What Are the Best Events for an Ecommerce Operations Team?

I’ve been in ecommerce for over 10 years now (yeah, I officially have gray hair) and I have cut my teeth at ecommerce events… Attending easily over 100 at this point... I even used to own and run E-Commerce Day, at one point. So I thought I’d share some of my favorite events in the industry for operational teams and executives and give you some quick tips on which ones you should send your team to.

What are the goals for attending an event?

Let’s start simply: Sending the team to an event can be costly and time consuming. Your primary goals should be:

1. Vendor vetting - finding the right opportunities of partners and vendors that can be most beneficial to you right now. Before you go, identify some gaps in your operational plan and highlight a few key vendor categories that you think you should take a stronger look at.
2. Tactical advice - your team should absolutely be learning from the sessions and keynotes at every event they attend. I recommend a post-mortem meeting where the team shares their individual notes and insights and comes up with a few ideas to put onto the drawing board for the company.
3. Networking - it’s not what you know, its who you know. Make sure to chat with similar brands, partners, and influencers, get their take on what can benefit your business, and keep in touch.

What makes a great event for operations teams?

There are a lot of ecommerce events out there, and the truth is, 80%+ are focused on marketing, or sometimes leadership… Some are “self-help” type events… Others are all about networking and meeting other great founders…

But for an event to be worthwhile for operational leaders and teams, you should expect it to have these 3 things:

1. Sessions focused on operational challenges - supply chain, improving margins, customer experience, etc. Not always true, but the sessions should also be more omnichannel, rather than just all Amazon, or All DTC.
2. The talent on stage should be more COO, CFO, CTO than CMO, CEO, etc. You want to learn from industry peers who have already done what you’re about to do.
3. The vendors sponsoring should be more ops-tech than martech, although you’ll always expect to see a bit of both.

ShopTalk

I asked a dozen industry experts and they all say ShopTalk is the #1 place to be for all of ecommerce, retail, and commerce enablement providers. The next ShopTalk will be Mar 24-27 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. See here for details.

Things to know:?

ShopTalk organizes 1:1 meetings for brands and vendors. When you sign up, you can make notes on what types of technologies or agencies you are interested in learning more about, and meet with representatives from those companies.

Lunches and dinners - plan ahead and you should be able to get most of your meals for free from partners and vendors. Everyone is hosting a meal, basically any time, for each day. There will also be great happy hours and after parties. And people like me will typically make a spreadsheet that lists all these sub-events out, so that it is easy for you to find.

Sessions tend to be broad and big picture focused on things like retail, sustainability, the future of commerce, etc. Perfect content for operational and executive leaders looking into the future of their companies.

ShopTalk Fall is not quite as well attended or large as ShopTalk. We like the OG ShopTalk much more.

NRF - National Retail Federation - “The Big Show”

2025s Big Show will take place Jan 11 - 14 in NYC, see here for details. This event is one of the largest in the US. Next year they will have a large innovation showcase, highlighting key technologies in commerce, logistics, and AI.

Focused more on upmarket and retail, this event is great for the larger brands and retailers, and for fast-growth brands looking to grow in retail.

eTail West

Typically much bigger than eTail East, it is worth the trip to the west coast to make it to what is commonly called just “eTail.” Next year’s Etail will be Feb 24 - 27th in Palm Springs. Be sure to bring your pickleball paddle and a bathing suit. This is a great trip for both business and pleasure and you will want to participate in all of the secondary events and outside activities.

Grow Series

Grow is a newer ecommerce event and community that spawned as the brainchild of Greg Ashton, who saw an opportunity while in-house working with the eTail team to create a more young, fun, and hip type ecommerce event. Out of all the events listed here, this would probably be the one that is going to be the strongest blend of marketing, young brands, and this event will certainly give off a stronger Gen Z vibe than the rest (nothing wrong with that, of course).

They have a west coast - GrowLA - and east coast event - GrowNY - at least once a year, usually twice, and also host a lot of smaller regional events, as well as have a Slack community and solid email newsletter.

They currently have GrowNY set to go July 9th (2024), and GrowLA will be Oct 8th (2024).

The Lead

The Lead is a long-standing ecommerce media property that combines great events with great “best of” lists of ecom brands and technology providers.?

Quick brag: Pipe17 has made their top 100 tech startups driving innovation in commerce 2 years in a row now (exactly how long I’ve been working here, what are the odds?!).

This year The Lead Summit is July 10th and 11th in NYC. More details here.

The Lead Summit typically takes place annually and has two parts: First a more exclusive day for executives and founders of upmarket brands only, then a larger innovation showcase that will feel much more like a convention or expo show. In between, they have cruises, parties, and a lot of other secondary events (including one we are hosting, apply to RSVP here).

