Back from the Show, the Show Goes on

Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition is a wrap and the squad has returned. I conducted a err… de-briefing / recapping session on Friday to learn what went well, what we were missing, what arrangements could be refined and also, how to effectively follow-up on the stack of business cards, ecommerce surveys and notes collected at the show.

The trick is to let them know what we have to offer and why that may be valuable to them - plus how to get in touch with us should they desire Elastic Path's products and services, without being obnoxious and alienating potential customers AND while trying to focus the list enough so we aren't paying postage straight to the recycling bin.

Additional challenges include tracking the return on investment of the trade show. Of course, some of the investment is for the long-term benefits of building brand awareness and goodwill but at some point, it is nice to justify the work with dollar signs (sigh) whether a "cost per lead" or a "total ROI" based on estimated lifetime value per customer or something in-betwixt.

Either way, I place a high value on generating name recognition and creating a favorable reputation as a cornerstone of successful participation in a volatile industry, and that goal was accomplished in spades.

The squad also returned with some video footage of the contortionist's shows and some snapshots which I hope to post soon (I noticed "contortionist" is a popular search-word to find this humble-blog).

BTW, if you didn't notice, the last post was a podcast (audio program), the first of likely many. To subscribe to the podcasts most easily, copy and paste the feed address into iTunes (Advanced menu > Subscribe to podcast) or use the web-based podcatcher, Odeo.

In other tech industry news, …

Unlike many folks, I wasn't toooo surprised that the notable "enterprise" blogger, Robert Scoble moved on from Microsoft - contrary to his cult-status in the geek-world, the guy is just a regular dude - he is a human with that burning inclination to build something from the ground up and make some real money for his time to facilitate leisurely days ahead. I am no rookie to this industry and know i wanna make some bread this time around ;-)).

Scoble made massive contributions to MS's culture and magnified a positive trend in bringing pragmatic transparency and critical thinking to the corporate animals - see Channel 9 - but money abounds in the high-risk/high-reward start-up world which currently boasts a frenzy which may well eclipse those goofy and heady days of late nineties.

I've met Scoble (as if he remembers) at various conferences (was it Mindcamp, Gnomedex and/or Northern Voice? pardon the namedropping) and he is just one of the geeks but features a disarming charisma and intelligent charm which attracts people, i think because he makes them feel important and smart, as in wise.

Bonus: Here's a snapshot of his mighty Scobleness chatting with the good folks of Mindcamp (photo by the irrepressible tech marketing guru Tara Hunt AKA Miss Rogue).

Podtech (his new gig) made a brilliant decision which already paid off BIG TIME as Scobleizer is all over the major mainstream media along with *every* blog on the planet (see his stats), even his Wikipedia entry was updated the same day. This is an amusing, almost-watershed moment and another instance of blogs and bloggers making the news rather than covering it.

P.S. there is a HUGE difference between blogging and 'citizen' journalism, but that's a whole other post.

Word from the Floor

Well, I finally got an update from our crew at Internet Retailer 2006 in Chicago and seems we're a hit! All the bits and pieces arrived, the booth looks great, collateral looks sharp, the crowds are arriving and the contortionists shows are going off with a bang. Right on (whew, that's just what we needed).

Momma always told you how important first impressions are and we wanted to ensure we looked polished and professional at our (if you'll excuse the term) "debutante ball." With that in mind, along with the positive reports, it seems we can unfurl the Mission Accomplished sign ;-).

Of course, no matter how successful this show went, there are fumbles to remedy and improvements to make. With this in mind, I've prepared a debriefing worksheet to glean critical and fresh info from the exhausted troops when they return. My aim is to create a "master playbook" for trade show so we can track progress and improve both the form and function of the whole routine.

Despite my worthy intentions, I suspect most of the crew (CEO Harry, VP Marketing Jason, Sales Director Mark, VP Product Dev Dave) will be more interested in catching up with the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs (which is captivating most all of Canada) and the forthcoming FIFA World Cup (captivating the rest of the world) and I heard something that NBA basketball is having their playoffs as well - hmmm. The fifth teammate, sales-ringer Suzanne is probably ready to be away from the lads for a few days!

Anyhow, The joint press release from the trade show announcing our integration agreement with Celebros is circulating around the web (though there was a minor URL correction to the couturecandy.com URL).

Here's a snippet:

The partnership offers a key enhancement to Elastic Path's ecommerce solution, which combines low total cost of ownership with unprecedented flexibility to online stores. Mutual clients are already benefiting from the integration of Celebros' Qwiser. For example, CoutureCandy, an online apparel retailer of 'the sweetest fashions on earth', achieved both higher conversion rate and average order size, following the launch of an Elastic Path / Celebros-based site last February.

"Tests have shown that conversion rates can increase up to 300% with Celebros site search," said Harry Chemko, CEO of Elastic Path. "Retailers like CoutureCandy (www.couturecandy.com) and I Want One of Those (www.iwoot.com) are proving that adding Celebros' best-of-breed search and navigation tools to our platform dramatically impacts site performance."

Additionally, I found a few blog entries via Technorati with some comments about the Conference and Exhibition. Some great comments about the increasing industry buzz (yes, I remember the bleak days of empty shows in 2001) from Adam Strong on Domain Editorial who also talks about the challenges of the retail space:

"There were a lot of facts and numbers presented by researchers throughout the show. All of them were very bullish on the future of the space. The growth of online retail is predicted to continue, but what’s amazing is that that the internet retail channel still represents a very small percentage of the whole of the retail world. <snip>… One statistic that amazed me was the low conversion ratios (1-5%) that were cited by some presenters. Remember, I’m new to internet retailing in general, but that number seems like it is very low and in desperate need of improvement."

Speaking of conversion rates (which seems to be the "big" topic ergo: We've got the people coming to the site, how do we get them to actually buy?), Webservices magazine recaps Jeff Schuler of UsabilitySciences.com's speech from Internet Retailer, in a post paraphrasing the two critical bits to increasing conversion:

"Encourage account creation. Don't separate what's most important to you. Your users and their money! Integrating new account creation within the checkout process has been shown to increase the average order value of a client over their user lifetime.

Product images drive conversion. Buyers are seeking functionality to gain a better relationship with products and as such enhanced imaging is a key factor in driving conversion."

I also came across intriguing blog by John Yunker Going Global (part of Corante). John presented at the Internet Retailer show and seems to be dialed into the Globalization of the Internet retail world (in fact, he wrote the report card and guidebook). With baked-in Unicode support, international selling seems right up Elastic Path's alley - I added John to my read list and I'll keep an eye on what he has to say. BTW, the five most common Internet publishing languages after English are: 1. German, 2. French, 3. Japanese, 4. Spanish, 5. Chinese with Hindi is a language on the rise.

I checked Flickr for Internet Retailer 2006 tagged photos, but this doesn't seem to be the hyper-creative set that Gnomedex attracts, though user peyoung from Tokyo (who seems to be eating *very* well on this trip ;-)) posted a pic of the sign and the prize Jaguar (who won this?).

Hopefully, we'll have a bit of media content to post soon so keep an eye out for rich media coming down this RSS wire.