Shop.org held its first international dinners last week in London and Paris.  As part of Shop.org’s vision to be the world’s leading membership community for digital retail, the dinners provided an opportunity for British and French retailers to share online and multichannel best practices with US retailers. Representatives from JC Penney and Timberland attended the dinners from the United States.

The London dinner on March 11 featured leading UK retailers including Artigiano, B&Q, Debenhams, Isabella Oliver, Koodos, Littlewoods, QVC UK, The Body Shop and Urban Outfitters UK.  Check out the pictures.

The Paris dinner on March 13 featured leading French retailers including 3 suisses, Yves Rocher, Alapage, Auchan, Galeries Lafayette, Kiabi, L’oreal, Morgan, Priceminister, Redcats, eBay, Wengo, CCB Paris and Telemarket.fr.  Check out the pictures.

It was a great learning experience.

Navigating through the complexities of cross-border logistics, legal issues, managing multiple currencies and cultural issues is hard.  European online retailers, by necessity, are quite experienced in this area.  And, as online retailers seek further global expansion into Asia and other markets, those who have mastered cross-border excellence will be at a distinct advantage.

Around the world, online shoppers’ expectations continue to rise - from tracking packages to returning items to the store that were purchased online to seeing shipping charges before checkout.  US retailers, who operate in a more mature market place, have had more time to implement and fine-tune these features for their customers.

These are a couple of the conclusions drawn from the dinners. The most important take-away for me from these dinners, however, is the value of best practice sharing among retailers from different international markets.  Everyone has something to learn from somebody else.  And, Shop.org plans to continue expanding its international footprint for just this reason.

I’d like to thank the UK and French retailers for the warm reception to Shop.org at these dinners and in the numerous meetings I had during my trip.