50+vendors at OnlineRetailer trade show

There were more than fifty companies and businesses exhibiting at the trade show for the Online -Retailer conference in Sydney earlier this month (18-19 August).
Most enjoyed strong and even enthusiastic interest from the more than 2,600 people who attended.
And indeed the whole event suggested something of an industry finding and recognizing itself for the first time.
(Certainly the industry backed the event much more whole-heartedly than the Onlineshop conference and expo your editor organised in Melbourne back in 2007.)
So its worth looking in some detail at the companies who were exhibiting at OnLine Retailer, to help identify who are the newbies and the johnny come latelies, and who are the real deal, here for the long-term and likely to be there next year.
To start with, it was impossible to go past IBM, who paid handsomely for the prime spot for its booth, immediately in front of both the doors exiting the conference halls, and directly in the line of sight for those entering the conference venue.
IBM has, at least in Australia, has never previously shown any interest in the local industry, and despite all their glitz, had no local retailers as examples in their brochures.
Definitely newbies.
Other major exhibitors who clearly spent big on their booths were eBay and PayPal - both clearly well known in the local industry and significant players.
Larry Bloch's company got my vote for the cheekiest and most innovative display and marketing materials - faux breakfast cereal boxes, and they too are definitely significant players.
Melbourne IT, had a largish booth for their Advantate joint-venture with Fairfax. But most of the punters appeared to be not that interested and this Newbie looked a little out of place.
New Zealand company, eStar Online, by contrast, had a big booth in the centre of the expo, and their people were confidently spruiking a impressive list of corporate clients who've adopted their web solutions. Obviously the real deal.
Of the two banks there, the Commonwealth, with their evolve service, were prominent, popular and well-prepared. You might question the evolve service itself, because it has a number of confusing variants - one of which bundles cart and payment gateway - but their show presence was clearly well-prepared.
In comparison, the NAB's booth was unimpressive, and the fact that it was tucked away doiwn the back made it look like a marketing afterthought.
Still, neither the ANZ or Westpac had any presence whatsoever, and their absence was conspicuous.
Other payments players, such as eWay, Transaction Network Services and even Paymate were however present in the show. Matt Bullock's eWay, as always, stood out with a big and bright booth featuring plenty of staff and lots of enthusiasm.
Verisign too, did well, with a large booth that featured an educational game inviting people to pick the difference between a phishing site and a legitimate web-site.
A number of paid search advertisers and agencies such as FirstRate, Permission, Amblique and others were also prominent in the show.
I was surprised too, by the number of logitics and freight companies exhibiting. It wasn't just Aussie Post there; DHL had a big booth, and others I hadn't come across previously such as Temando, Exalt and e-Go.
Various market researchers were there too, such as Coremetrics, Experian Hitwise and Webtrends, Panalysis.
Salmat's Lasoo and Rob Wong's Catalogue Central both had booths promoting their online catalogue and shopping services, whilst The Yellow Envelope too, was there promoting its direct marketing services.
The boys from Powerseller had also clealry spend big on the show but were still playing hard to get, saying that they can't say more ahead of the launch later this year.
There were lots of others I didn't get to visit, and some who were telling interesting, or perhaps I should say curious and unlikely stories about their products and customers.
But generally speaking the show was informative, well-prepared, and useful to those attending.
It was surprising not to see Microsoft, or Google, or Yahoo there.
But maybe next year.

AIMIA announces eCommerce Awards

Australia's Interactive and Multi-Media Association (AIMIA) has announced a new awards competition for ecommerce and online services.
The awards are to be known as the AMBERS. Entry is free and larger companies, with more than 1 million users a month, will be entered automatically.
Entries close on August 20 so make sure you get your site or service entered.
If you can't find the link at the AIMIA web-site or via a Google search you can find it at the foot of my eCommerce Report story.
The awards, which are being promoted in partnership with publishers - Online Banking Media -
are in seven categories.
They include best online banking site, best online insurance, best only travel site, best online retail, best mobile commerce service and best online application process.
AIMIA's awards for web-sites, the AMY's, are now well-established and highly regarded in the web design and hosting industries.
So this new award is hoped to do the same for ecommerce.
Thats probably unlikely, at least in the first year.
For starters, AIMIA has relatively little presence in the ecommerce sector, and it is doubtful if many online retailers or online travel businesses see it as very relevant.
The online travel sector, in particular, is already well served by a large annual conference event - No Vacancy - and associated online travel publication - Travel Trends produced by Martin Kelly.
Likewise the online retail sector is gathering next week in big numbers at the Online Retailer event in Sydney.
Of course, with onlinebanking media's solid presence in the finance sector, the online banking site and online insurance site awards will be keenly contested and worth having.
But I'm not so sure about the rest.
Likeiwse I'm not so sure about the proposed judging of the awards which is in two parts.
In the first part an online survey is going to find which sites the online surfers pick as the top 5 sites in each category.
The survey is to be conducted by a Sydney based company - Brandmanagement, or, more accurately, its wholly owned subsidiary - Coredata.
In the second stage of the award judging, the top five are going to be evaluated by another Sydney company -Access Testing - for usability.
The winners will be determined by some weighted combination of the results in the two stages.
The final 5 at the end of stage one will be announced in an onlinebankingmedia publication, and the winners will be unveiled at a dinner in Sydney on October 15th.
Of course the whole awards initaitive is a commercial venture for those involved.
There are four platinum sponsorships being offered for the awards at $9000 each, and 6 gold sponsorships at $6500 each.
If all the sponsorhips are sold that'll makes $72,000 in revenues for the awards, most, if not all of which is belived to be going to AIMIA.
Certainly Brandmanagement and Access Testing are beleived to be providing their services gratis. And as dinner tickets are priced at $199 each it is hard to believe that the awards dinners is not going to be a profit maker too.
Anyway, eCommerce Report is considering whether we should inject some of our expertise into these awards to make them more credible.

Let me know how we could be remunerated for donig so and why these awards might be worth supporting.