I always look forward to joining ecommerce conferences. It's a great place to meet up with old friends and network with new people. Many of those I've met at these events have become guests on this podcast. Phil Leahy is no different.

An ecommerce veteran, he built one of the largest eBay businesses retailing CDs & DVDs. He was the #1 eBay seller in Australia for a number of years. Somewhere along the way, he founded the Retail Global conference. Today, his company Retail Global Events is hosting these conferences in Australia and the United States.

Phil and I met at the Global Sources Summit in Hong Kong. He approached me after my presentation and invited me to come and speak at Retail Global Las Vegas next month. In turn, I've asked him to come on the show to give us information about this much-awaited gathering of ecommerce influencers, sellers, and online marketplace representatives.

With that, here are some takeaways from the talk that we had.

How did Retail Global start?

Retail Global, formerly known as The Internet Conference, started around 13 years ago to address the need of having a local conference in Australia where online sellers can share information freely. Its initial aim was to help people sell successfully on eBay but has since morphed into ecommerce, eventually including discussions and workshops for today's biggest marketplace, Amazon. It wasn't until four years ago when Phil was able to bring Retail Global to American shores. The year 2012 marked the first Retail Global Las Vegas conference.

Now more than a decade later, both Retail Global conferences in Australia and the United States are attended by hundreds of ecommerce entrepreneurs from across the globe. The biggest influencers and success stories in the industry speak at these events.

Stats for Retail Global Las Vegas

• 75 speakers
• 50 exhibitors
• 5 different sessions running concurrently
• 2 marketplace streams centered around eBay and Amazon
• Keynote speakers include Sean Dollinger, CEO of Namaste Technologies and Bob Schwartz, Founding President of Magento & Nordstrom.com, who will serve as the conference MC
• Amazon and eBay will be speaking at the event and will set up exhibition booths as well
• 20% average increase in turnover for ecommerce sellers who have attended the event and used what they learned to scale their business.

We wrap up this session with Phil offering listeners a simple ecommerce tip but with the potential to have a massive impact. He urges other online sellers to include a small gift when shipping out a customer's purchase. "Surprise, delight, aftersale and don't advertise it." he says.

Retail Global Las Vegas will be happening at Planet Hollywood on October 9-11. Use the code for ECOM200 to get $200 off your ticket.

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