to their own e-mail campaigns.

Ryan Bonifacino, Vice President, Digital Strategy, Alex and Ani Sales at online jewelry retailer and manufacturer Alex and Ani soared by 752% to more than $12 million when the retailer adopted a calculated, phased marketing approach that built on the successes of the previous quarter. Allocating spending to the best-performing programs, each quarter Alex and Ani added new marketing elements or expanded infrastructure, for example; phasing in the development of natural and paid search programs, and improving on site navigation and merchandising. Hear how the retailer spurred growth into a fast trajectory by figuring out how to simultaneously plan, build out and scale up by accurately attributing marketing dollars across all channels, in a story with lessons for retailers of any size.

Developing a Visual Content Marketing Strategy

Re-Engage Customers—and Rev Up Sales

Joseph Schmidt Director of E-Commerce, The Americas, WWRD; Ross Kramer, CEO, Listrak It’s easier to sell more to customers you already have than to acquire new ones - a strategy underlying winning e-mail re-targeting campaign efforts by luxury retailer WWRD, marketer of the Waterford, Wedgewood and Royal Doulton brands. The retailer refines its re-targeting outreach to existing customers according to how recently and how often they’ve purchased. Its approach creates impressive results the re-targeted e-mails have an average 7.6% conversion, with the average order size 37.9% higher than typical of the site. In this session, our speakers will discuss how refining an e-mail re-engagement strategy to promote products based on customer history can make the difference. They will provide step-by-step approaches to help attendees improve their own e-mail retargeting efforts.

12:30 – 2:15 p.m. E Lunch in the Exhibit Hall

2:45 – 3:15 p.m. E Recruiting Bloggers as Affiliates: Why—and How

Carrie Rocha, Blogger, Pocketyourdollars. com; Carolyn Kmet, Chief Marketing Officer, All Inclusive Marketing Established bloggers are basically their own brand, with their own brand following, and marketers that sign on established bloggers as affiliates benefit from the blogger’s implied stamp of approval. In fact, research suggests that most consumers have made a purchase based on a recommendation seen on a blog. But identifying the right bloggers to recruit as affiliates and reaching out to them with the approach and incentives that will gain a good reception is new territory for many retailers. An affiliate marketing expert and a blogger who’s worked successfully with retailers will share what to look for, what to avoid, and what kind of returns you can expect by inviting the right bloggers into your affiliate program.

3:15 – 3:30 p.m. E Break

Data Should Change Your Marketing Plan Every Quarter

MAIN DAY 1

11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. E Refine E-Mail Targeting,

Results with More Products, Not Discounts

4:00 – 4:45 p.m. E Paid Search Strategies

for Multi-Channel Retailers in a Multi-Screen World

Jeff Molle, E-Commerce Marketing & Content Manager, Anna’s Linens; Timothy Seward, CEO, ROI Revolution As consumer search habits shift, so must retail strategies for reaching consumers. New targeting options for AdWords, Google’s paid search ad program, allow retailers to market to consumers with appropriate messaging when and where they are most likely to convert; for example, displaying a paid listing in search results specifically when a consumer is within radius of a retailer’s store. With a strong e-commerce presence and over 300 stores, home goods retailer Anna’s Linens uses advanced mobile and location targeting tactics to increase the profitable reach of paid search campaigns. This session will focus on new paid search strategies that give multi-channel retailers an advantage both online and offline.

4:30 – 6:30 p.m. E Cocktail Reception in the Exhibit Hall

CHICAGO, IL | JUNE 10-13, 2014

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE

Main Day 2 General Sessions 7:00 – 8:30 a.m.

Registration and Breakfast

8:15 – 8:30 a.m.

What the Top 500 Tell Us About Today’s Connected Community Kurt Peters, Executive Editor, Internet Retailer The Internet Retailer Top 500 set the pace in many areas of e-commerce. Day Two of IRCE will kick off with a look at how the Top 500 achieve and maintain their positions as leaders in the industry. IRCE chair and Internet Retailer Executive Editor Kurt Peters will present analysis of the largest e-retailers as ranked in the Top 500 Guide and offer insights into how they connect with today’s consumers.

TRACK THURSDAY, JUNE 12

MAIN DAY 2

FULFILLMENT, CUSTOMER SERVICE AND OPERATIONS

THE BACK-END KEYS TO SUCCESS

Often overlooked, back-end operations are key to tightening the bond with the shoppers. Great site design and merchandising bring the customer to the online store; customer service and fulfillment, as the last touchpoints, make shoppers want to return. These sessions will lay out tactics and techniques to create a shopping experience that make customers want to return.

8:30 – 9:30 a.m.

9:00 – 9:30 a.m.

Niraj Shah, Chief Executive Officer & CoFounder, Wayfair.com Since its founding and through its evolution, Wayfair has been a leader in providing content that shoppers are looking for and in connecting with customers. Wayfair (formerly CSN Stores) early on adopted a strategy of offering products under hundreds of web site brands. As executives understood that consumers would buy more from a one-stop shopping experience, they consolidated the brands under the Wayfair name. The head of Wayfair will explain the company’s strategy, what it took to turn the ship and how the new focus has helped the company deepen its bond with shoppers.

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Chairman & Founder, Joyus Video helps define engaging e-commerce sites, and some of video’s most innovative use now is by e-commerce’s smaller players. Fashion and beauty e-retailer Joyus.com puts video at the center of the online experience, re-shaping online shopping by combining video with a curated assortment presented by experts. It’s a bold move for merchants of Joyus.com’s size, but its success proves that a winning video strategy is no longer the domain of big e-retailers.

KEYNOTE: Connecting with Consumers by Giving Them What They Want

10:30 – 11:00 a.m. F Are You a Customer Service Innovator?

Jordy Leiser, Co-Founder & CEO, STELLA Service; Kevin Gardiner (pictured), Director, Online & Omnichannel Customer Service, Macy’s Do you know what the most shopper-friendly customer services practices are? And does your customer service strategy put them to work? If you’re not experimenting with offering video chat with customer service reps, using Skype or YouTube, or 3D technology for virtual apparel try-ons, you may still be relying solely on old-school practices that are out of step with today’s savvy shoppers. This session will offer insights drawn from studying the metrics of thousands of online retailers on what works, what doesn’t and where new elements can fit into your customer service program. You’ll also hear the first-hand perspective on what it takes to deliver

FEATURED ADDRESS: How the Video Experience is Transforming the Way People Shop

9:30 – 10:30 a.m.

