Connecting With the 21st-Century Consumer

Welcome to 21^st Century retailing, where customers are not just always right, they also wield total control. They shop at any time of day or night, from any device with an Internet connection. They research products online, exchange shopping practices on social networks, and are often more knowledgeable about merchandise than store associates. They demand and expect high performance e-commerce sites and quickly abandon those that fall short. To serve this shopper, e-retailers must keep pace with the rapidly changing trends of their business.

The 8^th annual Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition, by far the world’s largest e-commerce event, is where an expected 8,000 e-retailing executives will go to learn the latest practices and tools for connecting with the 21^st Century consumer via in-depth examinations of such topics as social media, mobile commerce, e-marketing, web merchandising, improving back-end operations, boosting conversions and profitability, and much more. To be held at Chicago’s McCormick Place West on June 5-8, the 2012 IRCE will feature:

• Influential Guest Speakers:IRCE 2012’sKeynote and Featured Speakers are from some of the country’s most profitable e-commerce sites, including William J. Lynch, Jr., CEO of Barnes & Noble; Alexis Maybank, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Gilt Groupe; Joel Anderson, President and CEO of Walmart.com U.S.; and Sam Yagan, CEO of OKCupid. This year’s Special Guest Speaker is Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS,” editor at large for Time Magazine, and New York Times bestselling author of “The Post-American World.” Mr. Zakaria will discuss how e-commerce pioneers must seize growth opportunities in the global market.
• Diverse Learning Experiences:The 175speakers at the 2012 Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition represent the largest and most diverse group of e-commerce experts ever assembled. Including web-only merchants, retail chain executives, manufacturers and wholesalers, and financial and consumer service professions, each speaker is at the top of the e-commerce field. Such breadth of speakers is one of the hallmarks of IRCE, and it explains not only why this conference agenda appeals to all players in e-commerce, but also why IRCE’s satisfaction ratings are so high year after year.
• An E-Commerce Exhibition Like No Other:This year, IRCE’s 250,000-square-foot Exhibit Hall hosts 570 exhibiting companies—making it once again the largest e-commerce solutions display under one roof. More than 90% of the country’s e-commerce solution providers will be there, which means there is no better place to research and shop for e-commerce technology. The Exhibit Hall will also be home to the E-Commerce Technology Theater, where major solution providers will host 30-minute informational sessions highlighting their company’s e-commerce technologies.   
• The Year’s Best E-Commerce Networking Event: IRCE’s attendance is typically double that of all other e-commerce conferences combined, and withmore than 8,000 projected attendees IRCE 2012 will be no exception. Every year, IRCE attracts registrants across multiple industries, such as web-only and chain retailers, manufacturers, and catalogers, to name a few. Attendees also range from long-established brands to up-and-coming web startups. During the multiple social events that occur during IRCE, guests find that everyone has something to learn and something to teach in this collegial networking environment.