eTailment Summit & Expo a place to go?

I’m standing right in the middle of an old aeroplane hangar. Green painted steel pillars carry the extremely high and heavy roof. Pale light shines through the big yellowed windows at the end of this hall. The air is hot and dry. And there in the middle of this gigantic hall stands a real candy bomber.

The candy bomber in the networking area.

Yes I arrived at one of the biggest eCommerce business congresses in Germany: The eTailment Summit & Expo 2.014. A congress where you can also hear a lot about eCommerce, marketing, startups, big data and much more. 

But let´s start at the beginning:

I won two tickets for this big event and started to take a closer look. After I checked everything it seemed like everything would be perfect. The timetable sounded great, the event area was one of the coolest in europe and at least one ticket should cost 1300 €. So I went to Berlin, my bag full loaded with expectations. 

After a long, uncomfortable trip to Berlin I arrived at Tempelhof, an old airport which is an event area now. Big trade shows like the Bread & Butter take place here every year. A real impressive place for every event. I couldn't wait to get inside, so I speeded up really massive without even noticing. For one moment I forgot everything around me. I nearly even forgot my girlfriend, who traveled with me.

Fortunately I didn’t forget her completely and we entered the expo together. The expo itself was not very special. Of course all the big players where there, but at the whole expo there was no real eye-catcher with new or innovative ideas. So we went to the next hall pretty fast. The hall where the summit took place. I found myself in front of a huge stage with three big monitors on it and really had to say the location was awesome. It seemed like the organizers know what they did, and they did it good.

But after these first extremely stunning impressions I started to listen to some talks, presentations and discussions. Unfortunately I have to say, the high level of the location couldn’t took higher by the speakers. That wouldn´t have been a problem, if they would have been able to even hold this level. But they weren’t. 

I heard a lot of talks about the future of eCommerce, Community & Content, Mulitchannel, Online Marketing und many more. But after all this talks I have to say there was nothing new. I don´t think the talks were bad. They are just as old as the topics itself. Every “new” idea someone talked about, was an idea which is in discussion for at least one year now. Of course you will not find brand new ideas on every congress you are a part of, but it´s frustrating to see guys selling their “new” ideas and everyone in the audience (who read something about the market the last year) know exactly what the speaker wanted to say. 

On the other hand some of the best practice talks on the startup and the best practice stage were really interesting. Of course you are not able to find completely new ideas here. But some of these talks really showed how things could get down practical, without unreal expectations and fancy technology thoughts.

The lesson is clear: The eTailment Summit & Expo is a good place to building up a network with very important people and it`s definitely a good chance to get an overview about the whole eCommerce scene.  But if you want to get the newest ideas and inspirations this business congress might not be the place where you should go.