What Happened: 3rd Annual IMA Conference
by Christina Lee on March 25th, 2009
Transport Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory out of Roald Dahl’s fantasy world and into modern times, and perhaps it would resemble the Zappos corporate headquarters in Henderson, NV. At least, that is how Cathy Aggelopoulos may have felt.
“To have a sleep room in my warehouse is just totally impossible,” she said. “The Zappos culture is a different culture from what I grew up with … I walked around with my mouth open.”
And much like in the chocolate factory tour, a select few – this time, 16 people total – entered the Zappos facilities. But this time and for the first time, the Internet Merchants Association bore admission, as part of its third annual conference in Las Vegas.
For the rest of the conference, March 16-18, the Internet Merchants Association brought together hundreds of suppliers, retailers and experts inside the Sands Expo Convention Center, to discuss the latest trends and fool-proof tips circulating the realm of online retailing.
This year’s most popular seminars included Orange Soda’s Chris Frinken on understanding search engine marketing, Constant Contact’s Dave Boufford on “rich” e-mail marketing and video, and marketing consultant Dan Hollings on what he calls “Twittermania” – “how it doesn’t have to be for the 18-year-old to chat,” as Aggelopoulos, the association’s president, learned.
Three months after its establishment in November 2006, the Internet Merchants Association held its first conference in conjunction with ASD/AMD Las Vegas. As Aggelopoulos recalls, the amount of questions attendees brought up demonstrated the need for more meetings.
“For us old-timers who have been around for a while, we always felt that when we started our business online, we had nowhere to go, no one to ask any questions to,” she said, adding, “We would say to people, what’s going to happen when you walk out of these rooms? Who are you going to ask these questions to?” We give them opportunities to ask these questions.”
As for next year, Aggelopoulos has already planned to have more than one bus available for the next Zappos facility tour.
“It’s something that everyone who sells on the Internet has got to see at least once.”
For more information about the Internet Merchants Association, visit their Web site.
Good afternoon
I belong to the Department of Consumer Affairs of Puerto Rico, and need to know its direction of air mail and if Mrs Cathy Aggelopoulus is the president of Internet Merchants Association, we needed to send a letter to her.
Thanks
Wanda
August 6th, 2009
at 12:17 pm