Beverage Break in the Exhibit Hall

great customer service from leading multichannel retailer Macy’s.

11:00 – 11:45 a.m. F Protecting Your Brand Against Holiday Shipping Disasters

Stories of online orders that didn’t arrive on time despite retailers’ promises abounded in holiday 2013. With the peak holiday season in 2014 similarly a week shorter than usual due to a late Thanksgiving, what can retailers do to this year to minimize failure in the delivery of last-minute holiday orders placed online? What protections can they build into their contacts with carriers? Can they pay extra to get carriers to deliver their packages first if there is a crunch? Should they cut off the last day for Christmas delivery earlier? Incentivize customers to order earlier? Gain expert insights on what you can do to position yourself with a winning shipping strategy as you lock down plans for holiday 2014.

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING. 11:45 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. F Lunch in the Exhibit Hall + Win the Wheels and Raffle Drawings

1:30 – 2:00 p.m. F Streamlining Mobile Checkout

Google Wallet packs a powerhouse of payment functionality into consumers’ smartphones, allowing them to store their credit and debit card numbers and billing information in one place, and even to pay by tapping smartphones on payment terminals in many stores and restaurants. Savvy retailers follow where shoppers lead, and in accepting Google Wallet’s two-click checkout, both online and offline merchants reduce a key friction point that’s kept more consumers from purchasing on mobile devices. In this session, discover both the challenges and the benefits of adding Google Wallet to your payment options, and hear first-hand the Google Wallet implementation experience of one of the system’s early retailer users.

2:00 – 2:30 p.m. F Spending Smart on

Warehouse and Distribution Space: 10 Questions to Ask

Site Content to Help Customers Help Themselves

Linda Taddonio, Chief E-Commerce Strategy Officer, InSite Software; Matt Ruggle, Marketing Manager, Great Northern Corp. When Great Northern, a retailer of packaging and display products, relaunched its web site, CustomBoxesNow. com, it not only boosted sales, but also got more customers to buy online rather than through phone calls. It uses Google Analytics and other ad-tracking software to see what customers look for and which customers call to place an order after viewing online content or a Google ad. That led to site improvements such as an online calculator that displays a box price as a customer enters custom dimensions. The retailer also reviews calls to reps from shoppers who first viewed content online to learn how the content could have better addressed shoppers’ questions. Learn how adding the site content that not only answers but anticipates customer queries can lighten the customer service load.

TRACK

3:15 – 3:30 p.m. F Break 3:30 – 4:00 p.m. F Amazon-Level Customer

Service—At a Price for the Rest of Us

Alaa Hassan, Vice President, iNetVideo.com In ongoing efforts to trim operational overhead, customer service presents a challenge—how do you cut costs without compromising the quality of service? One way is to start at the front end and increase customer satisfaction to decrease not only questions, returns and refunds to customers, but also the staff time needed to handle it all. In this session, you’ll hear from a retailer who undertook a broad initiative across several fronts to both improve the shopping experience on-site and find tools and technology to support customer service at an affordable cost. Learn how you can boost customer service levels across all the communication channels that customers expect at larger

retail operations—live chat, toll free, feedback tools and more-while requiring fewer employees to manage it.

4:00 – 4:45 p.m. F Customer Service Gets Social Amy Kelman, Vice President, Customer Success, Zendesk; Audrey Griffith, Senior Manager, Customer Care, ModCloth Some retailers and brands say an increasing share of their customer service exchanges with shoppers takes place on social networks and sites like Facebook and Twitter versus the phone or even live chat. And many are dedicating more call center staff to monitor and respond to social channels for customer service questions or comments. Other retailers find their customers like the traditional approach of a phone call. But this isn’t an either/or question—it’s about finding the right mix of tools and practices for your own customers. Learn how to determine that mix for your online store, and where social media fit into your own customer service strategy.

THURSDAY, JUNE 12 MAIN DAY 2

SOCIAL COMMERCE AND MARKETING NEW WAYS TO CONNECT TO CONSUMERS

What it means to be social continues to evolve as e-retailers experiment with initiatives they hope will distinguish them in the market and solidify their standing in consumers’ minds. That means relying increasingly on user-generated content, which can be risky and burdensome at best and a liability at worst. Still, momentum is not slowing as retailers refine their social tactics to engage with shoppers with authenticity, build curated communities around the brand and work out methods to measure results of social media campaigns.

CHICAGO, IL | JUNE 10-13, 2014

MAIN DAY 2

Karen Kang, Vice President, AccessoryGeeks.com; Mark Venezia, Vice President, Global Sales, Spreadshirt.com Finding the best fit in a fulfillment house requires e-retailers to look into details that may seem minute. But those who do their homework will be more likely to find a spot where they can stay awhile. Beyond the obvious questions such as cost per square foot, many other factors—area labor costs, proximity to transport centers that reduce travel time and shipping costs, the availability of more space for expansion- affect e-retailers’ decisions on choosing among fulfillment, warehousing and distribution options, and the value they’ll ultimately get out of the money they spend. Two retailers who’ve recently researched this decision will share what they’ve learned and what to look for.

2:30 – 3:15 p.m. F Serve Yourself: Improving

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE 10:30 – 11:15 a.m. G DIY: Build Your Own

Social Network and Stock It with Super Fans

Bridget Dolan (pictured), Vice President, Digital Marketing, Sephora; Katie Majersky, Super Fan, Consumer; Katy Keim, Chief Marketing Officer, Lithium Technologies There are other social playgrounds beyond Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. For some e-retailers, creating a dedicated, curated community provides a bridge to consumers - and between consumers - that’s superior because engagement is continuous; posts don’t get lost in the timeline as they do on Facebook. In this session, you’ll hear how one retailer built its own online community and manages relationships with its most active participants. One of the community’s Super Fans - an active poster who updates her comments 5-10 times a day - will explain what it takes to attract a consumer to serve as brand evangelist and credible authority and what it takes to post content daily for no compensation.

11:15 – 11:45 a.m. G Crowdsourcing: You Cannot Tame the Beast—Just Keep It Happy

Nick Palmisciano, President, Founder, Ranger Up Tapping your customer base for product design and development ideas holds great promise, especially in apparel. Crowdsourcing also can tax your resources because the very vocal community expects a two-way dialogue, recognition and evidence their input carries influence. Hear how Ranger Up manages a mammoth data-gathering task to guide which items to keep in stock and which to abandon, which designs should go into production based on consumer input in social channels.

