The Annual Summit will kick off on September 21 with an all-day Online Boot Camp which will be an intense and tactical look at some of the core concepts in the world of online marketing and merchandising.   The Online Boot Camp will feature industry experts providing their “7 Tips for Success” on some of the most important topics in eCommerce including Search, Email, Social Networking, Analytics, and Merchandising for Conversion. 

There is an additional fee to register for the Online Retail Boot Camp for both Shop.org members and non-members.  Take advantage of Shop.org's retail team pricing and receive a FREE pass to the Boot Camp. 

You should attend our Online Boot Camp if you:

• want a simple game plan to make sure your eCommerce program is heading in the right direction
• manage one or two aspects of your eCommerce program and are interested in learning a bit more about some other key areas
• want a refresher course in optimizing your online efforts
• are new to eCommerce

A year’s worth of learning in one afternoon so make sure to register today.

Social Media
Brett Hurt, Founder and CEO, Bazaarvoice and John Lazarchic, VP, E-Commerce, PETCO Animal Supplies, Inc.
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Facebook and Twitter get all of the buzz, but how are retailers making money on social?  What are the best practices to leverage social throughout your organization, impacting marketing, merchandising, and even customer support.  Learn from two of the industry’s most innovative minds on how to transform your customer relationships, increase your sales and reduce your returns, and even transform your company culture with social media.

Analytics in a World of Continuous Optimization
Ross Miller, Director of Analytics,The Estée Lauder Companies Online and John Squire, Chief Strategy Officer, Coremetrics, Inc.
Islander I

With endless new marketing and merchandising options and unprecedented budget pressures, it is more important than ever before to optimize your scarce time on reporting and analytics.  The solution to this challenge is to continuously fine-tune your analytical approach by studying the practices of other great retailers.  Listen, learn, and leave with 8 Best Practices in Analytics that are presented in Case Form that you will be able to implement right away.

10-Step Email Marketing Optimization Workout
Stephanie Miller, Vice President, Market Development, Return Path, Inc.
Islander I

Good old-fashioned email isn’t shiny and new, but it’s got one pretty darn sexy result: High revenue and ROI.  Simple in concept but hard in practice, there are dozens of moving parts to master: content, subject lines, frequency, cadence, design, deliverability, rendering and privacy.  We’ll take a fast paced look at 10 proven retail email marketing tips that help you erase vulnerability and optimize opportunity. Plus, get five checklists that help you audit your own practices today.

7 Steps for SEO Success
Stephan Spencer, Founder and President, Netconcepts
Islander I

Gain the specific requirements, action steps, best practices, tools, and tactics needed to ensure SEO success for your retail website. Whether you are Web 2.0 or Web 1.0, are a big brand or an unknown startup, have lots of SKUs or just a few, you’ll need this SEO knowledge. From crafting content for search engines to essential tools and methodologies, this session covers the gamut. You will learn:

• Keywords & content -- Making your online catalog "sing" to the search engines, for the keywords that matter
• Technical optimization -- from URLs to HTML
• Site architecture & internal linking structure -- issues and implications
• Platform constraints -- Ways to circumvent the SEO roadblocks common in e-commerce platforms
• Competitor analysis -- reverse engineering their link networks, keyword portfolios etc.
• Garnering links -- creative strategies, pragmatic tactics (that work!)
• Social media optimization – leveraging Digg, StumbleUpon, YouTube, etc. with outside-the-box thinking and "link bait"

Driving Conversion Through Optimized Merchandising:  10 Tips For Success
Martin Newman, E-Commerce Leader and Consultant
Islander I

No matter how effective your search, email, or social media strategies may be, if your site is not optimized to drive conversion, your marketing dollars are being wasted.  Internationally renown online merchandising guru and former Burberry, Harrods and Ted Baker eCommerce leader, Martin Newman, will share with the boot camp audience his 10 most important steps for merchandising and on-site search success that will result in higher conversion, units per transaction, AOV, and most importantly creating a consistent and superior customer experience. 

MVT Testing to Improve Site Conversion
Jay Greenberg, Director, eCommerce, Spencer's
George Michie, Co-Founder and COO, The Rimm-Kaufman Group
Islander I

A soup-to-nuts presentation of how to use free Multivariate Testing MVT tools to improve conversion rates and make more money from the traffic you generate.  George and Jay will cover what to test, how to test, and what to do with the results.  Jay will also share some of the tests and results he’s seen at Spencers.

Attendees will come away with an understanding of:

1. What elements they can and should test
2. How to set up the tests through Google’s free MVT tools
3. How to use the testing process to improve conversion rates without the headache of a full website redesign.

ROUNDTABLES
All Bootcamp speakers
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There is an additional fee to register for the Online Retail Boot Camp for both Shop.org members and non-members.  Please note that if you register for the Annual Summit there is still a fee for the bootcamp.

Members: $295 per attendee

Nonmembers: $495 per attendee

Interested in attending the Bootcamp? 

Interested in the Summit AND the Bootcamp?
Once you enter your company name, email information, and contact information on the first couple pages of the ANNUAL SUMMIT registration process you will have the option to register for the Summit and ADD the bootcamp as an additional event.

We are confident that retailers attending Shop.org events will acquire valuable strategies and tactics to improve their online and multichannel retail business. If not, let us know and we'll refund your registration fee.

Contact Stacy Cornell at cornells@shop.org or call 434.326.5740. 
Download the prospectus, including current sponsorship and exhibiting opportunities.

Listen to the Voices of Shop.org Attendees
We'll tell you it is the one-of-a-kind networking, innovative and engaging education, and access to state-of-the-art technologies but it sounds better when it comes from them. Watch this short clip.