What is the best country - or region – for international e-commerce expansion? Close to home –Canada and/or Mexico? Established e-commerce markets like the UK? Or emerging markets in the Asia-Pacific? If you’re not exploring where to go, what your market opportunity may be, and what challenges you may encounter along the way, your competitor is. In many cases, you don’t even know this competitor today.

What do you think? We want to know which global markets are of most interest to your firm.

Sam Taylor, the CEO of Oriental Trading Company, made a strong case at the last session today about the value of customer reviews. While he sang the praises of positive reviews, and said that using testimonials in catalogs and featuring top-rated product pages have boosted sales, what he had to say about the value of [...]

This is a conversation with Paul Miller, the former VP of e-commerce at Williams-Sonoma and senior VP for Sears Holdings who now consults in the area of social media.  We spoke right before his Wednesday afternoon talk - Is There a Role for Social Media in Modern Retailing.
Here is some of what we talked about [...]

There were a handful of “bad” and even “ugly” websites discussed at this afternoon’s Critics’ Corner session by Brett Hurt, CEO of Bazaarvoice and Matt Corey, vice president of marketing at Golfsmith. But I’ll leave the criticisms behind and focus on which new concepts got a “thumbs up.”
Here were some inventive examples from both attendees [...]

Have you ever stumbled upon a marketing message that makes you think, “Why didn’t I think of that?!” Pinny Gniwisch of ice.com calls those “A-Ha Moments.” These Eureka! moments bring you — and consumers — out of the lull of a steady stream of marketing messages. They make you stop in your tracks. They surprise you. [...]