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2007 Independent Online Sellers' Conference 0722/07 Return To Online Bookselling Home Page |
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The format of the 2007 Independent Online Sellers’ Conference was substantially different than that of 2006. I suspect the major reason for this was owing to the attendance this year, which was quite a bit higher than last year with respect to both sellers and Amazon participation. This year, rather than the entire audience hearing from Amazon regarding specific topics, we had breakout sessions covering many different topics.
Friday simply amounted to registering and getting a chance to meet other parties in attendance and Saturday was devoted to vendor presentationsand breakout sessions. This year, I had the opportunity to present for ScoutPal. Doing this took me back to my college days when I would be asked by a professor to stand in for a day and give a lecture on a topic I had not taught before. It did require a little scrambling because I was not entirely familiar with all of ScoutPal's features, and I have always felt a little uncomfortable presenting something without doing my homework. In researching ScoutPal, I got to spend a weekend in Corvallis, Oregon with Dave Anderson. I had a great time, and we scoped out most of the presentation during this time. When it was time to get up and discuss ScoutPal, I felt confident that I knew enough about the product to present it.
Even the vendor presentations were done in breakout sessions this year, giving all of the attendees the opportunity to choose those they wanted to hear more about. From the perspective of being a presenter, this meant back-to-back one-hour presentations, but it also allowed for a smaller audience, and the ability to spend more time speaking to the attendees one-on-one.
Saturday afternoon, we also had our business breakout sessions. This year, in addition to media, a new breakout group was formed to address other things sold on the Amazon marketplace. The purpose of the breakout sessions is to formulate a list of questions that we would like to have asked of Amazon on Sunday. Each group came up with their own list of questions that they felt were most relevant to their business size.
On Sunday we had our Amazon breakout sessions covering such topics as:
Trust and Safety Dispute Resolution Books and Media Update on Your Seller Account Seller Support Office Hours WebStore. Fulfillment by Amazon. Feedback and Performance Management Q&A with Inventory Management Team Amazon Service's Order Notifier Other Category Q&A Design Focus Group
Obviously, there was no way to attend all of the sessions so each attendee had to choose five sessions that he or she wanted to attend. I found the five sessions I attended to be very informative.
On Monday, everybody was bused to Amazon. Similar to last year, we addressed a panel of Amazon executives. A number of the questions were quite pointed, but the Amazon executives handled them well and answered them openly. Just before lunch, Jeff Bezos came in to speak with us and answered questions.
I encourage anybody that has the opportunity to attend this if you can next year. Not so much because you will learn something that is going to give you any kind of advantage in your business, but because it will give you the opportunity to see just how dedicated Amazon is to us third-party sellers. It is unrealistic to think that everything we propose they do will happen, but they are listening and implementing those things they feel are best for Amazon, Amazon buyers, and third-party sellers, and not necessarily in that order.
A great deal of the revenues generated by Amazon are attributable to third-party sales, so it is not in Amazon's best interest, or that of its online customers, to ignore or discount third-party sellers. In general, I have always been skeptical of scenarios like this, but I have no doubt of Amazon's sincerity.
I will have more to say about this conference in the days and weeks to come.
I hope to see you there next year.
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