The best has been saved for last at the CeBIT 2012 conference, with a presentation to be given on supply chains in online retail today
The best has been saved for last at the CeBIT 2012 conference, with a presentation to be given on supply chains in online retail today.
The business technology conference opened its doors to tens of thousands of people on Tuesday, but attendees have had to wait until today to open their minds to ‘virtual supply chains’.
The conference, held at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre, May 22-24, will feature a presentation today by Jethro Marks, co-founder of TheNile.com.au, an Australian and New Zealand online book, DVD and CD retailer.
The Nile has the largest store on eBay.com.au and the second largest bookstore on eBay.com supported by a global supply chain.
Marks will talk about the different supply chain models available in online retail, and how the Nile, which has 150 global suppliers, has efficiently moved more than a million books, on demand, to more than 700,000 customers in the past three years.
But Marks says the main message he will be trying to get across in his presentation today is for people to keep an open mind about online retail.
“The first thing is to think outside the square and not assume that any one model is right or wrong, every one of them has pros and cons associated,” Marks says.
With a 500sq m warehouse acting as a transfer station on Sydney’ north shore, Marks says his supply chain model allows him to hold minimal stock, using 3PL providers.
“For example in our business we are primarily a media seller – we do books, DVDs, CDs and games – it is very long tailed and physically impossible to hold the eight million titles that we have at any one point in time,” Marks says.
“So what we do is create a virtual supply chain where we don’t hold the inventory up front but instead attract the orders and then bring the products in to order.”
“The advantage of doing that is we can extend the offering well beyond what we could potentially stock.”
More than 500 regional and global exhibitors and more than 30,000 business visitors from 16 countries are estimated to have attended the conference.
By the time the conference finishes today, thought leaders will have presented at more 100 conference sessions and workshops during the three-day event.
Topics covered include cloud, retail, e-health, e-government, mobile, AusInnovate and social enterprise.
Companies signed to exhibit at CeBIT 2012 include China Telecom, Huawei, Telstra, Panasonic, AAPT, HP , CA Technologies, Hitachi Data Systems, Fujitsu PC, Lenovo, Nokia, Symantec, Volkswagen, Schenker, Samsung, Western Digital, MYOB, Intel Electronics and LG.
The conference is in its eleventh year.