11:45 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. G Lunch in the Exhibit Hall + Win the Wheels and Raffle Drawings

1:30 – 2:15 p.m. G Monetize Social with Shopper Analytics

Jon Kubo, Chief Product Officer, 8thBridge; Kevin Ertell, Vice President, E-Commerce, Sur La Table Social is squishy. It’s hard to quantify and calculate an ROI. But there are metrics to seize and this data can fuel initiatives that enhance engagement and drive sales. By grouping members of a social community into categories such as intent, influence, expertise and loyalty, e-retailers and brands can rank their audience and create custom marketing campaigns targeted to specific groups. In this session, you’ll hear first steps a retailer has taken to understand members of a social community on an individual level, then to target like-minded groups with relevant campaigns. Our speakers will also explain the results achieved to monetize social initiatives.

2:15 – 2:45 p.m. G Storm the Social Scene to

Boost Sales and National Stature

Matt Wise, Chief Executive Officer, ePrize; Michael Coleman (pictured), Vice President, Digital Marketing, Belk For a social marketing campaign to be successful, it must allow engagement in all areas of possible customer interaction. The goal: broad participation as well as messaging that is in harmony across all channels. In this session, a Belk executive will outline how a massive sweepstakes campaign deployed across a dedicated web site, a mobileoptimized site and a Facebook page not only generated traffic, Likes and sales, but also lifted the family-owned, regional chain’s stature as a nationwide retailer.

2:45 – 3:15 p.m. G Listen Up! Consumer Input

Improves the Product—So They Buy More

Morgan Hermand-Waïche, Chief Executive Officer, Founder, Adore.me Monitoring and managing customer product reviews can be an unwieldy task. But there is great opportunity in mining feedback, especially when it

contains critical information such as quality issues that escape retailers’ notice. In this session, you’ll learn how one e-retailer allocates resources to evaluate reviews, prioritize responses to customers and follow through with suppliers to correct product quality problems.

3:15 – 3:30 p.m. G Break 3:30 – 4:00 p.m. G Conversion Drivers: Go

Beyond the Like to Make Social Work for Retail

David Atchison, Senior Vice President, Zulily; Nicolas Franchet, Head of Retail & E-Commerce, Global Vertical Marketing, Facebook Turning passive engagements in social to active, conversion-driving dialogue does not happen by osmosis. Retailers making strides in this realm do so with thoughtful, well-considered strategic objectives in mind. But what does that really look like? In this session, speakers from Facebook and e-retailer Zulily will share a look at how smart retailers have meaningfully integrated Facebook into their marketing strategies to drive significant sales growth while maximizing ROI by driving conversion. Speakers will explore what this means for retailers today, and what the future of social, digital, and mobile marketing will look like for retailers and shoppers.

4:00 – 4:45 p.m. G Damage Control When Social Goes Bad

Andrew Jones, Analyst, Altimeter Group; Diana Adair, Director, Communications, Zazzle Well-intended, light-hearted postings on social networks are not always received that way. Almost all e-retailers will find themselves a target of public outrage at some point in time for what might seem to be the most innocuous comment posted on a social network. In this session, you’ll hear from a social media marketing expert the 5 actions you need to take right away and the 5 knee-jerk reactions you need to resist to avoid compounding the problem. You’ll learn not only how to manage the situation externally to protect your

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING. brand, but how to respond internally so that everyone on staff becomes more social savvy.

THURSDAY, JUNE 12

make sense of it, or no one has been trained how to mine the data. Using real world examples, this session will walk e-retailers through how and where to harvest data and how to structure and graph large, seemingly unrelated data. Our speakers will also address harvesting data from several sources and mashing that data together to create a clearer picture of your e-commerce business and customers. And they will provide tips on how to establish responsibility for reviewing and acting on the data, how to ensure that conclusions that come from the data are accurate, then how to coordinate the results of data mining with marketing and merchandising departments to create more sales.

TRACK

MAIN DAY 2

TECHNOLOGY BUILDING SYSTEMS FOR THE FUTURE

E-retailers that excel in technology are leaders in the e-commerce industry—no two ways about it. These sessions will help attendees keep up with the technology innovations that are crucial to success and help them decide where to invest their technology dollars for the greatest return.

10:30 – 11:00 a.m. H Reassessing and Rebuilding: A DIY Approach to Customizing an E-Commerce Platform

11:00 – 11:45 a.m. H Making Sense of All That Data Brett Trent (pictured), Vice President, E-Commerce, Dress Barn & Maurice’s; Jon Thralow, Partner, Tycoon Venture Partners Retailers have tons of data about their customers. But often it resides in databases that no one knows how to use. Either no one has the particular responsibility to dig into it and

11:45 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. H Lunch in the Exhibit Hall + Win the Wheels and Raffle Drawings

1:30 – 2:00 p.m. H Making Sure Technology Doesn’t Hinder Your Growth

Alan Higley, Vice President, Consumer Marketing, Code42 One of the realities of online retailing is that sales can develop much more rapidly and unexpectedly than in the offline world. E-commerce systems have to be ready with very little notice to handle fast growth. But that readiness is offset by the fact that no company wants to commit to huge technology spending until the need is there. This session will detail how executives can manage technology implementations to keep fast-growing e-commerce sites on track without overinvesting. Our speaker has experience in growing e-commerce businesses and is currently involved in moving the needle on the b2c side of a software developer.

2:00 – 2:30 p.m. H Bringing the Energy Hog Under Control

Bill Younger, Director, Commercial/ Industrial Programs, CLEAResult; Kirk Myers, Corporate Social Responsibility Manager, REI It takes a lot of electricity to run a data center. Until now, electricity has been

2:30 – 3:15 p.m. H Mobile Tsunami: Optimizing Your Retail Site for Revenue

Ben Rushlo, Vice President, Keynote Analytics, Keynote; Hanna Sicker, Site Operations Manager, StubHub The mobile wave grows ever larger and big money is now at play. Speed and performance matter a great deal. Consumers expect fast loads on web sites—in fact the old 4-second rule is now more like 2 seconds. Retailers face major challenges in optimizing mobile performance to drive higher revenue as consumers now expect mobile pages to load as fast on mobile as they do on PCs. This session will examine load times of leading mobile web sites and provide insight into what retailers can do to optimize performance for increased revenue.

