The Three R’s of 2009: Retail, Recession, and . . .
Posted by Mike Ferguson on June 25th, 2009
Ok, I had to keep the word relevance out of the title of this post, as I didn’t want to stereotype myself and be YAEMOAS (yet another email marketer on a soapbox). However, after having recently returned from Boston and spending a few days 100% immersed in the world of retailers at the Internet Retailer Conference, I must say it reinforces a few things.
No arguing, times are tough for retailers — just ask Eddie Bauer. I heard a quote floating around last week that “even is the new growth.” While you may or may not agree with that, and that would most likely depend on your business model and industry, we can all agree times have been easier. But as with any change, there is opportunity hidden in the shifting landscape. The silver-lining theme of this year’s conference was “Rising Above — Not Just Surviving the Economic Storm.”
Prior to my presentation at the workshops, I had the opportunity to talk to a lot of different attendees, exhibitors, and sit in on some other presentations. There was an obvious focus on relevance with people exploring and asking about how to improve results and get much needed lifts in email metrics that would directly correlate to dollars. I can’t say I’ve been to a conference in a long time where all of the attendees seemed as legitimately interested in the show’s content as they were in getting out of the office for a few days.
In his presentation, Jack Love of Internet Retailer, shared some revealing metrics regarding the growth of e-retail channels over the past two years. And while the rate of growth has declined, overall, there is still growth in the e-retail channel. However, most of the growth came from the top 50 companies. And within the top 5 e-retail growth were two very familiar names: Amazon and Apple.
