eCommerce Expo 2023
Posted on 3rd October 2023 at 12:10
Read Time: Approx. 3 Minutes 29 Seconds
Author: Lewis Stretton & Dave Trolle
On the 28th of September, Dave Trolle travelled down to ExCel London for this year’s eCommerce Expo.
What is eCommerce Expo?
eCommerce Expo is an event ran annually, which usually runs across 2 days. It states that it’s ‘The UK only event that covers everything related to online trade.’ There are over 11,000 B2B/B2C senior eCommerce professionals who come together to give insights in the world of eCommerce.
Thought leaders throughout the days share their insights and experience to many people, with many panels of multiple speakers there is plenty of opportunity to gain insights. There are also many pop up stands across the site allowing you to talk in more depth and on a more personal level.
Why did we attend?
Dave attended Day 2 of the eCommerce Expo to discover and be a part of the latest conversations happening in eCommerce. Not only does this event allow you to talk to many new faces but also catch up with familiar faces. There is always positive feedback after this event, so Dave wanted to see for himself what this year's Expo had to off. Plus, he is the best note maker with the best memory, to update the rest of the CFD team on his return!
About the eCommerce Awards 2023
Following the first day of the eCommerce Expo, the eCommerce Awards were held, recognising the excellence in the world of eCommerce, by rewarding them at the awards ceremony. This year we were shortlisted with one of our partners, Face the Future, for the Best Health & Beauty Website award. We came 2nd receiving the silver award, it is a great achievement for us and our partners and always nice to have everyone's hard work recognised.
What had we learnt from day 2 of the eCommerce Expo 2023?
Dave attended many panels and talks on the day to hear from an array of knowledgeable people in the world of eCommerce.
One of the first panels was hosted by Andy Mulcahy (IMRG), one of the partners of the eCommerce expo. This session brought all of the cross-border insights in commerce where he announced Health and Beauty are the highest interest category for Australia. IMRG also shared about international returns, where we learnt there is low expectation to pay returns and almost a third of US consumers wouldn’t expect to pay for returns.
Next up, Dave delved deeper into the returns conundrum with Loop, a brand who focus on reducing rates and making it more likely that customers will exchange, rather than return a product. Some of the key insights:
31% increase in returns over peak trading, in a period where between 27% and 35% of sales are generated
59% of customers are likely to churn with a bad experience vs. 84% likely to repurchase with a good experience
Loop see faster returning customers and higher order rates from those customers who return with Loop vs. those people that do not. They also see an 11% decrease in the returns rate
Next up was a panel hosted by Corq, primarily focussed on capitalising on trends. They stated that trends are split into two.
Moments - short term trends where there is a chance you may go viral if you hop on to it. These trends are seen a lot on TikTok.
Shifts - typical long-term trends, that are seen over a long period of time.
Throughout the presentation, Corq really advocated that short video content, rather than long polished content, are the type of videos needed to be created at the moment. Users, (especially on TikTok) prefer shorter videos and have shorter attention spans, so quick videos tend to perform better.
Finally, Dave attended a panel where the brand Hobbycraft and POQ, a mobile app platform, discussed how Apps can be used as a Retention Channel. Shopping Apps in 2022 saw users spend more than 110 billion hours of time. Hobbycraft decided to launch an app due to an uplift in online key metrics (Conversion Rate & AOV), in addition to bridge the gap between online and store, with in store customers using to redeem loyalty rewards. After 4 weeks, they have had over 2k downloads and 25% have used the app in store. It was heavily advocated that brands should use the app differently to the site.
In a whirlwind day, Dave also managed to find the time to meet with established and new to market technology, ranging from Customer Data Platforms to Personalisation solutions, whilst also attending many other talks on topics to include AI, Storytelling and the risks of not taking a full funnel marketing approach, especially in an economic downtime.
If any of the above have peaked your interest, please feel free to get in touch.
Finally, we would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who organised the event, the sponsors, and the speakers across the days. We look forward to the next one, maybe we will make it to both days next time!
Share this post:
