The inaugural online retailer conference in Sydney finished yesterday. Two days packed with interesting speakers and more than 2,000 eager to learn participants. PriceMe participated, and we wanted to share some of the highlights of the conference.

1. Online retailing is an exciting field. The excitement and energy in the online retail industry resembled the good old dot com days at the end of the 1990s.
2. Online retailing is becoming global. The era of isolation is over for New Zealand retailers. Local retailers loosing out to overseas competition as more and more consumers are buying from overseas retailers. Overseas retailers offer speedier delivery than ever before at low prices. Many of these retailers now offer free shipping as a way to attract local customers. In Australia, the percentage of consumers buying locally decreased from 82% to 57% the last three years.
3. Specialisation by outsourcing various ecommerce functions. Third parties can now manage many aspects of the online shop: email marketing, search, payment, SEO, user generated content including reviews and blogging etc. Outsourcing to a third party enables online retailers to better focus on their strengths and core business.
4. Excellent customer service is mandatory, not optional. Providing anything less than an incredible service is risky and will result in a loss of business. Companies like Zappos are setting new standards in terms of customer service for online retailers. Competion is becoming global as mentioned above, and local retailers now have to compete with the very best.
5. Multi-touchpoint consumer behavior drives sales. Today’s consumers are influenced in many different ways prior to purchase (often between 5 to 8 different touch points). Important touch points are emails, ads, online shop, offline store, search engines and referrals. Online retailers need to understand that there’s a multi-touchpoint process that consumers go through before they actually purchase.

The conference was a success and is poised to become an annual event.