MAIN DAY 2

Rett Clevenger, CEO, Steals.com As Steals.com, a gift, apparel and home furnishings retailer, grew, management decided the e-commerce processes that had grown up with the company needed an overhaul. After they looked at available technologies, they concluded they could better serve their needs by taking development in-house. Our kickoff speaker for the Technology Track will explain what prompted the company to look at the technology it was using; the options management considered for upgrades; how they decided on the path they took; what it took to implement the new approach, from both management and technology perspectives; and what payoff they’ve gotten from the revamp.

a cost of doing business. But some e-retailers are discovering that bringing energy costs under control in their data centers can create competitive advantage by significantly lowering their overhead. In addition, there’s great PR advantage to using less energy. This session will examine how outdoor gear retailer REI reduced its data center energy consumption and will lay out specific steps that all e-retailers or their service providers can take to become more efficient energy consumers.

3:15 – 3:30 p.m. H Break 3:30 – 4:00 p.m. H How to Make Sure Your New

Sales Tax Software Will Integrate with Your Systems and Keep You Out of Tax Trouble

Robb McCarter, Director, E-Commerce, Edwin Watts Golf A national sales tax is appearing inevitable, whether Congress approves such legislation tomorrow or next year. While many e-retailers believe they can turn the collection of taxes over to a vendor, it’s not so simple as that. At least six software developers have created sales tax systems. As with all technology, they all operate differently and have their own challenges in integrating with e-commerce operating systems. In addition, e-retailers who expect to set their tax system then forget it open themselves to liability if the tax software isn’t collecting the right taxes and remitting

CHICAGO, IL | JUNE 10-13, 2014

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE

them to states in a timely fashion. Our speaker in this session recently evaluated sales tax systems for his own company. He will explain what to ask vendors to ensure smooth integration and then how to manage the software and the relationship with the vendor to ensure that your company is following the law in regards to sales tax.

4:00 – 4:45 p.m. H Tag Audits: How to Know if

Your Product Tags are Helping or Harming You

Brion Hickey, Director, E-Commerce, Viator; Rob Seolas, Chief Executive Officer, ObservePoint Tags are tags, right? Yes, until they start affecting a site’s ability to attract shoppers. The problem is: most online retailers don’t know when their tags aren’t working or if they know, why they’re not working. This session will present an audit of tags at the 100 largest retailer web sites as well as at those ranked 501-600. Among the interesting tidbits: Web-only retailers are better at tag management than chains, catalogers and manufacturers. Our speakers will reveal the most common errors and address how those errors can harm sales, how to fix the errors and how to implement policies to ensure accuracy in the future.

THURSDAY, JUNE 12 MAIN DAY 2

B2B

TRACK

The e-commerce revolution is transforming business-to-business selling as much as it is transforming b2c. And b2b marketers are learning that the same consumers who are driving b2c online sales growth are driving b2b online sales as well. This group of sessions will lay out marketleading b2b e-commerce initiatives that will ensure no b2b marketer is left behind as the e-commerce revolution picks up steam.

10:30 – 11:00 a.m. I Top 3 Metrics that Matter for B2B Marketers in 2014

Andy Hoar, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research Marketers must know where their b2b initiatives stand with regard to corporate goals and to benchmark against competitors. While b2c e-commerce metrics are well-established, measurements are less-defined in the b2b space. Our speaker from Forrester will outline how successful b2b e-commerce executives measure performance across

all digital channels; how to analyze unstructured data and how that intelligence is applied to improve customer interactions and grow sales. Attendees will learn about new resources to guide b2b investment decisions.

11:00 – 11:45 a.m. I The B2B Opportunity: Have You Thought this Through?

Keith Haig (pictured), Global Digital Marketing Leader, 3M; Sean Cook, Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, ShopVisible B2b e-commerce is burgeoning; almost everyone wants in and fast movers will reap rewards provided a solid groundwork is put in place first. Do you know which best practices to adopt and which are mere distractions? This session will weave together distinct perspectives that will identify which b2c tactics to apply to your new b2b initiative. You’ll learn about the organizational preparedness necessary to build a b2b e-commerce business that will be profitable over the long term, whether your objectives are modest or grand.

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING. 11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. I How Smart B2B Site Design

Can Ease Shopping for Buyers and Boost Sales

Alex Schmelkin, Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, Ai; Girisha Chandraraj, Vice President, E-Commerce, United Stationers; Susie Sapsara (pictured), Manager, Global E-Business, Mine Safety Appliances Clean, unfettered web site design and intuitive navigation are essential when steering b2b customers - many of whom are time-constrained - toward self-service online. Two b2b companies and a design expert will discuss why Internet-based self-service became a priority at their companies and how a smooth-running program permits them to prioritize sales and service issues to focus on top customers without neglecting replenishment customers. This session will help attendees understand how to incorporate self-service into their b2b site, what investments are necessary and how marketers will need to change certain processes.

12:30 – 2:15 p.m. I Lunch in the Exhibit Hall + Win the Wheels and Raffle Drawings

your B2B and B2C Selling Seasons are Different

When your business starts out as B2B and evolves into B2C, you’ll soon find the systems set up to support wholesale operations seldom serve the directto-consumer channel. And when each channel has different peak selling seasons, technology and processes get yet more complicated. In this session, our speaker will detail how it abandoned manual systems and adopted new processes that make it easy to reallocate inventory to different channels as demand dictates — to keep customer happy and improve cash flow.

Shoppers and Markets

Eric McGregor, Manager, E-Commerce, Tacoma Screw Products Catering to b2b customers’ needs with simplified, streamlined online processes and real-time inventory yields sometimesunexpected results: new customers in new markets. When Tacoma Screw Products, a distributor of nuts, bolts and MRO supplies, enhanced its site to accommodate b2b customers’ operational demands, it drew more online orders from the b2c space and from geographic markets beyond its traditional regional reach. Our speaker will detail next steps to keep this momentum going to build both b2b and b2c sales.

