The National Retail Federation’s Shop.org is increasing its offerings at the regional level thanks to volunteer members who are organizing successful events for e-retailers.  Known for offering outstanding networking and programming at the national level throughout the year, the e-retailing association is giving members the opportunity to engage each other more frequently at the local level.  The afternoon and early-evening events… featuring cocktails and a well-prepared yet casual dinner… are being organized in Dallas, New York, Chicago and San Francisco. 

“Shop.org regional events give our members an opportunity to gather with local fellow retailers in between national events, thus increasing the frequency of information sharing opportunities and without the travel costs,” Scott Silverman recently told me.

Members are coming together to network and gain insights on important industry issues and practices such as search, affiliate marketing, click fraud/PPC advertising and emerging technologies like RSS.  As usual, Shop.org’s popular (read: successful) retailer-only roundtables are back and feature open and honest dialogue between members.  Essentially, it’s “retailers helping retailers” and from what I have experienced it’s not surprising that members enjoy this feature. 

As an example, the San Francisco event focused one of its roundtables on eHoliday merchandising and marketing.  Here in Chicago, Crate & Barrel provided our group with fantastic facilities (including a tour).  Thanks go out to C&B’s fearless e-commerce leader, John Seebeck and Gordon Segal, CEO and Co-Founder of the company.

If you have ANYTHING to do with affiliate marketing, you need to hurry and register for Affiliate Summit 2006.  I’m actually speaking at this event, but when I look at the roster of top speakers, I’m not sure why!  Brilliant people such as Anne Holland from MarketingSherpa and Declan Dunn from Dunn Direct will be sharing their wisdom from the stage.  Other companies slated to present information include Amazon.com, Carat, Payless Shoesource, Endai Worldwide, and more.  I’ve not yet attended an Affiliate Summit, but I’ve heard the conferences are an amazing opportunity to learn and network.  I’m really excited to be attending, and hope you will check it out.  You can learn more about it by clicking here. 

If you do attend, be sure and let me know so we can meet up!

(The last Affiliate Summit SOLD OUT before the conference even started, so if you want to go, don’t wait to register!)

Should we be surprised that those comfortable (myself included) with Web-based shopping are more likely to serve themselves at a grocery or retail store?  Probably not but I have to admit that the words “Unexpected item in bagging area… remove unexpected item...” have left me, more than once, abandoning the “convenience” this seemingly retarded technology offers (so far).

Reports Internet Retailer Magazine...

“Forrester found that a web buyer is 28% more likely than a non-web buyer to use a self-checkout system. This year, 61% of all North American consumers have used self-checkout, compared with 71% of online consumers and 80% of web buyers.”

Internet Retailer reports “Several major multi-channel retailers, including eBay Inc., Shop NBC and the Home Shopping Network, have formed an alliance to develop strategies for dealing with legislative and technological issues facing web merchants.” FULL ARTICLE

I spoke with Barbara Tulipane, ERA President and CEO about this alliance while at the ERA annual conference in Las Vegas last month.  According to her, the “big boys” of the internet are tired of fighting, and seeking to work together to advance the cause of internet businesses in Washington, and in the eyes of consumers. 

I know what you’re thinking… “an infomercial association to spearhead the cause of internet companies?”

Perhaps it does make sense.  Let’s face it, when it comes to consumer trust, both the internet and the DRTV business could use a lift.  The bad apples in both arenas are making it tough for everyone.  In DRTV, we have hucksters and false advertisers.  Online, we have spammers, phishers, malware.  And on Capital Hill, pending and proposed legislation on everything from taxes to privacy could affect ALL of our businesses for years to come. 

Imagine the lobbying power of an association that had Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, eBay, and more all pulling for one cause. 

The Electronic Retailing Association could find itself as powerful as the NRA!

Your thoughts?

OK, so it’s not really BY Seth Godin.  The Big Moo is actually a compilation of 33 of the best business ideas from today’s top business leaders.  Excerpts are from the likes of Guy Kawasaki, Malcolm Gladwell, Tom Peters, Mark Cuban, and of course Seth Godin. 

There are two very cool things about the book:

#1 - None of the chapters are credited to their authors.  That’s right, each author contributed, but exactly WHAT they contributed is not made knows.  It’s actually kind of fun to try and figure out who wrote what!

#2 - 100% of the author royalties from the book are being donated to charity. 

Why should you check out The Big Moo?  If you’re not big into “business books”, The Big Moo fits the bill, as each chapter is a small, bite-sized morsel with a self contained lesson.  Perfect for busy people to read when you don’t have a lot of time.  There is some great advice on marketing, customer service and business that can be quite valuable.  On the other hand, if you are a business book junkie like me, but you forget most of the stuff you’ve read, then The Big Moo is a great reminder of lessons learned in the past, but stored away in your mind collecting cobwebs. 

The Big Moo hits bookstores on October 20th, 2005. 

On the heels of Commission Junction’s CJ University event and last week’s apparent, quiet ousting of notorious “bad actor” affiliate ShopatHomeSelect.com I thought it might be interesting to delve deeper into CJ’s network composition as described by itself.  This is of particular interest considering so much of my consulting business reveals so many advertisers continuing to (knowingly or un-knowingly) work with download-lovin’ ShopatHomeSelect.com.

As seen above, Commission Junction itself reports what it calls “Downloads” as representing a small yet significant portion of its publisher base (translation: to some degree, revenue base).  Also worth noting is that it separates out “Downloads” from “Loyalty” which may actually include players like ShopatHomeDirect given its cash-back (to consumers) business model… although largely distributed via downloads.  It is likely that other loyalty players (such as the Almighty uPromise.com and affiliates like MyPoints.com, eBates.com etc.) are similarly categorized as “Loyalty” although Commission Junction has not been very revealing about its categorization criteria.

It’s also important to note that CJ’s network of affiliates, or “publishers” as they call them, relies primarily on search… a service that they, themselves, and their competitors are rushing into (in effect, competing with their base of affiliates).  CJ competitor, Performics has been at this for years now and managed to take affiliate business away from CJ and Linkshare based on their ability to offer “more than affiliate programs.” I’ve written in the past on risks involved for affiliate networks that are dependent on search-based affiliates/publishers. 

Also, I’m interested to understand more about “Acquisition” affiliates as they would seem to be competing with and/or crossing over with other ValueClick holdings… specifically, CPA networks such as WebClients (acquired earlier this year).