Here are some notes from Shop.org First Look 2007. I’ll post a follow up in a few days diving deeper into the topics that were most interesting to me at Shop.org.

Mike Ullman , Chairman and CEO of JC Penney

• Keynote speaker – the impact of the web on retail
• Stresses the need to stay relevant; "Companies that don’t reinvent themselves will die."
• Multichannel sales
  • Store
  • Catalog ("the Big Book")
  • Online
• The lines between these channels are blurred – "We are channel agnostic. We don’t care which way the customers come in as long as they come in."
  • Customers use the website for product research before coming into the store to shop
  • There are in-store web portals where sales associates can help customers to view products on the JCP site
  • The catalog still exists but now it also lives online
• Still has more work to do – marketing and tracking the various sales channels
• Also has brought in names like Sephora and Ralph Lauren to revamp the JC Penney image and make it a destination for fashion.

Lorna Borenstein, Vice President of Yahoo! Inc.

• Spoke about new Yahoo study on consumers buying through the social web and the effect of internet amplification on word-of-mouth
• Study looked at 4 online shopping categories: autos, consumer electronics, hotels, and home loans
• “Advocates”
  • Made up about 40% of buyers in the chosen online categories
  • They have wider online social circles and disproportionately affect sales
  • 50% of advocates talk about their purchases online
  • Stronger users of social media (online video, blogs, comments, online communities, posting photos)
  • Tell twice as many people about their purchases than non-advocates
• Not all consumers are the same; online retailers need to reach the advocates

Brett Hurt, Founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice

• Spoke about the future of online marketing with consumer-generated content
• 62% of online shoppers find product reviews useful to very helpful
• There is a distribution curve in negative/positive reviews: highly positive return rate
• Content is authentic in look and feel, mix of positive and negative reviews, nothing too testimonial
• Leveraging top-rated gifts in email drops
• Expanding word-of-mouth reach to shopping engines; syndicated product reviews

Tags: shop.org, morpheus media, jc penney, sephora, ralph lauren