Free Seminars in the Big Ideas Theatre

Sponsored by Alibaba.com, the Big Ideas Theatre gives you an opportunity to hear from leading solution providers who will share hot tips, insights, best practice case studies and newly-released innovations.

Location: Expo Hall

The following Agenda is correct as of 5 September, 2011. Topics and speakers may be subject to change without notice.

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Tuesday 27 September | Wednesday 28 September

Growing Your Business with Smart Sourcing

10:30am Tuesday 27 September
In today's global marketplace, competition is more heated than ever before. Businesses know they need the online marketplace to stay competitive, but many struggle to keep up with the latest, most effective tools for their sourcing needs. Furthermore, with everyone trying to make the most out of the online marketplace, it's easy to forget sometimes that the same rules for offline apply to online sourcing when conducting business. To achieve business success in this global economy, it's vital to both remember some important business basics while understanding how the latest online tools can help you achieve your business objectives. This presentation on smart sourcing will walk through practical ways for you to research more effectively, verify suppliers' capabilities, determine safe payment methods and ensure quality to help grow and sustain their business.

• Daphne Lee, Director of International Business Development & Marketing, Asia Pacific Region, Alibaba.com

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"Why Did You Abandon Me?" Three Reasons You're Losing Customers in the Checkout

11:30am, Tuesday 27 September
Checkout abandonment rates are the bain of every online retailer's existence. Understanding why customers leave your checkout and implementing tactics to eliminate those causes can generate incredible results for your business. We share the three main mistakes retailers are making when it comes to their websites checkout process, and reveal some of our best kept secrets for stopping users abandoning the checkout process and help maximise conversion and revenue. This session will teach you about reducing customer anxiety, avoiding friction throughout the overall process as well as other tips to get the customer over the line.

• Trent Allan, Founder, Ziller

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Customer Intelligence: The Next Big Wave

12:30pm, Tuesday 27 September
Big ideas drive change, understanding and knowing how to manage this change drives business. The way Australians shop is quickly changing, marketers and business owners are struggling to keep up with this change. Want to know more about the behaviour of your customers? How they shop? Where else they shop? What they like, don't like? What makes them loyal? When you know what your customers want, everything clicks. Whether you are a CEO, a marketer, or an entrepreneur, we will show you key customer intelligence strategies, tactical examples, actionable insights, hot tips and tools to ensure you succeed in today's multi-channel digital domain.

• Tim Haynes, Head of Client Services - APAC, Bazaarvoice

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Customer Experience Matters - Game Changers that Make the Difference

1:30pm, Tuesday 27 September
To stand out in today's Online retail environment a differentiated customer experience is a must. What does this entail ? How do you implement improvements and measure the results? How can you build in a framework around customer experience to ensure sustained improvement and success?

This session covers:
- Understanding why customer experience matters
- What consumer expectations of online retail experience is
- How to plan and measure customer experience improvement strategies

• Rajesh Makhija, Senior Vice President, MphasiS

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Increase Relevance = Increase Conversions

2:30pm, Tuesday 27 September
Site optimisation is not a one-time activity. Nor a one-off tactic. Site optimisation is the superset of activities including testing, segmentation, targeting, personalisation and recommendation of content. Executing any of these activities improves your online performance. Mark Allison will teach you how to Optimise your website by letting your visitors decide what works best for them. See Webtrends customer examples from Australia and around the world and learn the true value of optimisation and the tangible business benefits associated with testing.

- Keep it Simple = Keep it Successful
- Increase Relevance = Increase in Conversion
- Test + Target + Personalize = Optimize

• Mark Allison, Director - Australasia, Webtrends

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Flexing Your Fulfillment Muscle: Using Alternative Delivery Options To Win Over Your Customers

3:30pm, Tuesday 27 SeptemberIt's no secret that offering your customer alternative delivery options is a surefire way to online success. Retailers in the US and the UK are using flexible fulfillment to create repeat business, higher spend and great customer experiences. This session will turn key learnings from overseas case studies into best practice advice for tailoring a flexible and customer-focused fulfillment offer.

