Internet Retailing Conference 2010, 12th Oct, Hammersmith

There was a reasonable turnout for this very editorially based ECommerce event in its 4th year. Speakers were there to give a run down on their business and share their hot topics for 2011 and not to sell a long list of services...refreshing. Keynote speakers included Clare Gilmartin from Ebay, David Hughes from M&S Direct and David Walmsley from DSGi.

David Hughes seemed to be coming from a very exciting place with M&S Direct, having had great success with recent technology implementation including a 30% sales uplift online on products that were presented with video footage and noting that their mobile shopping technology had paid for itself in a matter of weeks. He also eluded to the power of Facebook where they had reported their highest level of FB engagement in relation to their 'bum lift' and 'frontal enhancement' underwear- mostly consisting of light hearted fun. When speaking about the concern retailers may have giving online reviewers carte blanche to write what they want on your site, David highlighted the fact that the reviews were 'self regulating' and that most negative comments were redressed by the loyal M&S followers.

David spoke about the Direct team always being led by customer insight when looking at new innovation and told us that one of the ways you can encourage innovation is by ring-fencing some money in your ECommerce P&L that you don't know what to do with and on which you expect to receive no return.

One of my favourite speakers of the day was a very positive Andrew Ground from Lovefilm who embraced the question of his company's validity in the years to come given that discs through the post will become outdated. Obviously streaming over the net is a growing side of their business but Andrew also discussed the opportunities of streaming by working in partnership with the most accessible home device-the games console. We will all be watching movies on our TV through our games device and/or freeview box in no time, we will be able to choose a movie to watch or update our rental list in real time. The news has leaked as of this morning and it appears that Lovefilm has officially partnered with the PS3. http://www.videogamer.com/news/lovefilm_ps3_partnership_is_official.html
Footage of the speakers is available- let us know if you would like to be sent the link.
ELG