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

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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

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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

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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

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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:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

500 Friends Icon Icon  Icon

5th Finger  Icon Icon   Icon

Adlucent  Icon Icon  

AdRoll  Icon Icon  

Affinion Icon

Akamai   Icon   

Altuik   

Amazon Payments  

Amazon Product Ads 

Amazon Services 

Amazon Webstore    

AOL    

Aramex   

AT&T  Icon Icon   Icon

Badgeville  Icon  

Baynote    

Brightedge     

Bronto  Icon Icon  

Buysight  Icon Icon

Canada Postes (no social media profiles)

Catalogspree  Icon 

CDC Software Icon Icon  

CDNetworks  Icon Icon 

Cellit  Icon Icon  Icon

Certona  Icon Icon 

Chango  Icon Icon 

Choice Stream Icon Icon 

Cinsay  Icon Icon 

ClearSaleing  Icon Icon 

ClickSquared Icon 

Commerce Hub (no social media profiles)

Commission Junction Icon Icon  

Covario  Icon Icon   Icon

Criteo Icon Icon  Icon

PayPal  Icon Icon   Icon

EdgeCast Icon Icon 

edo Interactive Icon Icon 

Ensighten Icon Icon 

Epsilon  Icon Icon 

eShop World Icon

Fluid Icon Icon 

Foresee  Icon Icon   Icon

GPShopper Icon Icon

GSI Commerce  Icon Icon 

HookLogic  Icon Icon 

Hybris Icon Icon 

ifeelgoods Icon Icon  Icon

Inceptor  Icon Icon  Icon

Ingram Micro  Icon Icon  

iProspect  Icon Icon 

July Systems  Icon Icon 

Kenshoo Icon Icon 

Knotice  Icon Icon 

Kony  Icon Icon 

Kount  Icon Icon

KSC Kreate  Icon Icon 

Limelight Network Icon Icon  Icon

Linkshare  Icon Icon   Icon

Listrak  Icon Icon  

Mad Mobile Icon Icon 

Mail Metrics Icon

Marin Software  Icon Icon 

MarketLive  Icon Icon 

Maxymiser  Icon Icon 

MediaForge Icon Icon

MediaMath Icon Icon  

Milo Local Shopping Icon Icon 

Mobify  Icon Icon 

Monetate  Icon Icon   Icon

Monsoon Commerce  Icon Icon   Icon

MyBuys Icon Icon 

Netbiscuits  Icon Icon  

NetElixir  Icon Icon 

NetSuite  Icon Icon   Icon

OpinionLab  Icon Icon 

OptiMine  Icon Icon 

Oracle  Icon Icon   Icon

OrderGroove  Icon Icon 

OwnerIQ  Icon Icon 

PM Digital  Icon Icon 

PowerReviews  Icon Icon 

Proclivity Media (no social media profiles)

Redeye  Icon Icon 

Responsys  Icon Icon 

RetailMeNot  Icon  

Return Path  Icon Icon 

RichRelevance  Icon Icon  

RightNow  Icon Icon  

RKG  Icon Icon  Icon

Riversand Icon Icon

Savvis  Icon Icon   

Searchdex  Icon Icon  Icon

Servio Icon Icon 

ShopIgniter  Icon Icon 

Shotfarm  Icon Icon  

SideCar Icon Icon 

Silverpop  Icon Icon   Icon

SLI Systems  Icon Icon  

Smarter Remarketer 

Sociable Labs  Icon Icon 

SocialAnnex  Icon Icon

Steelhouse  Icon Icon   Icon

Symantec Icon Icon 

Tagman  Icon Icon 

Tealeaf  Icon Icon 

Tealium  Icon Icon 

TellApart  Icon Icon 

Think Realtime  Icon Icon 

Torrey Commerce Icon

Translations (no social media profiles)

Triad Retail Media Icon Icon  Icon

TRUSTe  Icon Icon 

TurnTo 

Ugam Interactive  Icon Icon 

USA800  Icon Icon  

Usablenet Icon Icon 

ValueClick Icon Icon 

Vertex Icon Icon 

Virid Icon 

VisiStat  Icon Icon 

YesMail  Icon Icon 

YourAmigo Icon Icon

Zmags  Icon Icon 

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