Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition (IRCE), one of the biggest annual events in eCommerce was held on June 5-8 in Chicago. This must-attend industry event drew a crowd of over 10,000 founders, executives, and marketers in eCommerce. The Oro team was excited to attend and sponsor this event to showcase why OroCommerce is really the only true B2B eCommerce platform in the market.
In this IRCE 2018 recap post, we’ll try to share a glimpse of what was covered in the show, what were the hottest topics, and what are the latest trends in digital commerce.
Great open-source business solution providers stick together: Oro Inc., sharing a booth with technology partner Akeneo (Image Source)
IRCE 2018 Review: Hottest Discussion Topics
As always, IRCE’s agenda was positively intense and full of insightful sessions. If visitors could clone themselves to attend several concurrent sessions, they certainly would have. The event offered multiple high-profile brand executive tracks, boot camps, and workshops on the trendiest topics around the multichannel retail industry.
The subjects brought up by the keynote speakers created a lot of buzz around topics like:
- Importance of analytics, – how to analyze leads data to retarget to potential buyers with precision and personalization.
- Mobile as an increasingly important part of retail, factors that influence mobile success and the role of mobile devices in the customer journey.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI), how it can help marketers better recognize drivers of buyers’ behavior, and how to apply AI throughout the entire sales cycle to maximize sales and marketing efficiency.
- Scalable personalization and its impact across industries. How not to overcomplicate your strategy with excessive technology and create a solid shopping experience with customer journey streamlined across channels.
- Steady growth of online marketplaces trend. Keeping a close eye on such behemoths as Alibaba, Tmall, and Amazon, well-established brands are already actively launching own marketplaces.
Workshop by TruPar: B2B eCommerce Success Story Involving OroCommerce
While all IRCE activities provided many insights and takeaways, there was a very special post-conference workshop by TruPar, an online supplier of industrial equipment replacement parts, which deserves mentioning.
Once a small eCommerce site launched in a one-bedroom apartment, TruPar.com grew into an international business with a customer base of over 45,000 clients and a product catalog of over 8 million SKUs in just one year. On Friday’s B2B Workshop track, Sean McDonnell – TruPar’s Founder and CEO – talked about best practices of customer conversion and how eCommerce enabled them to exponentially grow their business and disrupt the rigid, traditionally offline distribution business. Sean shared the importance of finding the perfect solution for B2B needs in eCommerce, his frustration with B2C solutions that could not handle the difficulties of a B2B process, and his joy when he finally learned about OroCommerce. “I’ve studied their roadmap and their vision and was excited – I found my match, I found the people who get it!” Sean said.
For nearly 40 years, of TruPar’s operation in traditional offline distribution, Sean’s father gained about 1,000 customers. Sean’s smart and timely decision to move his father’s business online generated them 45,000 new customers within one year.
Read more about TruPar’s experience of launching a site with OroCommerce.
TruPar showcasing their OroCommerce-powered website. (Image Source)
…In the Meantime, We Had Fun Presenting OroCommerce
Oro’s VP of Engineering, Michael Bessolov demoing OroCommerce features to an inspired crowd of IRCE attendees. (Image Source)
The energy of IRCE 2018 was incredible. It was great to network with other industry peers and make new valuable connections. We’re sure to come back next year as this prominent eTail show deserves close attention for everyone involved in eCommerce.
