Blog

Ken Schafer, who writes at wonderful blog on Canadian online marketing at OneDegree.ca, asked me to join him and some leading Canadian retailers on a marketing best practices panel for the VISA E-Commerce Summit that took place on Tuesday. It was a great event with a great audience and I definitely learned a lot about the state of the Canadian marketplace.

Some of it was a confirmation of a lot of what we’ve been doing. Communities are really going to help drive the online shopping in Canada and I was happy to see that reflected in some of the research. Affiliate programs, shopping search, and social shopping are going to become the norm and the retailers that will succeed will have to embrace them. In the next few years retailers in Canada have a bit of catching up to do before their US counterparts step in.

Events like this one are great for the industry and helps highlight some of the emerging trends as more and more Canadians shop online. It was great to see a lot of the leading retailers like Sony, Dell, Sears, and Staples at the event. A big thanks also goes out to VISA for holding the event and encouraging the sharing of knowledge. Hopefully we can continue to do our part to help the industry grow as well.