TRACK

3:15 – 3:30 p.m. I Break

3:30 – 4:00 p.m. I How Mobile is Reshaping B2B Processes

Stephen Baumer, Chief Technology Officer, GoPro Tablets and smartphones are becoming more common accessories when buyers and sellers get together (and in advance of face-to-face meetings). Retailers are ditching the antiquated pen-paper-fax ordering process in favor of mobile devices that serve as a portal to a vast array of products and suppliers. Our speaker from GoPro will explain how mobile access to product imagery, specifications, reporting tools and attributes such as availability and delivery timetables speeds the process for brand manufacturers and retailers and permits remotely located merchandisers to collaborate more effectively on buying decisions.

4:00 – 4:45 p.m. I Leveraging B2B Heft to Enter B2C Space

Mike Honious, Chief Operating Officer, OHL; Reid Greenberg, Head of Digital Strategy, Operations, Seventh Generation A robust logistics infrastructure is essential to driving a brand’s growth in the b2b space; what happens when that

brand wants a piece of the b2c pie? For consumer goods manufacturer Seventh Generation, it meant leveraging the foundation that supports sales to retailers and augmenting technology to sell direct to consumers to improve margins in an all-new selling channel. In this session, the maker of green household and personal care products will detail why it plunged into b2c, short- and long-term objectives, initial results and next steps, and an executive from its logistics provider will outline the challenges and solutions that shrunk time in transit to meet the b2c channel demands.

THURSDAY, JUNE 12 MAIN DAY 2

DESIGN AND MERCHANDISING ENGAGING THE CUSTOMER ON THE SITE

One of the most effective ways of creating the bond with customers is through web site design and merchandising. Successful online retailers create a web site environment that offers products in a way that customers can relate to. These sessions will help e-retailers understand how to subtly forge the connection that will result in higher sales.

MAIN DAY 2

2:15 – 2:45 p.m. I Balancing Inventory When

2:45 – 3:15 p.m. I Master B2B to Reach New B2C

10:30 – 11:00 a.m. J Make the Most of Your Traffic: Maximizing Conversion

Karen Van Ert, Director, E-Business Consulting, Zeon Solutions; Lauren Wright, Manager, Marketing, Merchandising, Cooper Safety Solutions It’s marketing that brings shoppers to your site - but it’s merchandising that keeps them there and moves them toward purchase. Online shoppers are increasing the number of sites they visit before converting. That leads to higher advertising costs, lower conversion rates, and the need for retailers to drive more traffic to bring in the same revenue. Retailers can offset this trend by increasing conversion among visitors that

CHICAGO, IL | JUNE 10-13, 2014

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE marketing brings on board. Simple tactics can provide significant conversion rate increases. The session will share specific techniques, examples and a retailer case study showing businesses of all sizes how to make the most of visitors’ on-site experience and maximize conversion rates. It also will address the best ways to analyze that impact.

11:00 – 11:45 a.m. J Beat the Competition by Personalizing Content and Communication

Jason McAndrew, Senior Vice President, Planning, Allocation, The Children’s Place; Rama Ramakrishnan, CEO, CQuotient Consumers today are flooded with messages through multiple touchpoints— but they also are sharing more information about themselves than ever before. This presents an opportunity for marketers to capture these preferences and understand each consumer on a deeper level. A retailer and a vendor expert will showcase how mining data from all touchpoints consumers access while shopping digitally supported the creation of personalized content that lifted revenue per-customer by as much as 15% and click-through rates by as much as 100%. The session will focus on how retailers can harness the power of all the data customers provide and retailers gather to build personalized campaigns that keep messaging consistent across channels.

11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. J Name that Price: Price Negotiation on Retail Sites

Andrew Scarbrough, Co-Founder, COO, PriceWaiter; T.J. Gentle (pictured), CEO, President, SmartFurniture.com When it comes to largeticket items, in-store sales staff can react to customer price resistance by offering to negotiate. Now, your web site can do that, too-automatically. An online furniture retailer has boosted conversion rates and average order values since launching a pricing negotiation tool as a way to encourage shoppers balking at a high-ticket item and poised to abandon the site to reconsider. He’ll share what it took to integrate the new functionality into his site, how to balance the automated price flexibility with the need

to maintain margin, and how the new technology has changed his company’s entire approach to setting prices. A vendor expert will provide an overview of how online price negotiation works for different kinds of retailers.

12:30 – 2:15 p.m. J Lunch in the Exhibit Hall + Win the Wheels and Raffle Drawings

2:15 – 2:45 p.m. J Streamlining the App Update Process to Capture Mobile Sales

Bob Moul, CEO, Artisan; Gerry McGoldrick, VP, Marketing, Rue La La In today’s fast-paced online retail world, there’s a need to be nimble—making quick modifications to your site in response to consumers’ reaction to offers and their ever-shifting interest can increase engagement and boost sales. Nowhere is this more critical than in the case of the mobile shopper. E-retailers are experimenting with new technology that skips the usual involved app store update process to automatically update mobile apps directly from data stored in the cloud. That keeps the app refreshed without requiring consumers themselves to download updates for an app already on their phone. A retailer will share how it saw a near-50% boost on its click-through rate from its app that takes updates from the cloud and will also discuss how to market the updated app so consumers know it has new functionality and then engage with the app. A vendor expert will discuss the effect of streamlining app updates on mobile sales.

2:45 – 3:15 p.m. J Sharpening Your Web Site

Content by Looking at Your Site as Shoppers Do

Michael Layne, Director, Internet Marketing, Fathead Online retailer Fathead believed it was communicating its brand and products to consumers quite effectively—but in putting that belief to the test, it found it could do much more. In this session, learn how testing its site among consumers drove significant changes at the site, including how Fathead uncovered gaps in

consumers’ perception of the site and its offering, what kind of analysis and alterations to the site put it back on track, and the results achieved.

3:15 – 3:30 p.m. J Break 3:30 – 4:00 p.m. J Merchandising via Mobile: Same Old Same Old or Less is More

Lauren Freedman, President, The E-Tailing Group Retailers must make choices about how to merchandise their mobile experiences amid heightened consumer expectations. For some that means streamlining what they offer via e-commerce, while others have simply chosen to mirror what already exists, thus failing to meet the needs of their customers. In this session, learn how shoppers judge an ideal mobile experience from research conducted by the E-Tailing Group, and how that compares with the retail community’s perspective on the merchandising tactics that matter from an ROI point of view. See which retailers have mastered mobile experiences across the tasks that are top-of-mind among consumers, from researching prior to store visits, to finding inventory, to reserving products and checking out, from The E-Tailing Group’s mystery shopping mobile roundup.

