Internet Retailer

/CNW/ -- North America's premier online shopping club, Beyond the Rack, announced today that it has reached an agreement with California-based social commerce retailer, Row Nine.com, to integrate and serve its membership. The arrangement allows all members of Row Nine.com automatic and seamless access to Beyond the Rack's extensive lineup of exclusive deals on top designer brand fashions, accessories, home decor, beauty, electronic, and top luxury travel destinations. This is the third online e-tailer that Beyond the Rack has integrated in the past six months along with private sale operator TheTopSecret.com and online flash sale site BeautyStory.com. (img

Check out the latest Internet Retailer survey on cross-border and international e-commerce and learn of the new trends in driving cross border e-commerce.

While bad news around the economy continues to pile up — a plunging stock market, troublesome unemployment, a soft housing market, national debt that's out of control — the e-commerce industry seems unaffected. E-commerce sales are steadily rising and for many cross-channel retailers the channel is a bright spot in an otherwise dark place. This mood was certainly reflected at IRCE, where people were upbeat with where they were at and optimistic about their future.

Last week's Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in San Diego had a wealth of vendors and speakers relevant to cross-channel retailers. Here are some of the event's key takeaways:

Sporting impressive growth numbers — from just over $1.1 million in annual revenues in 2004 to projected revenues of $26.6 million this year — ReStockIt.com hasn't only weathered the storm of one of the most difficult economic environments in 80-plus years, it's thrived.

Curious about adding daily-deal sites to your list of marketing platforms? A lot of retailers are. Daily-deal sites are one of the fastest growing and hottest technologies in the retail industry today. But offering a daily deal requires a lot of hard work. Bob McKeon, founder and CEO of PictureItOnCanvas.com, shared his brand's experience working with Groupon at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition yesterday in San Diego.

In a session yesterday at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in San Diego, Brandon Proctor, vice president of marketing at Build.com, and Jared Blank, vice president of e-commerce at Tommy Hilfiger, discussed how their brands have benefited from retargeting.

An important factor to success for any online retailer is which keywords to find and add to your search marketing efforts. Most retailers keep a lid on their most successful keywords, but the process for finding them isn't exactly a secret. Kate Goodman, vice president of e-commerce at women's apparel retailer Talbots, and Courtney Wegner, client services manager at iProspect, a search marketing firm, shared best practices to finding your brand's keywords in a session titled, How I Found My Best Keywords, at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition in San Diego yesterday.

The traditional definition of convergence has evolved to mean something much more than the ability to view media across three screens (computer, mobile, television). The term now represents the blurring of the lines between media delivery, social interaction, mobile experiences, and even the physical and digital worlds. Here are nine things that happened in the last year to bring convergence into focus:

Greetings from sunny San Diego, where I'm covering the Online Marketing Summit (OMS) for sister publication eM+C. I know, San Diego in February, tough gig.