The Americaneagle.com team has been attending the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition (IRCE) for many years, this year included! As our presence at the show has grown over the years, we have also been able to send more staff to absorb more information on ecommerce trends and learn about the latest challenges e-retailers face.
This year IRCE was held June 7th-10th in Chicago. As a major ecommerce conference, IRCE attracts some of the top e-retailers and vendors in the industry. Retail experts from various backgrounds and specialties join together to exhibit, discuss strategy, and speak on high-level ecommerce topics.
IRCE 2016 included sessions that covered everything from responsive sites to ecommerce search, content creation to personalization, B2B ecommerce to site usability. While our team at Americaneagle.com can help address any one of these topics, we wanted to focus on a few of the top areas of focus that many retailers at IRCE spoke to us about:
SEO
SEO was one of the biggest topics at IRCE this year. Sessions included “20 Ways to Lose SEO Rankings,” a discussion on how many retailers get in the way of their own SEO improvement and “Does Your SEO Stand Up to Google Search: Live Site Reviews,” in which the session presenter spontaneously reviewed sites of audience members.
Recognizing that the importance of good SEO is increasing each year, Americaneagle.com has placed a lot of focus on SEO in recent years, growing our dedicated SEO team to help retailers achieve the search engine rankings they deserve. Our team can help with keyword strategy, competitive analyses, content optimization, link building, business listings, social media, technical services, reporting and analytics.
Design
IRCE was the perfect place to share ideas on design and learn from one another. In the session “Two Years Later: How Did That Redesign Work Out for You?” Alexander Sienkiewicz, Chief Marketing Officer of SwimOutlet.com, discussed what was most successful about his company’s site redesign and what decisions they might have made differently. In fact, many of the sessions addressed ecommerce web design best practices in one way or another.
Our Americaneagle.com team also discussed design with many retailers who stopped by our booth – highlighting the numerous award-winning ecommerce sites that we have built over the years and how they drive conversions and increase revenue.
Conversion Rate Optimization
Conversion Rate Optimization, also known as A/B Testing, was another big topic from this year’s IRCE. The A/B testing process involves using simple experiments to identify which changes can be made to improve site results.
At IRCE, Larry Wasserman, Vice President, Ecommerce and Digital Marketing at Really Good Stuff, shared the surprises he received after running 35 conversion optimization tests in the session “35 Conversion Rate Optimization Tests – And 35 Surprises.”
A/B testing was clearly a major focus point at IRCE, as it has been for our ecommerce team at Americaneagle.com as well. For more information on how A/B Testing can help you make small changes that will boost your conversion, take a look at our
recent blog post, which includes a short video featuring our in-house A/B Testing expert Corte Swearingen, explaining the basics of A/ B testing.
Overall, this year’s IRCE was definitely a successful event and we learned a lot from attending it and talking with some really successful retailers. If you missed the show this year, or didn’t have the chance to stop by our booth, we encourage you to get in touch with our team – we’d love to hear from you!