4:00 – 4:45 p.m. J Neuromarketing: Where

Science Meets the Art of Web Design

Fabian Stelzer, CEO & Co-Founder, EyeQuant The human eye responds to color, brightness, feature placement and other key elements of web design in established patterns, and science has rolled up these patterns into algorithms that can predict where the eye will go first on a web page. This session will address how the new metric of visual attention can be used in web design to improve both usability and conversion.

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING. FRIDAY, JUNE 13

POST-SHOW WORKSHOP

MOBILE COMMERCE USING TODAY’S HOTTEST TECHNOLOGY TO GROW SALES

There’s no doubt that we have become a mobile computing society. And so one of the key ways that e-retailers and marketers create a bond with today’s consumer is via mobile. This group of sessions will lay out strategies for creating a strong and varied mobile presence that will attract and retain shoppers.

7:00 – 8:30 a.m.

Breakfast and Registration

8:30 – 8:45 a.m.

1 Welcome & Introduction: Understanding The Mobile Revolution

Bill Siwicki, Managing Editor - Mobile Commerce, Internet Retailer

8:45 – 9:15 a.m.

1 KEYNOTE: How an App Played a Crucial Role in Launching a Brand

10:15 – 10:30 a.m.

Ray Velez, Global Chief Technology Officer, Razorfish The rapid evolution of mobile has affected all online marketing and e-commerce—boosting consumers’ expectations about how often they will communicate with retailers, raising expectations about anywhere, anytime access to deals, price comparisons, access to stored information about their own preferences and more. In this session, a mobile specialist will show just how fast mobile campaigns are evolving. He’ll highlight the mobile opportunity for marketers, showing how quickly mobile is becoming sophisticated in how it allows retailers to interact with customers, and the challenge this poses. Our speaker will provide strategies and tactics for everyone in retail mobile from decision-makers to the web developers who execute on those plans.

10:30 – 11:15 a.m.

Staying Ahead of Mobile Shoppers’ Rising Expectations

9:45 – 10:15 a.m.

1 Mobile From 360 Degrees: Putting Mobile at the Center of Everything

Richard Cohene, Director of Marketing, Beyond the Rack Nearly 40% of flash-sale e-retailer Beyond The Rack’s traffic and sales are mobile. The apparel merchant offers an m-commerce site, a tablet-optimized site, an iPhone app and an iPad app. Mobile sales are on the way to eclipsing desktop sales, and so, Beyond the Rack has created a strategy it calls Mobile From 360 Degrees. This puts mobile at the center of all of the e-retailer’s commerce and marketing initiatives. For example, the merchant rolled out mobile-optimized e-mails for its 9 million members after tests showed the e-mails, tailored especially for smartphone screens, increased click-throughs by 15% and revenue per e-mail by seven percentage points. Shoppers open as many as 50% of the e-retailer’s 6 million morning and 6 million afternoon e-mails on mobile devices. Beyond The Rack’s director of marketing spells out the Mobile From 360 Degrees strategy, details examples of the strategy at work, and shares results.

Break

1 Mobile’s Key Role in Building a Digital Brand

Carin Van Vuuren, Chief Marketing Officer, Usablenet; Jennifer Zuccarini, Founder, Fleur du Mal When building a digital brand from the ground up, mobile is an important part of the equation. Such was the case at luxury lingerie and ready-to-wear brand Fleur du Mal, launched in 2012 by Jennifer Zuccarini, who previously founded Kiki de Montparnasse and was the design director for Victoria’s Secret. Jennifer worked with m-commerce vendor Usablenet to build a fresh, compelling mobile commerce site that focuses on creating a personalized experience for users. What’s more, the company uses location-based technology to deliver targeted content to m-commerce site visitors who are in or near Fleur du Mal pop-up stores, content different from what other site visitors see. Jennifer Zuccarini will reveal the most important features and functions of the mobile site, how to best meld mobile into a digital brand-building strategy, and what results the retailer has realized with its mobile program. Usablenet CMO Carin Van Vuuren will explain the technology behind the program, how to plan for mobile while creating the technology behind the brand, and what retailers need to know when contracting with an m-commerce vendor.

11:15 – 11:45 a.m.

1 Testing Mobile Applications: Benchmarking to the Best

Craig Spiezle, Executive Director, Online Trust Alliance; Gian Fulgoni, Executive Chairman, Co-Founder, comScore Developers take many approaches to mobile app creation and measurement of results. The Online Trust Alliance has created a methodology to promote best practices and to objectively test leading mobile apps across all platforms, cross tabbing results to how well their respective web sites perform. Our speakers will explain criteria for inclusion on the Alliance’s 2014 Trust Honor Roll, taking into account a core set of metrics as well as bonus points for early adopters of consumer controls, transparency,

CHICAGO, IL | JUNE 10-13, 2014

POST-SHOW WORKSHOPS

Jed Paulson, E-Commerce Director, Free People Free People was the original name of Urban Outfitters. When Urban Outfitters relaunched the Free People brand to appeal to mid-twenties shoppers, it started with an app. Our speaker, who will be kicking off the full day of mobile content, will discuss the role of an app in launching a brand and lodging the brand more firmly in consumers’ minds, what a successful app can do to increase sales and the steps Free People is taking to keep the app fresh.

9:15 – 9:45 a.m.

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE usability, security and privacy enhancing best practices.

11:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

1 Mobile Design for Each Device—One Size Does Not Fit All

Jay Dunn, Chief Marketing Officer, Bare Necessities There’s a counter-narrative to responsive web design, in which the e-commerce system detects the user’s device and formats the site accordingly. The alternative approach is a unique design for each type of device. And that’s the approach Bare Necessities is taking, after initially embarking on a responsive course. As the company encountered obstacles developing a responsive design, management went back to its original idea: mobile-first with a very different experience for desktop, tablet and smartphone devices. Our speaker will talk about why designing for mobile based on precisely how people use different devices makes sense for retailers and how Bare Necessities has benefited from that approach.

12:15 – 1:15 p.m.

Lunch

1:15 – 1:45 p.m.

What Matters in Mobile Apps

Mark Geller, Head of Product, Mobile, Haute Look For a brief period, mobile apps were new and novel enough that consumers would download them to see what they could do. But when the universe grew to hundreds of thousands, app developers faced the challenge of creating apps that were useful, engaging and high in consumers’ awareness. Our speaker this session is focusing on developing mobile apps for his company’s shoppers. He will discuss what he has learned about designing apps that consumers want to use, how his team tests designs and measures results and how he decides when a change is need and how often a change is warranted.

