I am attending the eTail 2007 conference this week. The first session of the day just wrapped and as I take a chance to go to the Starbucks in the lobby and hop online I have a chance to see the battle weary but happy faces of the ecommerce merchants around me. It’s Valentine’s day and for several of these merchants its the first chance to rest after the back to back to back holiday build up from Thanksgiving, to Christmas through today. Talking this morning with Mrs. Fields Cookies I see first hand the work that ecommerce merchants put in to fulfill their customers requests. Their busiest days were over this past weekend, both Friday and Monday in particular. Last minute shopping has always been popular, toss in shipping constraints and the fact most people shop on workdays from the office computer and an internet retailer can generally map out their busy days in advance. The cookie impresarios at Mrs. Fields mentioned that they see their peak volume generally between 11am and 2pm. The times around lunch makes the cookie hearts grow fonder it seems. Valentines day represents their second busiest time of year and today they can finally sit back and see how their cookies translated into dough.

As per the conference itself: The kickoff speech to this year’s conference was particularly relevent. I say that partly because it was a great presentation and partly because it echoed a recent post in our blog. Chris Anderson, the Editor in Chief of Wired Magazine explained that niches are the new mainstream and that retailers needed to adjust. I couldn’t agree more. Richer and more engaging content presented in new and compelling formats is vital for ecommerce merchants who want to seperate from the pack and get results. Stephanie Acker-Moy from Hewlett Packard followed that speech up with one about using content development to enhance the brand experience. By blending rich content and feeds together to present customers with fresh and compelling content a retailer, or any website for that matter, can stay relevent while also being able manage the new level of content effectively.

One overriding subtheme to this event, echoed in several conversations I had with other merchants is that the operational requirements of ecommerce are still overwhelming. There is the feeling that the day to day issues of updating content, dealing with logistical issues, taxes, returns, inventory, merchandising etc has sapped a lot of the creativity and joy from the long time ecommerce vendors. This has perhaps been the reason that ecommerce sites have mostly evolved to look the same, with little innovation the past few years. Its lulls like these - where innovation gets curtailed to deal with operational issues - that present opportunities and rewards to those who do something different. I think the ecommerce space has been in their current innovation lull for too long. I have some sense of where things are going next. For that you will have to wait for my eTail wrapup post but I would like to hear your thoughts on whether there has been a lull in innovation in ecommerce and what will shake things up in the coming year.