We learned a lot in Wednesday’s SME Digital web panel discussion, The Biggest Challenges in Online Retail. Our guest experts were Brad Butler Jr., of Halloween Express; Barry Litwin, the former Vice-President of Global eCommerce at Office Depot who recently took a position as the VP, eCommerce at Sears Holdings; and Jeff Mason, Vice-President of Marketing at Velaro, a live chat software provider and SME Digital Client.

Our discussion focused primarily on how e-commerce and online retail has changed in just the last five years, how social media has impacted online retail, how to cut down on shopping cart abandonment and ideas for seasonality in an online retail business.

As promised, here is the webinar recording for you to enjoy if you were unable to join us live or you just want to review the discussion. Below you’ll also find our slides (not much to show there since it was a panel discussion, but there’s some background on our panelists) and just for taking the time to enjoy the content, Jeff and his folks at Velaro (one of the webinar’s two sponsors) put together a free e-book for you – The 7 Biggest Revenue Killing Mistakes Online Retailers Make. Click the headline there to find that free resource.

Thanks to Velaro and our other sponsor, Social Toaster, a fan advocacy platform that helps give your super fans super powers (in sharing, that is), for helping us bring the panel together and the web discussion to you.

The Recording

The Slides

As this was our first SME Digital Web Panel, we’d love your feedback. While we presented it in webinar form, but as a panel discussion, it probably fits more in the podcast genre of content, but with a live call-in feel. We’re tinkering, so let us know what you think. The comments are yours.