1:45 – 2:30 p.m.

Two Approaches to Responsive Web Design: Pure and Hybrid

Brendan Falkowski, Technology Lead, Skinny Ties The first retailers to deploy responsive web design sites used what today is sometimes called pure responsive design. Here, a retailer creates a single web site, which uses a single set of web content and a single code base that automatically render differently to exactly fit the size of the screen on a device accessing the site. The device could be a desktop, tablet, smartphone or smart TV. The retailer’s server sends one jumbo file to the client device; the client handles site rendering. Then, some vendors that launched responsive offerings created what became known as a hybrid approach in which a retailer creates a responsive site only for mobile devices (smartphones and tablets), leaving the desktop e-commerce site untouched. The appeal of that approach is that going responsive to address mobile consumers does not require a retailer to recreate and re-code the desktop site (which may be performing fine as is). Also, rather than the server sending one big file to a client, the server sends only the elements required for a site on the requesting device. Our speakers will address how they launched their type of responsive site, the pros and cons of the approach, and the results.

2:30 – 2:45 p.m.

Break

2:45 – 3:30 p.m.

1 Mastering Management Challenges of Multiple M-commerce Sites

Victoria Wisot, Vice President, Multichannel Commerce, Guitar Center Some retailers are forgoing the responsive design route in mobile commerce, opting for a site design that suits each type of device that accesses a web site. But that approach increases the complexity of web selling. Technology management issues (keeping data current and technology up to date and knowing the latest changes in mobile hardware and software) become more challenging. And so do corporate management issues (finding the right people, making sure you have adequate

staff without over-hiring, making sure everyone in the organization has a clear understanding of the approach and why, and so on). A mobile e-retail executive will provide tips and strategies for managing complex programs that involve multiple approaches to mobile web site design.

3:30 – 4:00 p.m.

1 Spiking Sales with Mobile Coupons

Linda Roark, President, Owner, Pete’s Ace Hardware Castro Valley, Calif.-based Pete’s Ace Hardware store increased average customer cart size by 411% with a mobile coupon campaign in summer 2013. 49% of consumers who received coupons redeemed them, and the campaign resulted in more than 190 new customers signing up for the mobile coupon club. Pete’s owner Linda Roark will discuss how she developed what she thought would be a good offer for mobile consumers, how she worked with the mobile vendor to enable the campaign, what technologies were used to deliver coupons, and how she promoted mobile coupons to include as many customers as possible.

4:00 – 4:30 p.m.

1 The Groupon Mobile Challenge: Coordinating Designs while Moving to a New Business Model

Dan Roarty, Vice President, Product Development, Groupon After five years in Internet retailing, Groupon has updated its iPhone and Android smartphone apps and iPad tablet app and redesigned its e-commerce site for PC shoppers, all with new features aimed at making it easier for customers to shop Groupon’s large selection of deals, goods and travel excursions. The challenge Groupon faced was twofold – migrating from being a deal site to a bona fide online retailer and then coordinating redesigns to accommodate multiple access devices. The Groupon exec who led the redesign will talk about the challenges of coordinating mobile designs with PC designs while making sure they all added up to a successful new business model for an established company.

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING. FRIDAY, JUNE 13

POST-SHOW WORKSHOP

SEARCH MARKETING COMPETITIVE, EVER-

CHANGING, BUT STILL THE SUREST ROUTE TO SALES

Paid search marketing and search engine optimization are two of the longest-established methods for drawing shoppers to your site. But with new technology, new targeting opportunities and new developments at search engines, they are in a state of constant flux. Succeeding at search means keeping up with this fast-changing landscape. This workshop will focus not only on what’s new in search marketing and search engine optimization, but also on the strategies and tactics that will help retailers sidestep pitfalls and take the best advantage of these developments.

joined by a retailer who will explain his experience with Enhanced Campaigns and provide details about the benefits and lessons learned.

9:30 – 10:15 a.m.

2 Combining Search and Social Media to Guide Marketing

Scott Sappenfield, Director, Marketing, Brand Management, Ubisoft; Tim Washburn, Executive Creative Director, Nomadic Agency To make a sale, you have to go where customers are looking-and social media can provide a wealth of data on how they’ll search online for the products they want. This session will address how researching what your targeted customers say to each other on social sites about products and brands can suggest not only keywords to buy, but search optimization techniques that will get you and your products in front of the shoppers you want to reach.

10:15 – 10:30 a.m.

Break

Sponsored by ROI Revolution

10:30 – 11:00 a.m.

8:30 – 8:45 a.m.

Small and cheap, as online ad programs go, and new to the game, is mobile paid search. Retailers testing mobile ads are enjoying the lower cost and higher clickthrough rates of the ads as compared to web ads. They’re testing paid search on smartphones and discovering how the requirements and opportunities of paid search in mobile formats are distinguished from paid search in a non-mobile environment. In this session, you will learn about the differences between web-based and smartphone ads, how retailers can test mobile paid search waters, and what they need to know in order to get started.

2 2

Breakfast and Registration Welcome & Introduction

8:45 – 9:30 a.m.

2 A Year Later: The Impact of Enhanced Campaigns

Aaron Goldman, Chief Marketing Officer, Kenshoo; Adam Garcia, Sr. Manager, Customer Acquisition, The Walgreen Co. By the start of IRCE 2014, Google’s automatic migration to Enhanced Campaigns—a new campaign management tool for Google’s AdWords paid search program that lets advertisers target ads for different devices—will have been in effect for nearly a year. Enhanced Campaigns are likely to continue, which means that marketers will need the right information to create a strong foundation on which to build success. In this session, the keeper of the largest set of paid search data outside Google shares research illustrating the impact Enhanced Campaigns have had on cost per click, by device, by region, and more. He’ll be

2 Investigating Paid Search for Mobile

11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

2 Rounding up the Whole Story: Google’s Search Tweaks

Jeff MacGurn, Vice President, Covario; Seth Dotterer, Vice President, Marketing & Product, Conductor Inc. Search engine giant Google recently tweaked its Panda algorithm, which disrupted the industry two years ago

12:00 – 1:00 p.m.

Lunch

Sponsored by ROI Revolution

1:00 – 1:45 p.m.