• Fiona Pearse, Managing Director, Want It Now powered by Mail Call Couriers

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Painting the Picture of an E-Commerce Future

4:30pm, Tuesday 27 September
Exactly where is e-commerce today, and where is it headed? Everyone contemplating long term success needs to understand the environment and how to cope with the pace of change in the fastest-growing area of retail in Australia. What you'll gain here is an understanding of:

- How to adapt your business model to maximise your chances of sustainable success
- The impact of e-commerce on retail and wholesale distribution
- Tools available now to enhance e-commerce performance
- The next layer of tools and transformational technologies to prepare to harness
- E-commerce secrets, trends and tips

• Glen Drew, Managing Director, XSQUIZZIT

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Alibaba.com User Panel: How Businesses are Succeeding with Smart Sourcing

10:30am, Wednesday 28 September
While online sourcing may seem like a new frontier - both complicated and exciting - real businesses talk about how they are successfully using the online marketplace and Alibaba.com to achieve business success. It's important to know which of the many online tools apply to your specific business needs, as many of your competitors may be leveraging these very tools to get ahead. This panel of business owners will offer attendees case study examples of how they're growing their business with Alibaba.com, and practical tips on how to make the most out of online tools for smart sourcing.

• Daphne Lee, Director of International Business Development & Marketing, Asia Pacific Region, Alibaba.com

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Last Mile Delivery - The Importance of Getting It Right

11:30am, Wednesday 28 September
The Last Mile (the fulfilment stage) of the online retail customer journey is one of the most fragile components of the e-commerce experience. Get that wrong, and you can undo all the good work your online store does in attracting and converting customers. Plus, shipping charges are one of the key drivers of shopping cart abandonment, along with lack of delivery options. In this session, you'll learn what best practices are for shipping and returns, and discover the importance of delivering choice and convenience to your online shoppers.

• Dirk Van Lammeren, Australia Post, Commercial SME Digital Solutions General Manager

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Hot Topic: The Future of Fashion

12:30pm, Wednesday 28 September
Traditional fashion is at DEFCON 5. Every day, fashion retailers are delivered another blow from cyberspace. Australian retailers who cling desperately to the misguided notion that customers won't shop shoes or apparel online are in for a rude awakening. There ain't no cavalry coming either - the Federal Government's Productivity Commission has delivered a firm 'up-yours' to a retail sector struggling to compete.

Technology and the global shopping arena have put online fashion shopping on par with the high street experience - and retailers who can't compete are shutting their doors. The future of fashion is most definitely digital - rich product imagery, online video, 360 degree views, sizing charts and virtual fitting rooms all contribute to a fast, high quality customer experience attracting fashion lovers by the millions. International retailers are cashing in big time - premium fashion sites like ASOS, Topshop and Shopbop are luring once-loyal Aussies not only on price, but on customer experience and convenience.

Those in fashion have a choice - digitise or perish. The dynamics of the fashion market have radically altered, and this panel of experts tackles the challenges, the issues and the facts facing the future of fashion, including:

- Fashion stores being used and abused as fitting rooms for online shoppers
- Changing supplier dynamics and brands taking to online to compete with retailers
- Comparison shopping and competing marketplaces
- Shifting from 'on the rack' to pick and pack and still being profitable
- Choosing technologies and marketing strategies to compete online

• Moderated by Grant Arnott, Managing Editor, PowerRetail.net
• David Briskin, CEO of sass & bide
• Martin Newman, CEO, Practicolgy
• Assia Benmedjdoub, Editor, RagTrader
• Daniel Jarosch, Founder, brandsExclusive.com.au

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How Outsourcing Can Enable Growth In An E-commerce World

3:00pm, Wednesday 28 September
You nail your online retail formula and suddenly sales are going through the roof - happy days, right? It's a familiar story in the high-growth environment of e-commerce. But then you realise you're growing beyond business plan projections, and your shipping and fulfilment is breaking down, and that's not your expertise. Enter outsourcing - where suppliers with infrastructure and expertise in logistics and fulfilment can provide the service and quality assurance to make sure your customers aren't disappointed, and you can stay focused on the e-commerce vision. In this session, we'll show:

- US models for success that can be applied to the local market
- How process and software automation delivers real benefits
- How to select the right outsourcing partner for you
- Software integration and the importance of supplier selection in driving your business forward

• Nathan Kelleher, National Sales Manager, Quantium Solutions

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How does Amazon do it?

3:45pm, Wednesday 28 September
Amazon in Australia! Year after year, Amazon.com outperforms the market, but how are they so successful in Australia without even having a physical presence here? In December 2010 Amazon had over 1.7 million Australian visitors, does it make sense for them to expand and create Amazon.com.au? In this session, here from Mark Gray, a long-time Amazon expert who has helped hundreds of retailers successfully get their products onto Amazon in the UK and US. This is your chance to get an inside glimpse into how Amazon is so successful, and learn how you can take advantage of selling your products on this exciting marketplace?

• Mark Gray, Managing Director, Channel Advisor

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