Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition 2013 - Recap of the Show!

Some of the OrderDynamics team at IRCE 2013 in Chicago

A few quick weeks have passed since the 2013 Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition wrapped up earlier this month and it’s been a whirlwind to say the least. The first week of June saw OrderDynamics announce it had been acquired by eCommera, a global leader in Decision Intelligent Commerce solutions, exhibit at the Retail Council of Canada’s annual STORE Conference, and exhibit at IRCE 2013 in Chicago!  What a way to start June, but we couldn’t be happier with the reception we received to our news, as well as the new connections and friends we made at each of the respective conferences.

The 2013 edition of IRCE was bigger and better than any of its previous years.  The Conference played host to more than 9,500 attendees and 600+ vendors at McCormick Place in Chicago while marking the first time the event was managed by its new ownership, GLM Events.  And just like other years, a number of themes and trends were very apparent throughout the Conference including the need for cloud-based order management solutions, global commerce expansion, B2B commerce, and omni-channel commerce enablement.  The latter two trends were extensions of themes we observed at IRCE’s 2012 Conference, but still worthy of mention.

A Partial view of the IRCE exhibiting hall featuring 600+ vendors

Order Management Is A Must
In recent years order management has evolved from “nice to have” to “must have”, largely because of growing consumer and customer service expectations, and also due to incredible ecommerce growth and complex retail system integrations.  The emergence and re-prioritization of omni-channel commerce in 2011 and 2012 (and especially seen at the 2012 IRCE and 2012 Shop.org Annual Summit) brought retail order management features like buy online pick up in-store, ship from store, distributed fulfillment, single view of the customer, advanced order handling, mobile POS, and more to the forefront of the industry and revealed how difficult it is to execute intricate strategies without proper tools and solutions.  These requirements indicated brick and mortar retailers of all sizes had gaps in their backend infrastructure that couldn’t be filled by extending frontend ecommerce platforms or backend inventory/accounting systems.  In addition, web-only retailers are aggressively seeking order management solutions to reduce the amount of manual tasks needed to process a growing volume of orders and to create business rules that streamline warehouse/distribution center fulfillment procedures. 

Another picture of the OrderDynamics team hard at work during IRCE 2013

Order management’s rise in importance across the ecommerce industry speaks to the evolution of web and retail shopping and how critical multi-channel shopping and fulfillment options have become for merchants set on delivering premium service to its customers.  Those who follow ecommerce closely likely regard Macy’s and Nordstrom as early adopters of omni-channel, but since other enterprise retailers such as Staples have also answered this movement by creating new omni-channel enabled stores to cater to this ongoing evolution.  Retailers with long term omni-channel intentions are already putting significant investments into order management solutions to help support evolving business needs and ultimately provide improved customer experiences.  Doing this will enable much more flexibility and represents how strategic order management is and will continue to be move forward.  At the end of the day, robust order management solutions will improve the level of service and choice retailers are able offer shoppers, and that’s a great thing for consumers.

OrderDynamics founders (left to right) Jules Sukhabut, Michael Turcsanyi, Michael Benadiba

Global Commerce Expansion Is Still Unchartered
While the idea of well-known North American retailers expanding online operations into new markets in Europe and beyond isn’t exactly new, there are still a large number of merchants slowly investigating the move.  In many cases, U.S.-based retailers are using Canada as an unofficial testing ground and practical learning experience.  The careful consideration and long term planning going into these decisions is completely understandable – it’s a huge investment that needs to be executed perfectly – and accurately articulates the need these growing retailers have for quality partners who understand local-yet-foreign markets.  From the conversations we shared throughout IRCE, it’s clear that there is no single ecommerce solution tailored to each and every global market and retailers already know that.  As a result they are testing and evaluating new partners for different markets in order to understand various solution strengths and expertise.  Global expansion still has a long way to go in terms of stabilizing strategies and operations, but this approach makes a lot of sense and fundamentally helps retailers better understand small intricacies with new markets while undertaking the least amount of risk.  It also re-confirms the importance that should be placed on finding the right partners with the right, global optimized technology.

Pinny Gniwisch, formerly of Ice.com, discussing the value of long term solution partner

There is so much more that could be written about this terrific Conference, including the amazing list of speakers IRCE 2013 had.  While difficult to name everyone, we’d to make special mention of the Keynote session that featured the one and only Al Gore, as well as a host of dynamic and insightful speakers including Pinny Gniwisch, formerly of Ice.com, Jon Barker, COO of Hayneedle, and Cindy Lincks Director of Analytics at Brooks Brothers.  

Former Vice-President Al Gore as IRCE 2013's Keynote Speaker

We would also like to take the opportunity to say a special thanks to several of our clients for dropping by our booth and exclusive ecommerce networking party during the three main days of IRCE including Henry’s, The Shoe Company, Cascio Interstate Music, and a number of others.

OrderDynamics team working away on day 2 of IRCE

The 2014 IRCE will also be held in Chicago and we already can’t wait.  The next big retail conference OrderDynamics will be exhibiting at will be the 2013 Shop.org Annual Summit September 30 – October 2 (also in Chicago).

We will be reaching out to all interested parties over the next two weeks. Please feel free to contact us directly: solutions@orderdynamics.com.

In the meantime, we invite you to visit our website at www.orderdynamics.com to learn more about our On-Demand Commerce Platform and Connected Commerce, omni-channel vision.

Sincerely,
The OrderDynamics Team
1 (866) 559-8123