Being in business, especially eCommerce gives me the opportunity to connect with great businessmen and women. I was thrilled to be invited to the eTail awards on June 12th by Shopow whose founder; Kevin Flood presented the “best in Social Media award”.
The eTail Awards took place at the Old Billsgate in London and the opening act was comedian; Adam Buxton. He shared his thoughts on buying online and how people act in the weirdest way and share this on YouTube! From Brad Pitt talking about pooping, to a man put his tongue on an electric fly swatter, YouTube really does present one extreme to the other (if you want to see the fly swatting action, see it here). It really is amazing what people do for fun!!
The biggest winner of the evening was Appliances Online who walked away with “Best use of Social Media” and “The Chase Paymentech Best Pure-play Etailer – Large”. They have defined the whole goods online world with over 1 million Facebook fans and a fantastic mobile store. A big congratulations to the team at Appliances Online for their hard work.
Other awards included “Consumers Choice” which went to Amazon, “Paypal Best Mobile Optimised Site” which went to John Lewis (with Reiss being highly commended), “Best App” to Mothercare, “Best Customer Experience” to Morrisons (with Schuh being highly commended), “Torque Best use of Innovation” to Topshop and “Digital Marketing Campaign of the Year” to Very (with Chocolate Clothing being highly recommended).
During the night, I was paying close attention to the tables around me. I noticed the loudest table being ASOS after a few drinks but leaving the night bitterly disappointed after being selected for many awards and walking away empty handed (for a change).
Being a guest at such a well respected awards event was a great way for me to connect with very powerful business people who I exchanged business cards with and hope to work with them in the future.
If you ever have the chance to attend a great event within your industry, make sure you do everything possible to attend as it will not only benefit your business but give you the chance to dress up and have an enjoyable evening.
Just wanted to say a huge thank you to the team at Shopow for inviting me to the event and a big thank you to Phil Weedon for taking great pictures throughout the night. If you would like to see some pictures from the awards, you can do so here.
