March 21, 2014
Shipwire recently took a trip down to sunny San Diego, CA, to attend Miva Merchant’s 14th Annual Miva Conference, entitled Conquering Ecommerce. During the introduction, Miva CEO Russ Carroll announced the occasion as “the longest running ecommerce event of its kind,” while Rick Wilson, President and COO, later captured the event’s amazing turnout in a snapshot worthy of rivaling Ellen’s famous Oscars selfie.
As hundreds of merchants, developers, partners and speakers gathered to trade ecommerce tips and solutions, Miva brought exciting news of their own that got the entire ballroom buzzing with the introduction of Miva Merchant 9, the most significant upgrade they’ve released since Miva launched in 1997.
Other noteworthy mentions from the conference:
The Blades Awards (March 6)
On Thursday night, Miva held their 2nd annual Blades Awards, recognizing leaders in the Miva Merchant community, including Head Blade for Best Website of 2013 and Flight Quarters, a unique store that sells bird diapers, for Most Innovative Product.
Tour of Ecommerce
The Tour of Ecommerce Passport game added a new twist to the conference, encouraging attendees to visit each of the sponsors’ booths and collect stamps to increase their chances of winning prizes like Apple TVs and iPad Minis. We had a great time talking to many of the merchants and developers about the interesting projects they’ve been working on and how Shipwire can help them to expand their businesses.
Keynotes
MivaCon14 had a fantastic lineup of keynote speakers. Themes for this year’s topics included the impact and evolution of SEO, international search and global markets, being a visionary, and taking risks. Here are some helpful takeaways:
- SEO should be invisible: really consider and plan your approach to SEO. It should not be obvious that you’re calculating your content (Matt McGee)
- Be vital: create fantastic stuff that Google NEEDS (Matt McGee)
- There are certain people who are genetically hardwired to take risks: in the question of nature v. nurture it is difficult for people who don’t have it in their genes to adapt it. Risk takers must be prepared to accept the consequences of failure (Dr. Robert Williams)
- Every organization should nurture risk taking: make sure you have risk takers in leadership positions within your organization (Dr. Robert Williams)
- Schema and structured data are what drive entity experiences: you have the opportunity to provide better relevant/original content and become the sources for search engine results (Evan Fishkin)
- It’s a Google world: Google follows directory structures to content and the best way to show Google where the content is is to build out the entire directory in the language of the country to which you are trying to appeal (Anne Kennedy)
- Real visions rarely come from a group setting: Groups critique, they don’t create. Great ideas almost always start out with an individual (Dr. Larry Osborne)
- It’s important to guard your vision and values: your vision may evolve over time, but don’t let it leak or veer off course as it ultimately takes you where you want to go (Dr. Larry Osborne)
Event photos
For more photos from the conference, check out Leslie Kirk’s photo stream.