This year is no different and I think it will be our best Merchandising Workshop yet.  Retailers have commented to me that with all of the technological advances at their fingertips they must find the perfect balance between optimizing existing channels while not falling behind by embracing the new tools.   At this year’s Merchandising Workshop we are addressing this balance.   We will discuss spanking new merchandising innovations such as mobile merchandising, social merchandising, and the latest and greatest in retail applications of online video.   However, we will also provide tactics and practical case studies on optimizing some of your key merchandising elements including online photography, specific quick-hits to drive conversion, and when it’s time to re-design your website and what to expect during the process.   Merchandising Workshop attendees will leave this event with a full tool kit to increase conversion, improve the customer experience, and hit the holiday season head-on.

Oh yeah, it is free.  If you are a Shop.org retail member you can get a free pass to this event.   We also cap the workshop at 300 so do not be left behind.  Claim your free pass today and be part of the action, and part of the fun.  Huntington Beach is absolutely gorgeous and easy to get to from a number of California airports.    If you have questions or need help claiming your free pass, just contact me directly and I can make it happen.  We appreciate your membership and we want to make sure you are making the most from what Shop.org can offer.

Larry Joseloff
VP, Content — Shop.org
joseloffl@shop.org

Due to popular demand we will be offering these critiques at our Online Merchandising Workshop for the first time.  During the afternoon of July 13th, retailer attendees will be able to reserve 20 minute time slots with industry consultants whose expertise include end-to-end customer experience, site design, and merchandising best practices.   The Doctors at the Merchandising Workshop include both speakers at this year’s Workshop (Jack Aaronson and Bryan Eisenberg) and previous speakers (Lauren Freedman and Elizabeth Peaslee from CreativeGood).

Spaces are limited so if you are attending the Merchandising Workshop, I urge you to reserve your time slot today.  Due to popular demand, we also ask that you limit the number of appointments to two per retailer.   Go to our Merchandising Workshop Doctors Is In Page, read about our doctors, and reserve your slot.  If you have any questions, please let us know.  Thanks!

Larry Joseloff
joseloffl@shop.org

This year we have expanded our “Doctors” to 14 throughout each afternoon and reservations are going fast.  I invite every retailer who is attending the Summit to take advantage of this great feature.  To learn more about each Doctor and to reserve your time in advance, plesase visit our Doctors Is In Page at the Shop.org website. 

Also, just as a reminder we are still accepting questions to ask our CEO keynote speakers in the interview portion of their program.  Simply leave a comment on the blog or write me directly at the email address below to submit your question.

Thanks!

Larry Joseloff
VP, Content
joseloffl@shop.org

On Wednesday afternoon Brett Hurt, Founder and CEO, Bazaarvoice and Matt Corey, Vice President of Marketing, Golfsmith International will pull NO punches in this brutally honest REVIEW of various multi-channel retailing strategies by reviewing real-world examples of retailers that are doing it right, and those that need serious help.   Be prepared to offer examples for Brett and Matt to review as the top three examples of multi-channel strategy provided by the audience during the session will be rewarded with Nike Sumo 5000 drivers.  Thanks to Matt and the Golfsmith team for making this happen.

Not to be undone, on Tuesday Afternoon Sally McKenzie and Doug Mack, former CEO of Scene7 and current VP & GM of Consumer and Hosted Solutions for Adobe, will be running a critics corner that will debate the effectiveness of this year’s latest innovations in visual merchandising.   The Audience members that brings the best example for Doug and Sally to review will receive an Adobe Creative Suite 3 Design Premium for Print, Web and Mobile Design worth:  $1799.  Check out all of these wonderful features that you will get with this design package.   Thanks to Doug and Adobe for donating this extremely generous gift. 

Remember to check out all of our critics corner and other afternoon sessions on our Annual Summit agenda page, and if you have any questions or would like a personal tour of our content offerings, the content team is just an email away.

Thanks

Larry Joseloff
VP, Content
joseloffl@shop.org

Our roundtables consistently rank as one of the most valuable content areas for our Shop.org conference attendees.  At this year’s Annual Summit, we will be having our roundtables occur immediately after a breakout sessions has concluded and in the same room as the breakout session.  The information for the roundtables are now online, so please feel free to take a look at all of the topics and moderators.  We are also dividing the tables into Intermediate and Advanced level tables to best help meet your content needs.  Thanks to all of the industry experts who have volunteered their time to be roundtable moderators.

The “Doctor Is In” session at the Annual Summit (where attendees can reserve 20 minute individual tutorial sessions with industry experts on a variety of topics including merchandising, product presentation, and usability) are starting to fill up, but we still have some appointments still available.  Some of our Doctors with some time available include:  

• Beth Temple, Senior Conulting Director, Creative Good:  Web’s Best Practices
• Jay Dettling, SVP Acquity Group:  Multi-Channel Strategy
• Michael Amar, Entrepreneur:  European Expansion Strategy
• Adam Michelson, Director E-Commerce, Optaros:  How to Monetize Web 2.0
• Suzanne Hader, Principal, 400 Twin:  Marketing and Merchandising for the Aspirational Customer

Thanks everyone and you can reserve your 20 minute time slot with these along with all of our available doctors online, by simply selecting the doctor of your choice, looking at their available time slots, and click “Register”.  Don’t wait until the show as many of these slots are filling up fast and we will close online reservations next week.

 Looking forward to Vegas, and please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Larry Joseloff
joseloffl@shop.org

I wanted to let everyone know that the recap from our very successful online merchandising workshop is now live for members and workshop attendees only.  Take a look at some photos from beautiful Huntington Beach and you can download many of the presentations from the workshop. 

Thanks again to the Board of Directors, content committee, speakers, and everyone who made this one of the best Shop.org events in recent memory.

Larry Joseloff and The Shop.org Team

 We just wrapped up a very successful Online Merchandising Workshop in beautiful Huntington Beach California.  I wanted to thank all of the speakers for their hard work in making sure their presentations were first rate, our exhibitors and sponsors, and all of the attendees who made the trip.  We really hope that we were able to meet everyone’s expectations. 

 We found a few blogs from the event that we want to share from one of our keynote speakers Bryan Eisenberg and one of our roundtable moderators Jay Shaffer.  If you know of any additional blogs from the Online Merchandising Workshop — feel free to add them here.

In case anyone missed Jason’s comment — there is a great blog on almost all of the sessions by one of our speakers Vanessa Hoffman.  WOW Vanessa!  — thanks for all of the hard work on this.

See everyone in Vegas for our Annual Summit.

Larry and The Shop.org Team