The Shop.org 2007 Online Merchandising Workshop just wrapped up a few hours ago, and it was a great show. Kudos to Scott and Joan and Larry and the whole Shop.org crew.

Many thanks to three great marketers who participated on my panel on shopping data feeds: Steven Roth of Channel Intelligence, John Lazarchic of PETCO, and Leigh Vosler of Sierra Trading Post.

Some Acronyms From Avinash Kaushik’s Keynote

HITS: How Idiots Track Success (on the meaninglessness of measuring hits in today’s web)

VLN: Very Little Nonsense (on paring down dashboards to their bare essence)

CDI: Customer Driven Innovation (from Intuit, on listening to web users to help you make the site better for them)

HIPPO: HIghest Paid Person’s Opinion (on listening to users and data, vs. senior management)

Overhead At The Show

“If I were starting a multichannel retailing business today, and had all the time and all the money to do it right, I’d start it online at first, starting with the most robust best-selling web merchandise, and then later roll out the best products to catalog, and eventually start stores. The web would come first, turning the whole typical model on its head” — Paul Miller, SVP, Sears (on the primacy of the internet channel)

“The long tail is for people who don’t own inventory” — Lauren Freedman, The Etailing Group (on web retailing models)

“Bounce rate is the sexiest web analytics measure ever. It instantly tells you how much you suck. You beg and plead to get folks to your site, and 40% to 60% of them leave instantly. It makes you want to cry.” — Avinash Kaushik, Occam’s Razor (on web metrics that matter)

“We discovered people like to drink recreationally all year round.” Amy Lee, Best Buy (on merchandising insights gained from studying site search logs; turns out kegerators are popular beyond March Madness weeks)

“If we’re wrong, we merchants never blame it on gut. When we’re wrong, we blame the numbers. It is when we’re right that we call it gut instinct.” — Lauren Freedman, The Etailing Group (on the topic of the art and science of web merchandising)

“If you are even reasonably competent, every metric on dashboard goes up and to the right over time — even errors!” — Avinash Kaushik, Occam’s Razor (on focusing dashboards on metrics that matter)

“This methodology lets you save your butt in in the middle of a promotion that is failing” — David Seifert, Bass Pro Shops (on Bass Pro Shops’ mid-stream promotion tracking and adjustment process)

“Everyone who will decide what the future will look like tomorrow is blogging today.” — Avinash Kaushik, Occam’s Razor (on web metrics that matter)

Great event. Some longer show posts to follow later this the weekend, now off to explore San Diego before flying back east.

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