“The Boston area has more e-commerce than people think,’’ Keller said, adding that “Staples.com is one of the largest e-commerce retailers in the world.’’
The area is also home to such online retailers and marketers as CSN Stores, BuyWithMe, Rue La La, Vistaprint, and TripAdvisor, he added.
Keynote speakers include inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil; Google vice president of commerce Stephanie Tilenius; and Ben Fischman, chairman and chief executive of Boston’s Rue La La, an e-retailer of upscale apparel that specializes in so-called flash sales.
More than 200 companies will be on the convention floor, selling products, technologies, and services designed to improve the online retailing experience. Among them: Searchandise Commerce Inc., a Beverly company that describes itself as a “Google for retail,’’ helping companies improve product placement on retail websites.
Searchandise’s chief executive, John Federman, said the biggest question this year is “the role of mobile, and the ability to target mobile customers.’’
That’s going to be a hot topic at the convention, said Chris Davey, senior vice president at SapientNitro, a marketing and technology services company that is a division of Boston-based Sapient Corp. “Consumer-based technologies like smartphones are driving what is happening in retail,’’ he said, “and retailers are having to react to that.’’
Also on the agenda: the rise of flash sales, limited-time online offers, and “daily deal’’ sites as the online discounter Groupon, said Sucharita Mulpuru, an analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge who will emcee some of the keynote sessions.
And social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter will be under examination, said W. Sean Ford, chief operating officer at Zmags Inc., a mobile merchandising company. The question: how to make money from social media.
