Recently I was very honored to receive a letter asking me to join Flanders DC as Board Member. Why is this so special and important to me?  Well, it is quite simple: I will get the chance to help guiding Flanders on the way to innovation & entrepreneurship at home and abroad. A very crucial challenge!  As innovative e-commerce pioneer since 1999, I feel lucky to transmit some little parts of our Bivolino.com experience. I will be able to give my personal micro SME touch in this “multicultural” Board which is for the first time mixing people coming from 3 different worlds: Politics, Academia & Business.

Born in 2004, Flanders DC was launched by the Flemish Government as independent non-profit association. Till now, it has achieved quite a tremendous job with a small team of people. From big international events like the Creativity World Forum to local events like The Future Summit, from International Flanders DC Networks, to research studies on topics like e-Business, downstream innovation, index of creative economy, … to some special initiatives like Flanders DC Fellows or online training modules…. with different target groups like schools pupils, SME’s, …It has been a good 5 years start but now that the project comes into a more mature position, some measures need to be taken:

“Een grote vereniging zal eerder sterven van een indigestie van te veel opportuniteiten, dan uitgehongerd te zijn van te weinig, zo aub focus, focus en focus !!!“

My personal dream is: “Let Flanders DC be the Iphone of the Flemish Creativity”!

Last year, the first world wide e-Commerce Summit was held in Amsterdam. Because of its huge success, EMOTA (the European e-Commerce and Mail Order Association) and their American counterpart, Shop.org, will organize a second edition. The collaboration between these 2 organizations and their members has provided a strong basis to draw speakers and attendees from across Europe, the United States and other parts of the world.

This year, the Global E-commerce Summit will be held in Monaco at the Grimaldi Forum from 26 till 28 October. It procures an essential perspective on digital retail’s global implications and opportunities. First-hand accounts from leading international retailers will provide the backdrop for rich conversation on regional strategies, cultural nuances, and consumer trends worldwide.  This year’s Global E-commerce Summit promises to be an inspiring and educational platform, with various conference sessions, two networking events and 25 exhibitors.

The reception evening on October 26th is an ideal opportunity to network with industry peers while enjoying Monaco’s post summer climate. Apart from networking, the program content will be astonishing.  Speakers like Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO Rakuten “Japan’s biggest online shopping mall” and Sucharita Mulpuru, Senior Analyst Forrester Research will bring insights in online retailing. And do we get a continued story of Overstock.com? Last year, this online outlet centre shared their international expansion strategy with the forum attendees. What will chairman and CEO Patrick M. Byrne tell us this year?

In 2008 I took part in the panel discussion about trends and tips for succeeding in the European marketplace, but this year I will go as attendee. I can already recommend you two favourite guest speakers: Paul Delaoutre, chairman and CEO of Galeries Lafayette France and Kate Terry, EVP Global Ecommerce of Tommy Hilfiger USA.

Do not forget to book your agenda from 26 till 28 October. I’m looking forward to meet you at the Global E-commerce Summit 2009 in Monaco. For more information, visit http://www.e-commercesummit.com

The stereotype of the female shopaholic could soon be an image of the past, as new research shows that Britain’s ‘online high street’ is increasingly dominated by men. The latest findings from the PayPal UK Online Retail Report, conducted by Experian, indicate that over 12.9 million men shop online today compared with 10.3 million women, and almost twice as many men than women are joining the army of online shoppers each year. Since 2006, an average of 839,000 extra men have started shopping online each year compared to fewer than 400,000 women.

Men are also spending more online than women. The average online spend over the last six months was £2,602 for men compared to £1,930 for women.

The PayPal report suggests that men were quicker to turn to the internet at the beginning of the economic downturn, looking to save money by shopping around, and to research products in more depth before buying them.

Carl Scheible, Managing Director of PayPal UK, said: “The online revolution has turned men into shopaholics. We love the quick and efficient nature of the internet, especially when it comes to buying technology and gadgets.

“Our impatience has helped drive a revolution in how websites are designed. Gone are the days of elaborate graphics that take an age to load – and drive customers away to better designed sites. Companies like PayPal have also helped by making it quicker to checkout and pay online – in many cases, in just a few mouse clicks.“

Men’s love affair with online shopping looks set to accelerate. Four in 10 (41%) male shoppers plan to do as much of their shopping as possible online in future against just 29% of women and over half (55%) of men shopping online expect to expand the range of products and services they buy compared to 45% of women.

An increasing number of American online-retailers puts its application programming interfaces (API) open for external developers.

According to Sucharita Mulpuru, who takes care of the developments in the American e commerce line, on behalf of Forrester research, sharing APIs could very well be ‘the next big thing’. ‘It absolutely makes sense to discover this. As long as you are careful in the way developers obtain access to your data, there is no backside.’

Products move
Also Gene Alvarez of consultancy Gartner expects that API (Wikipedia: ‘A collection definitions on basis of which a computer programme can communicate with a another programme or part’) will more and more often be opened. ‘In three yearstime,  25 up to 30 percent of large online-retailers will be using it. External developers can help their products, as it were, move over the Internet.

Netflix, Etsy and Amazon
Well known companies which already use  APIs to boost their online-sales are dvd-leasing companies Netflix and Etsy.com, a marketplace for hand-made goods. Also Amazon.com makes product data available by means of its Associates web service, with which the company lets others advertises for its products.

Best Buy
With its Remix-programma, Best  Buy is of the first, in relation to sharing product data. Recently the electronics chain launched a test version of its site consumersprice.com,  where shoppers can ask price alert. By means of API’ s , the site is linked to, among others, Google Maps, Twitter and Flickr.