Every year in the Spring when retailers are recovered from the holidays and just starting to pull together their strategies for the next year, ChannelAdvisor hosts our Catalyst conference. Initially we had two of these - one for large retailers and one for smaller retailers. Three years ago we realized the content had become one and the same and thus merged the two conferences into one: ChannelAdvisor Catalyst.
Today we announced the line up and I have to say that although last year really set the bar for us, we're going to blow attendees away this year. Our goal is to educate retailers (customers and non-customers) on the fast changing world of multiple ecommerce channels and this year's line up is a who's who of internet behemoths. I've been saying that 2008 will be the 'year of the merchant' and this year's Catalyst line up proves it. Highlights include (alphabetical by company name):
- Amazon - Sebastian Gunningham, SVP Merchant Services will be talking about the various third-party options that Amazon is offering including of course Merchants@, but also fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) and ProductAds. Sebastian is essentially the CEO of Amazon's third party business so this is going to be something not to be missed if Amazon is at all part of your strategy or something you want to learn more about.
- eBay - We have Stephanie Tilenius, GM of eBay NA, John Mracek from Shopping.com and finally Mary Anne Gillespie, VP of Paypal coming to talk about all the changes and opportunities within the eBay marketplaces+payments family.
- Facebook - (yes facebook!) Ben Ling who runs Facebook's platform team will be here to talk about the opportunities there for merchants.
- Google - Vince Monical, Director of commerce and analytics will be talking about Google's long-tail strategy.
- Nike - One of the World's largest brands, Nike, will be covered by Chris Shimojima, VP of global ecommerce. Chris will be talking about how the Nike brand is evolving and how they leverage it in the world of ecommerce.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, we have many many other opportunities for retailers to meet up and coming channel partners and of course a large chunk of the ChannelAdvisor staff will be available to answer any questions about multi-channel strategies, our software, etc. One of our most popular panels - a view from Wall St. will be back and of course we'll have some surprises...
The event is held at beautiful Pinehurst, NC on April 1-3. If you are interested you can register here. We're trending (and expecting) about double the attendence of last year and have limited capacity so there's a good chance we'll have to cut off registrations so don't delay. I really look forward to seeing everyone there!!
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