On its inaugural year, over 400 retail and logistics professionals from across the ecommerce sector came together last week for the first eDelivery Conference (EDC), followed the next day by around 1000 multichannel professionals at the 10th annual Internet Retailing Conference (IRC).
Why do so many attend? Ian Jindal, Editor-In-Chief of Internet Retailing told us that “Over the decade we’ve seen a move from ecommerce being an interesting add-on to being a fundamental part of the business and that is what drives knowledgeable professionals to discuss at IRC“.
Ian went on to describe EDC as “the ‘rosetta stone’ between the hard-iron realities of large-scale operations and the irresistible force of the connected customer“.
What happens behind the buy button isn’t something that most consumers think about, in fact many online retailers have in the past only paid fleeting attention to deliveries. Once it was enough to have a Royal Mail account for small items and a courier account for heavier products or express delivery.
Today’s connected customer expects so much more not just through technology, which often means their smartphone with notifications and the ability to re-route a delivery on the fly which is what EDC focuses on. Today’s consumer demands that a retailers website isn’t an afterthought plugged on to the side of the business, but the breadth of experience from retailers at IRC shows that connected consumers expect a seamless experience between online and offline, which for some means transparent pricing, for others means buying online and collecting instore (or vice versa) and for yet others is the simple expectation that a shop assistant has all the product information and size and stock availability at their fingertips, not just for that store but for neighbouring stores or for delivery.
Frustrations such as ordering a product for collection, it not arriving in time and being told that no you can’t take a product off the shelf because it’s “different stock” (translated as a different billing centre!) just doesn’t cut it in 2015.
All the videos from the presentations as well as the slides used by the speakers will be shared soon at internetretailingconference.com where visitors can also register their interest for the 11th Internet Retailing Conference on 12th October 2016. Likewise presentations from EDC will be shared soon at edeliveryconference.com where visitors can also register their interest for the 2nd eDelivery Conference on 11th October 2016.
Quick tip from personal experience, if you’re planning to attend EDC and IRC 2016, the Novotel fills up fast so book your room reservation early
