E-Commerce 3.0: Can we get it right the third time around?

E-Commerce 3.0: Can we get it right the third time around?

The New York Times’ surveyor of all things e-commerce will speak to cutting-edge Madisonians Thursday evening at the monthly Accelerate Madison meeting, held at Club Majestic, 115 King Street in downtown Madison.
Nationally known Bob Tedeschi, New York Times’ e-commerce columnist, will speak about “how e-commerce is coming out of the weeds” after the boom and bust beginning in the mid-90s, he said. Some companies are finally learning how to please consumers and make a profit at the same time with e-commerce strategies, he said. “We are starting to put together some important victories,” Tedeschi said.
Tedeschi said Lands’ End is “one of the more courageous companies” with its e-commerce strategy. “They are willing to take chances. They showed the value of using catalogs and Internet sites together.” Last year the Dodgeville, Wis.-based retailer introduced custom clothing online and “that was a big hit,” Tedeschi said.
He said he likes to hold Guild.com up an an example to those who think they know what works online and what doesn’t. “I say, ‘Explain this. Here are expensive items that you don’t touch, you don’t see live.’ It’s proof that anything can still happen online if you execute correctly.”
Tedeschi said the most successful companies in e-commerce are good at business fundamentals. “They’ve concentrated on the basics of running a business,” he said.
This visit to Madison promises to be a little more hospitable for Tedeschi; the last time he was in Madison, he was riding his motorcycle across country and ended up here in the middle of the night, he said. “Every hotel was sold out. I couldn’t figure out what was going on; it was the middle of summer,” he said. He finally convinced a clerk to rent him what was possibly the last room in Madison–with a broken TV. “I’m looking forward to seeing Madison during the daytime,” he said.
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Beginning at 6:30pm on Sept. 18, Bob Tedeschi’s presentation will be
webcast live. You can view the presentation live or on-demand at
http://mslive.sonicfoundry.com/AccelerateMadison091803.