eTail West was a few weeks ago and what started as a simple blog post has morphed into The Most Comprehensive Conference Recap You Will Ever Read!

There are over 600 hyperlinks in this post so in an effort to make it easier to digest, I broke the recap down into 5 distinct sections.

Key Takeaways (5 key takeaways)
Individual Session Recaps (4 recaps)
The Top Tweets (11 tweets)
Conference Photos (11 photos)
Exhibitor List (124 exhibitors)

Key Takeaways:

1. eCommerce Has Chaaaanged

The days of throwing up an eCommerce store and quickly turning it into an ATM are long gone. “Old school” retailers are losing market share rapidly and a lot of them are throwing up the white flag and sending all of their inventory to Fulfillment By Amazon.

2. Differentiate or Die

In Google’s eyes, you are offering no value to their users if you have the same exact content as your competitors. Creating unique titles and descriptions for thousands of products is a HUGE challenge for most retailers, but it’s becoming a requirement if you still plan on being around in a few years.

3. Learn From Amazon

Whether you love Amazon, or hate them – you should be learning from them. Amazon has some of the most sophisticated conversion rate testing tools on the planet so you KNOW their landing pages convert extremely well.

Study Amazon. Learn from Amazon. And try to create an Amazoncentric experience for your customers.

4. F-Commerce Stands For Fake Commerce

I’m actually being polite here, as most attendees used another 4 letter F word to describe F-Commerce. Facebook has not become the direct selling channel that many predicted and a lot of retailers are still struggling to develop their Facebook strategy.

5. Mobile + iPad Traffic Is Growing Fast

There were a lot of attendees claiming that the majority of their traffic now comes from mobile devices. While we haven’t seen those levels of mobile traffic from our client base, we have noticed mobile traffic spiking for certain categories.

Luckily for you, Google Analytics makes it easy to see how much traffic you are receiving from mobile devices. Within your Google Analytics dashboard, simply follow these instructions – Mobile visitor locations: Visitors > Mobile > Devices.

eTail West Session Recaps:

I covered 4 sessions for our blog. Below you can see more information about each presenter and you can read the invidual recaps by clicking on the links below the author bio.

Guy Kawasaki

CEO of Alltop.com

Best Selling Author of Enchantment

The 4 Pillars Of Enchantment

For those of you who don’t already know, Guy Kawasaki is kind of a big deal. He is the author of 10 best selling books, he has over 600k followers on Twitter and over 1.3 million people have Guy Kawasaki in their Google+ circles… > Read More

Rick Watson

General Manager Marketplace

Barnes & Noble

Elevate Strategy At Your Company: How To Build A Repeatable Process For Innovation

Most retailers are overworked and structure their days around their current to-do list. This style of management is 99% reactionary and leads to a lack of innovation… > Read More

Jonathon Colman

Internet Marketing Manager

REI.com

Learn eCommerce SEO From REI

I had the pleasure of attending the eTail West session hosted by Jonathon Colman of REI. I recently met Jonathon on Google+ and believe it or not, some people spend more than 3 minutes per month on Google+… > Read More

Ben Kirshner

CEO & Co-Founder

CoffeeForLess.com

35 Paid Search Optimization Techniques

Today is the first day of the eTail West conference and the first session I attended was hosted by Ben Kirshner from Coffee For Less. Unlike most of the sessions at eCommerce conferences, Ben gave actionable advice so the audience could easily implement his suggestions… > Read More

The Best Tweets from eTail West:

Great point by @bkwalker today, the customer doesn’t give a $&!% about channels – they just want a good experience. #etail2012 #ecommerce

— Casey Carey (@caseycarey) March 1, 2012

“Facebook is the answer, but I’m not quite sure what the question was… “ Gareth Gaston, SVP Ecommerce Wyndam Hotel#etail2012 — Lori Caldwell (@LCaldwell) February 29, 2012

At least 17% of all e-commerce SALES by end of year will be from iPad on quidsi.com sites. #etail — Luke Wroblewski (@lukew) February 28, 2012

Monetize this, monetize that. Are you creating value or are you moving money around on the table? #etail2012 — Rob Fredley (@kerningpairs) February 29, 2012

“@melonie: “We used to call it stalking, now we call it location based marketing.” [email protected]tastidlite #etail”

— Richie Hannah (@rrrrichie) February 29, 2012

RT @rrrrichie: The She-Economy: Women consume 57% of pages viewed and 57% time spent online #eTail #eTail2012 #Ecommerce — Amanda McGuckinHager (@shoogie) February 29, 2012

Without even doing anything, we’re getting as much revenue per click with @Pinterest as with @Facebook. #etail2012, @BakersShoes — #eTail_Events (@eTail_Events) February 29, 2012

Yes, Pinterest is disruptive at the moment, but if I hear one more question about it at #eTail I might give myself a lobotomy — Michael Hinnant (@hinnant) March 1, 2012

Biggest case is an optimized email landing page for mobile. 90% of email is read on a. Mobile device. #etail2012

— Rob Fredley (@kerningpairs) February 28, 2012

What made @Zappos.com successful is they trusted their customers first- @GuyKawasaki #etail2012 — #eTail_Events (@eTail_Events) March 1, 2012

Photos from eTail West:

Day 1 of the Main Conference was PACKED – exhibit A:

Day 1 of the Main Conference was PACKED – exhibit B:

The AWESOME flat screen TV at the @Steelhouse booth:

The tag management gurus at the @Tealium booth:

One of the non-stop demos at the @500Friends booth:

The coolest vendor prop award has to go to @AdRoll:

The @RedEyeUS booth won the KISS award:

The view from the hotel entrance:

The sunset on the final night of eTail West 2012:

eTail West 2012 Exhibitors:

Below you will find a list sorted in alphabetical order of the 124 vendors who exhibited.

Out of 124 exhibitors:

112 have a Twitter handle
110 have a LinkedIn company profile
102 have a Facebook Page
84 have a company Blog
31 have a YouTube channel
25 have Google+ profiles

eTail West 2012: The Most Comprehensive Conference Recap You Will Ever Read!

Key Takeaways:

1. eCommerce Has Chaaaanged

2. Differentiate or Die

3. Learn From Amazon

4. F-Commerce Stands For Fake Commerce

5. Mobile + iPad Traffic Is Growing Fast

eTail West Session Recaps:

The Best Tweets from eTail West:

Photos from eTail West:

eTail West 2012 Exhibitors:

Canada Postes (no social media profiles)

Commerce Hub (no social media profiles)

Proclivity Media (no social media profiles)

Translations (no social media profiles)

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