This event does a really great job of combining “traditional” and incumbent retailers and brands with emerging brands and commerce enablement providers (tech/agency partners).

DTCx

Created by our friends at Gorgias - helpdesk for ecommerce - the event series known as “DTCx” is naturally more focused on the customer experience side of operations and ecommerce, while still being sure to provide a lot of fun and value to operations leaders.

They have a lot of events annually, with the big one typically being DTCx Retain in Los Angeles.?

They also host smaller half-day events under the DTCx brand, and they have DTCx Global, an annual virtual event.

And now it seems they have a separate event called CXConnect - hyper-focused on customer experience - taking place June 19th in Los Angeles.

This is the event for customer service teams and CX leaders, but you will also see a lot of CXOs, COOs, CEOs, etc. in attendance.

Manifest

Manifest is a massive event aimed largely at the supply chain side of retail and ecommerce. While operations teams from brands are a key element to the event, I would say that they care just as much about 3PL attendance, companies in supply chain technology, logistics, shipping, and surrounding spaces.

This is what makes Manifest fairly unique, and I would argue they are for the larger brands with complex supply chain management and larger logistics teams.

Manifest is typically held in Las Vegas. Next year’s will be Feb 10-12th (2025) at The Venetian. See here for details.

Accelerate (Hosted by Pattern)

Lookie here, an event that isn’t in LA, Vegas, or NYC. I've got to say, having just got back from Accelerate, that Salt Lake City is a beautiful place, and has a bustling ecommerce community as well.

While Accelerate is smaller than most other events listed here, the 500 people that do show up are quite energetic, and the lineup they put together is pretty cool: Jessica Simpson, Ken Jennings, and tons of great brands - most of them clients of Pattern (the agency) of course.

Pattern, a top ecommerce agency for over a decade, hosted an event packed with informative, no-pitch sessions. It was all about data-driven, value-focused insights, perfect for brands looking to scale from digital-first DTC to omnichannel. Cool brands like Pit Viper and True Classic Tees were there, even giving away products. And they gave a lot of helpful, real-life use cases and practical solutions.?

I would say this event is more executive-focused than operations-focused, but can still be a great one for operational teams and leaders.

Final Thoughts

What events are you heading to this year? I’d love to know in the comments below.

I hope this list jumpstarts your search for the right events for you and your team to attend. These are only a handful of all the events you could attend each year, I recommend doing some of your own independent research to find more industry-specific events (beauty, fashion, etc.).

TikTok Shop is an estimated 2% of US Ecommerce Sales

It seems like every week TikTok Shop is getting a shout out in this newsletter… But when you go from 0 to 2% of US-based ecommerce sales, you need to pay attention.

Estimates taken from ShipHero data and CEO Aaron Rubin seem to indicate massive growth of TikTok Shop sales, indicating that they could be as much as 10% of US ecommerce sales by the end of the year.

Comment on Aaron’s post with your thoughts on TikTok Shop here >>

Walmart Continues to Up Their Game

I’m sure we’ve all seen an Amazon delivery truck in our neighborhood, but have you seen a Walmart delivery truck yet?

“Walmart delivered 4.4 billion items with either same-day or next-day shipping speeds in the U.S. over the past 12 months, President and CEO Doug McMillon said on an earnings call last week. The retailer delivered about 20% of those goods in under three hours.”

Walmart is gaining market share verse Amazon and has something Amazon doesn’t: More than 4,600 stores across the country.

Brands that are on Amazon need to be on Walmart (and don’t forget about Walmart Canada).

Read the full article here >>

Movers and Shakers

A shout out to Mike Gelb , host of The Consumer VC podcast and head of community at Manufactured.com, ( MFD ). Mike is hosting a series of ecommerce coffee events around the US, see if there is one near you.

Upcoming Events

Announcing a private dinner series hosted by Pipe17 and partners:

• New York City - June 11th - Request invitation here.
• New York City - July 10th - Request invitation here.

Industry Events:

RICE - June 4-6 - Chicago, Illinois

CommerceNext - June 11-13 - New York, New York

Fulfilled by ShipBob - June 17-19, Las Vegas

MACHTHREE - Jun 17 - 18, NYC

CartCon - Jun 17 - 19, 2024 - Deer Valley, Utah

The Lead Innovation Summit - July 10-11 - New York, New York?

SuiteWorld - September 9-12 - Las Vegas, Nevada

??? Ecom executives: Is your Ops team winning the race? Take this survey to find out.

That’s it for ep.7 of The Workflow. What did you like about this newsletter? What’s missing? Send me a message on LinkedIn with your feedback.

Share “The Workflow” with the rest of the team. Share Now >>

Author: Derric Haynie, Head of Demand Gen, Pipe17