By Adam Forrest, Demandware Product Marketing 

How manufacturers can tap the awesome potential of ecommerce to drive cross-channel sales.

Another successful webinar, thanks to great content and participation from Sucharita Mulpuru, VP Research and Principle Analyst, Forrester Research and Chris Ladd, VP Global Retail, Crocs. Demandware has a knack for helping branded manufacturers sell online by not only providing a great eCommerce platform, but also providing research and data to accompany the industry. If you missed the webinar be sure to watch the recorded version or download the slides from our resource center.

Sucharita set the stage with staggering figures about the impact of manufacturer's website on the online and offline channels. The image below is one of her slides and I will do my best to walk you through it, but definitely not as eloquently as she did (for that you will have to watch the recorded version here.) Here we go...follow the dotted lines below. Of the entire US Population of 300 million people, 59% have shopped online (far left bar), that 59% or 177 million people spend $150 billion annually online excluding travel as Forrester Research reports. And now it starts to get more interesting, of the $150 billion spent online, 45% or $67.5 billion is spent on manufacturers' direct to consumer ecommerce sites or influenced by manufacturers' websites online. Interestingly enough the percentage of people who actually shop manufacturers' websites (38% or 67.2 million people) does not correlate with the amount of revenue spent - making it very easy to see that these shoppers while fewer are more loyal and spend more on branded goods. And further research has shown that these manufacturer websites influences a total of $200 billion in revenue, and as Sucharita put it that's "no small chump change."

This is just one of a deck of 30 amazing slides Sucharita discussed....spend the time to view the entire webinar, it is worth it.

As if this market data was not enough, we had the luxury of having Chris Ladd, VP Global Retail, Crocs speak next to give some real world advice from one branded manufacturer to another. Chris walked through a list of "10 tips" to help guide others to ecommerce success. Crocs, a Demandware customer, is operating 23 international websites and is actively expanding into the Asia market as we speak. But before they were able to have so much success, Chris and his team at Crocs followed these "Ten Tips."

1. Create a good sales plan and role for the site/store.
2. Find an Executive Sponsor.
3. Build a robust consumer database; capture at all touch points.
4. Educate people on the advantages of growing your eCommerce business.
5. Product is King. Treat your website like another store.
6. Find ways to partner with your wholesale & distributor partners.
7. Consider outsourcing certain components of the eCommerce business.
8. Create your own marketing budget.
9. Consider going global.
10. Establish a pricing & promotions committee.

Each of Chris' points had a plethora of information supporting it and great anecdotes from his experience at Crocs, Titleist, and Reebok. I would highly encourage everyone to listen to the full webinar to here all the details provided.

Thank you again to Sucharita, Chris, and all those who attended yesterday...we look forward to seeing you all again real soon.