Online retailer - conference and expo scheduled for Sydney in August 09 [Updated 20th Feb 2009]
Sydney’s Darling Harbour convention and exhibition centre will be the venue on the 18th and 19th of September for ‘Online Retailer – a new event being described as an Australasian Exhibition &
Conference for Internet Retailing.
That’s the promise of Mark Harvey, managing director of the event producers.
Harvey contacted eCommerce Report this week after sending us a copy of the very professional looking 8 page conference brochure selling exhibitor booths and conference related sponsorship opportunities.
He said that there was a definite place for a specialist Online retail conference and exhibition in Australia and that no-one else is serving the market properly.
“Last year’s retail expo had only one speaker from an online retailer” he said.
“And we’ve already got the support of all the big boys like Google” he said.
Harvey said that whilst the programme for the conference had not yet been finalised, he had already teed up at least one major international online retailer to participate.
“We’re working with Jack Love from the US Internet Retailer publication”, said Harvey.
“Jack’s Internet retailer magazine produces the biggest specialist online retailer conference in the US”.
Harvey said that it wasn't yet confirmed that Love would participate in the Australian conference,
and that the event is definitely not a joint venture with Love's company.
But he said his online Retailer event is very much modelled on Internet Retailer.
Certainly, the Internet Retailer conference web-site at www.internetretailer.com shows that the US conference has grown very rapidly,
from just over 800 paid attendee’s in 2005 to more than 3,500 in 2008.
However Harvey said that the paid conference programme was not the core commercial component of the business model for the event.
“We’ll be presenting free business seminar presentations by guest speakers for everyone attending the exhibition” he said.
So whilst there’ll be a specialist conference programme of expert speakers costing $795 per person, there’ll also be plenty of opportunities for online retailers to hear presentations even if they haven’t paid
to attend the conference.
“We’re scheduling a free major presentation in the exhibition area first thing every morning.
“ We expect that because we’re at Darling Harbour in central Sydney, there’ll be a large number of people interested and able to come and attend the exhibition and learn about all the different products
and services available.”
Harvey said that although this was the first event to be produced by his National Media company and his first venture into the online retail sector, his company, Wakamo Business Media had had a lot of
experience with organising major conferences and events.
These included Incentive Show, People Performance Management Conference and Experiential Marketing Summit.
For more information go to
www.nationalmedia.com.au
www.wakamo.com
www.internetretailer.com
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