I attended IRCE last week in Chicago for the first time and I’d like to share some of the highlights about my experience during the conference.
- Mobile was central theme that circulated through the conference and how to integrate it for the best customer experience. “Mobile is hot right now” is what many people told me as I navigated my way through the gigantic exhibit hall. Merchants are looking for ways to use mobile to best demonstrating new products and adhere to the customer’s wants and needs.
- Aseem Chandra, VP AEM and Target Business for Adobe said within mobile he has looked at the usage of tablets, he told me that iOS devices are outfacing Androids in terms of traffic, usage and purchase behavior. Consumers he added were three times more likely to purchase from tablets than smartphones. Mobile cuts into several areas, he said for merchants including, analytics, content, targeting, social and media optimization.
- It was impossible to have missed Needle’s RV in the exhibit hall, and it was impossible to not want to be part of their party. Speaking of Needle, I thought they are doing cool things with bringing in the everyday person in an online chat format to talk about a specific brand or product that would help another customer make a purchase.
- I immediately took to my Twitter account when Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO and chairman of Rakuten announced the company would be acquiring Webgistix during his keynote address at the beginning of the conference. There were several acquisitions announced during IRCE last week.
- I found former Vice-President Al Gore’s talk to attendees during the opening of the conference was both informative and enlightening. He told attendees that the global mind is shipping all the information around the world. There are seven billion people in the world and two billion of these people are in the global middle class. There is simultaneous growth, he told all of us in 12 years the two billion people in the global middle class will become four billion.
- Search was another theme that I found many people talking about during the conference. Many said retailers are looking for advanced solutions in site search. Paid search is the biggest revenue push right now. Faceted navigations was part of many of the conversations I had, customizing the product page so consumers can get to a product and purchase quickly.
- When speaking to many people during the conference, an on going trend I heard is the move to use SEO and social integration and its impact on several areas of the industry.
- Big data was a topic for many during the conference since retailers have a ton of information from different places that can be utilized.