Internet Retailer Kicks Off – Shopping Engines Well Represented

June 8, 2010

Internet Retailer kicks off today. I’m sitting on the show room floor at SingleFeed’s booth as we speak. The A/C just came on and workers and exhibitors will be flooding the floors in the next couples hours getting set up. SingleFeed exhibited 2 years ago. It was a great event for us for lots of reasons, but as a metrics oriented marketing company, I will say that the ROI was great. Just as importantly, though, we got to talk to merchants (customers and prospects) face to face, which is so important.

This can be an expensive event. All in, SingleFeed will spend about $20K for just over 2 days on an exhibit show floor with hundreds of other vendors. We could spend a bit less, but it’s worth it to go the extra mile with some nice meals or events for the team and our friends. Many companies spend a lot more.

After a dip in attendance last year, numbers are back to record breaking levels with over 6000 people registered. And the shopping engines are well represented. CA, CI, and Mercent are here. Shopzilla, Become, Shop.com, Smarter, and TheFind are here. TheFind is also a big sponsor. Google has a small booth (the normal 10×10), but curiously they only list Google Commerce Search, Google Affiliate Network, and Google TV Ads. And it had to have been a last minute decision as it’s at the end of a row. Then there’s WinBuyer with a big booth. Much different than last year when lots of the shopping engines, and others, stuck to the sidelines.

I’ll post some pictures later.


Where are the Shopping Engines? Not at Internet Retailer Chicago

March 31, 2010

Over the last couple years, some shopping engines have sat on the sidelines during the bigger etailing conferences. Well, it looks like they’ll continue to sit on the sidelines in June. Only Become.com, Shopzilla, Smarter.com, and TheFind currently have booths at IRCE.

-Google isn’t on the list of current exhibitors. Usually you can find Google Product Search next to Google Checkout, Google AdWords, Google Analytics, and 6 other Google products
-PriceGrabber is a stalwart at these shows. Maybe this was an oversight as the old management team as well as the company’s PR Guru is no longer with the company.
-I see PayPal / BillMeLater, but doubt that they’d share a booth with Shopping.com.
-NexTag never advertises at conferences…no change there.
-Amazon Product Ads isn’t on the list, but I don’t think Amazon is ever allowed to ‘sell’ at these conferences due to tax issue…or something like that.
-Where’s Bing? Like Google, Bing usually promotes a couple products including Bing Cashback at these shows. Did Bing go through their $100M advertising campaign and that’s it?

Even for the established shopping engines, I’d think this show has to be at least break even. Total cost is under $20K ($5000 for a booth, $5000 for booth related things – it’s Chicago!, $3000 for travel/entertainment). All it takes is one new merchant spending $10K/month to make the trip worthwhile. And more importantly, it allows the shopping engines to meet face to face with dozens of their most important merchants. Surprised not to see Shopping.com, PriceGrabber, and Bing on the list.

Maybe they’ll just roam the show floor and cut way down on the cost of the event. Sometimes works.


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