Online Retailing and the New Retail Economy

We didn’t know it at the time, but when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, it triggered a movement toward democratization and free enterprise that spread—and is still spreading—around the world, freeing up once-closed societies. In its own way, the transformation of the global economy wrought by e-commerce is as momentous a phenomenon when it comes to dissolving barriers—in this case, to an entirely new retail economy. Like the Wall separating East and West, there existed many barriers in traditional retailing, confining retailers and consumers alike—barriers that made entry to established markets difficult and prevented retailer-consumer interaction on a mass-market level. These barriers also inhibited merchants from offering more personalized services and highly targeted marketing. Lastly, such barriers discouraged retailing on a global scale, forcing shoppers to travel to regional malls and tailor their shopping preferences to meet the merchant’s requirements on everything from store hours to store inventories.

With a mind-blowing expansion of new web-based technologies and online retailing strategies, e-commerce is rapidly breaking through all these traditional barriers. The industry is creating a new retail order that puts the consumer in total control even as it spawns major competitive opportunities for the retailers and consumer marketers who embrace it. The 9^th annual Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition, the world’s largest e-commerce event, which will be held at Chicago’s McCormick Place Westfrom June 4-7, 2013, will analyze the social, mobile, global, personal, interactive and managerial changes that e-commerce players are bringing to the new retail economy. This is a major educational event that offers online retailing and wholesaling professionals and consumer marketers the insights and analysis they need to give their businesses a competitive advantage in this expanded world of possibilities.

Larger than America’s other two major e-retailing events combined, IRCE 2013 expects to draw 9,500 e-retailing executives from more than 40 countries. They will be treated to a customizable agenda that features 220 speakers and 120 sessions, plus 6 workshops (pre- and post-conference, held on June 4 and 7, respectively) and 10 tracks running concurrently on the two main conference days (June 5 and 6) on subjects that include, but are not limited to:

• Maximizing the effectiveness of rapidly evolving, consumer-empowering interactive technologies and social media platforms
• Designing search marketing strategies for success in an increasingly competitive and demanding search environment
• Seizing the opportunity to establish a viable global footprint as e-commerce continues to render the borders between national markets meaningless
• Targeting on-the-go consumers with the latest mobile technologies and marketing developments
• Dismantling internal barriers within an organization to facilitate more profitable web-based businesses
• Exceeding expectations in order fulfillment and delivery of ever-more-demanding web shoppers
• Exploring the top financial, operational and legal issues today’s e-commerce executives must master