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| 2008 Shop.org Annual Summit Post-Show Special Report | The 2008 Shop.org Annual Summit took place from Sept. 15 to 17 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, and it proved to be the must-attend event for online and multichannel retailers.
The Summit offered abundant opportunities for networking, learning from experts and peers during sessions and roundtable discussions, and listening to inspiring keynote sessions. The EXPO Hall contained more than 160 booths, and attendees could take free guided tours of the Hall.
Check out Shop.org's official Recap of the event here. You can download PDFs of some of the keynote and breakout session presentations. To read more about the events and conversations that took place at this event, take some time to look at the Shop.org blog. If you are not already a Shop.org SmartBrief subscriber and this kind of timely, relevant summary of the most important digital retail news is what you need, sign up to receive our daily Shop.org SmartBrief -- FREE. | | Multichannel and Cross-Channel Strategy |  |  | | - Gap's strategy to mix brands online is working
| |  | | Gap.com CEO Toby Lenk | Gap.com CEO Toby Lenk focused his keynote address at the Shop.org Summit on Gap's decision to feature all four of its brands at one online shopping portal, a move that has resulted in a sales boost for the more upscale brands. Merchandise from Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy is shipped in one box from one warehouse, and if the customer adds an item from Piperlime, shipping is free. BNET (9/18)  - Rich Last talks about J.C. Penney Internet strategies
Rich Last, chairman of the Shop.org board and a vice president at J.C. Penney, took a few minutes in the middle of the 2008 Shop.org Annual Summit to talk about how the Internet has changed retailing and how it has become the hub of retailing for J.C. Penney in particular. Shop.org Blog (9/17)  | Fry's Open Commerce PlatformTM
Fry offers a full range of e-commerce solutions on a variety of platforms, from fully customized online stores to sites built upon our own robust, quick-to-market e-commerce framework, Open Commerce PlatformTM (OCP). Our sites have helped define the industry standard for online shopping and generate billions of dollars in annual revenue for our clients. | | Emerging Retail Technologies | | | | - Does carousel navigation offer best shopping experience?
The Endless.com carousel navigation system works well, writes one blogger, but experts at the Shop.org Summit disagreed. Doug Mack, vice president and general manager of Hosted & Consumer Solutions at Adobe, and Sally McKenzie, a consultant, called the navigation "clunky" and noted that they'd like to see more content in place of the numerous product choices. Shop.org Blog (9/17) - Joe Chung: Think of online catalogs as an extra channel
The "Emerging Retail Technologies" session at the 2008 Shop.org Annual Summit focused on personalization, social shopping, mobile marketing and online catalogs. Joe Chung, CEO of Allurent, suggests thinking of the high-tech versions as an additional channel rather than a replacement for the paper versions. Shop.org Blog (9/16)  | Natural and Paid Search Tactics for Conversion | | | | - Retailers volunteer sites for expert analysis
Amy Africa of Eight By Eight and Netconcepts' Stephan Spencer analyzed the online efforts of Mrs. Beasleys, Tommy Bahama, Urban Outfitters and other retailers in a Shop.org Summit session. Suggestions inspired by the analysis included: Keep track of the top failed searches because the data is invaluable; prominently feature "Buy now" and/or "Shopping Cart" more than once on each product page; and maintain consistent navigation from page to page. Shop.org Blog (9/16) - Tips for choosing an e-commerce vendor
Retailers seeking e-commerce vendors should be clear in their goals and unafraid to ask questions, according to one expert on a Shop.org panel. Tips for choosing a vendor include: focus on what's most important to the business; include a cross-functional team in charge of the request-for-proposal process; and pay attention to both customer-facing front-end and back-end system requirements. InternetRetailer.com (9/18) | Customer Retention | | | | - Mulpuru: The game is changing, and retailers must, too
| |  | | Sucharita Mulpuru, Senior Retail Analyst, Forrester Research | E-commerce companies must address changing consumer demands if they want to maximize the potential of their medium, according to Forrester Research senior retail industry analyst Sucharita Mulpuru, who gave a keynote at the Shop.org Summit. Areas where the rules of online commerce are changing include: viewing the Web channel as the underdog; merchants as the taste makers; and online video. "If we want to budge industry conversion rates beyond 3%, we need better content -- video, zoom, guided navigation -- which we are largely under-leveraging," said Mulpuru. InternetRetailer.com (9/18) - How to reach the newest high-tech consumer generation
Today's teens are getting information through a variety of channels and like to collaborate on their choices, noted Shop.org Summit speaker Don Tapscott, author of "Wikinomics." Even Web sites are old hat to a new generation focused on social networks and mobile technology, he said. DMNews (9/16) - Expert: Peer reviews can boost trust, sales
Some merchants might think it's crazy to allow consumers to post negative product reviews on an e-commerce site, but Shop.org Summit speaker Mitch Joel says it helps to acknowledge that shopping online is a social experience. The average e-commerce site has only a 2% conversion rate and online reviews are one tool that can improve that statistic. The Vancouver Sun (Canada) (9/24) | | | 
Product announcements appearing in SmartBrief are paid advertisements and do not reflect actual Shop.org endorsements. The news reported in SmartBrief does not necessarily reflect the official position of Shop.org. | This SmartBrief was created for fashionarchive@gmail.com
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