2 Smarter Bidding Boosts an E-Retailer’s Returns from a New Google Ad Format

Dave Schwartz (pictured), General Manager, Product Ads, DataPop; Tom Novellino, CEO, Metaverse Corp. Home décor e-retailer Metaverse Corp., operator of thousands of niche e-commerce sites, boosted its return on Google’s Product Listing Ads from about 200% to 300% with a tighter focus on managing the ads. PLAs, a paid listing format Google introduced in 2012, places paid ads among organic listings when a consumer searches for a product. PLAs require as much management as traditional search engine marketing in terms of keywords organization, bids managed by keyword and tracking return on investment, but the effort can be worth it because, while conversions have remained about the same, with tighter management, Metaverse has benefitted from spending less on ads in total and paying a lower cost-per-click. A Metaverse executive will be joined by a marketing expert who will explain what it takes to make PLAs pay off.

CHICAGO, IL | JUNE 10-13, 2014

POST-SHOW WORKSHOPS

7:00 – 8:30 a.m.

by suddenly rewarding high-quality (as determined by Google) web sites with better rankings in search results. The target of the newest updates: Poor quality content, such as over-packing pages with keywords or using text visible to search engines but not site visitors. It’s one of the latest in multiple updates since Google implemented Panda in 2011 as it changed its algorithm to lower the rankings of web retailers whose sites feature static and generic content. In this session, two search experts will gather up in one place a complete view of all the updates to give retailers the total picture, highlighting advice for each update. They will provide real-life examples of how Panda changes a site’s content.

2014 IRCE PREVIEW GUIDE 1:45 – 2:30 p.m.

10 tips on Creating SEOFriendly Content

Alok Jain, Chief Executive Officer, eZdia Optimizing your site’s content to keep it fresh, findable and relevant to changing search engine algorithms is like shooting at a moving target—and under those circumstances, hitting the bull’s-eye with your creative is an art. In this session, you’ll get an update on the latest best practices to guide content creation to maximize SEO. Gain expert insights from a major outsource provider of e-commerce web site content and hear real-life examples of how adjusting creative content improved retailers’ SEO and business results.

2:30 – 3:15 p.m.

2 The Wide-Open International Opportunity for Paid Search

Mark Keeney (pictured), Vice President, Marketing, Ritani; Michael DeSimone, CEO, Borderfree There’s less competition abroad for valuable paid-search keywords, as online jewelry retailer Ritani discovered after the launch of its e-commerce site in 2012 when it started receiving queries from international shoppers looking to buy. Expanding paid search campaigns internationally at less keyword cost than at home and tailoring them to each region’s quirks has paid off. Similar keywords are 10% to 50% cheaper abroad, and participating in paid search abroad has been a key factor in the fact that roughly 10% of the retailer’s total sales are now from international orders—an unexpected gain for a retailer that hadn’t even planned to sell internationally. A Ritani executive and an executive of the vendor platform that helped the company scale up overseas will explain what works and what doesn’t in international paid search, and in which markets.

3:15 – 4:30 p.m.

Live SEO Reviews

Seth Dotterer, Vice President, Marketing & Product, Conductor Inc.; Stephan Spencer, Co-Author, The Art of SEO Search engine optimization has depended on elements like keyword selection, tags and meta-tags, and URL structure.

Today, SEO is all that and more as new techniques they are using, a new focus on content, and ongoing changes in search engine algorithms give rise to new techniques that are expanding the definition of SEO. Session attendees will gain instant perspective on how well their site is faring under the SEO techniques they are using—both traditional and new— as well as suggestions on improvement as they volunteer sites for comment from two SEO experts. Whether or not your site is reviewed, this session is sure to be a learning experience for all.

FRIDAY, JUNE 13

POST-SHOW WORKSHOP

SOCIAL COMMERCE WORKSHOP

HARNESSING THE POWER OF THE HOTTEST NEW MARKETING MEDIUM

Social networking is one of the prime ways that e-retailers connect and bond with customers. But creating and managing a social strategy is not easy. This full-day workshop will provide tactics, techniques and strategies for social media initiatives that will keep your customers tuned into what you want to tell them and sell them.

7:00 – 8:30 a.m.

Breakfast and Registration

8:30 – 8:45 a.m.

Welcome & Introduction

8:45 – 9:15 a.m.

3 How E-Retailers Use Social to Enlist Artists as Ambassadors to Become a Globally Recognized Brand

Raaja Nemani, Chief Executive Officer, CoFounder, Bucketfeet The path for a startup is seldom a smooth one. When support and inspiration are reciprocal between a vast population

of designers and one e-retailer, some remarkable things can happen. In this session, you’ll learn how one company leverages social channels like Instagram and Twitter to work with artists around the world to bring one-of-a-kind creations to market through its web site, pop-up stores right here in Chicago and soon, overseas.

9:15 – 9:45 a.m.

3 10 Most Important Components your Social Presence Needs

Sarah Evans, Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Creative Director, Sevans Strategy Techniques for social media success continue to evolve as companies invent, test, refine and retest tactics to home in on those that resonate best with their target audience. Still, there are foundational components essential to every social presence that will not change because they are steeped in the very human nature of social interaction, which demands mutual respect, trust and occasional whimsy. A digital media expert will present examples illustrating both good and bad execution of the top 10 components your social presence needs, such as a real “face” (not an avatar), authority, transparency and the confidence to follow, and in some instances, promote your competition to successfully elevate your brand’s profile across the spectrum of social media channels.

9:45 – 10:30 a.m.

3 Boost Conversion without a Social Cast of Thousands

Jai Rawat, Chief Executive Officer, ShopSocially; Jennifer Nuckles, Chief Marketing Officer, Plum District, Michael Lee, Founder, Chief Executive Officer, Creative Director, Mezzmer Eyewear Small e-retailers face significant challenges in developing - and maintaining - successful social strategies because resources are stretched thin and everyone is called upon to wear many hats. After Mezzmer Eyewear introduced social commerce modules to their online store, conversion rates surged fivefold and the Facebook fan base increased ninefold, with 30% of fans converting to e-mail subscribers. Retail executives from Mezzmer and Plum District will show how they launched successful social initiatives that did not demand a lot of

CHANGING. CONNECTING. CREATING. staff support. Our third speaker will explore new types of functionality retailers are adding to their sites such as fan acquisition, purchase sharing and product reviews social commerce modules to boost conversion.

10:30 – 10:45 a.m.

Break