Here it is again. The conference season is over, so it’s time for the regularly irregular report and a small evaluation of what I’ve visited so far this year in the e-commerce events. There was a lot of it, so I decided to split this report into two articles – January to March and April to June. It will (hopefully) be easier for you to read, and you will certainly be looking forward to the continuation. Make yourself comfortable and enjoy the first part.

Back to the past: January 23
Today, we’ll take a look back at how my January return from Sri Lanka looked. The day after my return, I immediately went to the Ceremonial Completion of the 3rd Startup Academy run by CzechCrunch, which was won by the boys from Tanganica. It’s not entirely an e-commerce event, but the startup scene is also very interesting. And I haven’t even mentioned that I’ve also started one such startup. IMBase coming soon!

From the ceremonial completion, I moved to the Legitas offices. Yes, those are the ones who are one floor above the Ecomail office. eCommerce BEERS took place there for the second time. After the month I was almost out of civilization, it was a great event. I saw all the familiar faces, and as usual, we strengthened our relationships and established some new ones.

The next day, I went to a full-day sales training, which in my case wasn’t entirely necessary, as it was valuable for people just starting in sales or with only limited experience.

On January 25, Taste organized the E-mail Restart, where we at Ecomail.cz were the content guarantors. The largest conference focused on email marketing, where about 350 email marketers from among clients, agencies, and platforms themselves gathered, was a great success, and we are still hearing great feedback on how the event went. On that day, CzechCrunch also held a special on E-commerce How to Survive the Crisis, which I unfortunately didn’t have time to visit. Well, email marketing is still a priority!

The beer break between January and February
The turn of January and February, I spent on or in work beer. On January 26 and 28, I participated in work beers as part of the za5dvanact project and then also with Tomáš Vovs. Then on January 31, it was time for a work beer with (old) acquaintance graphic designer and photographer Czekid. On February 2, there was an IMBase work beer – you’ll hear more about that soon – and on February 8, I met with people from Autoarti. In between, I managed to squeeze in some work beers with some clients.

February was definitely not dry
On February 9, we at Ecomail, together with Zásilkovna and Shoptet, organized another Shopmasters, which this time took place in the Shoptet offices. The lectures were given by Samuel Huba, Ruslan Skopal, and Kristýna Křížová. The event was again based primarily on masterminds, with 6 mentors sitting for about 2 hours with about 15 people. Well, except for Tomáš Havryluk, who had almost 30 people in his group and spent about 3 hours with them.

On February 15, another eCommerce BEERS took place, this time hosted by TikTokuj. The event took place at xPORT VŠE and focused on creating video content on TikTok. That week also saw the Brand Restart by Taste, the OpiClub in Slovakia by the Opinest guys, and the 1st ball by Citizen, where you could meet many colleagues from e-commerce. But back to the events I attended!

On February 20, we had another sales mastermind with the guys from Retina, Skladon, and Supportbox. From February 22 to 23, the Czech Online Expo took place, which we all kind of thought would be over because last year’s was frankly not worth it, both in terms of people and the content, which is mostly paid for there. But this year, I was very surprised. The paid content was still pointless, but there were a lot of people at the event, and especially a lot of interesting people, for example from Kofola, Notino, Albert, or Naninails, which is now our new client at Ecomail. Will someone still claim that networking is not necessary?

On February 27, I had an IMBase beer, and the next day, February 28, the International E-commerce Summit began again at Prague Castle, and I reaffirmed that a ticket for nearly CZK 15,000 without VAT is not worth it in this regard. Few people, and I knew most of them, so it’s good for free to strengthen relationships and for content on social networks. But within a three-day event, this is not an ideal result.

March, let’s go to Slovakia too
On March 7, I began my four-month journey with the Startup Academy by CzechCrunch, where I first presented my new project IMBase to a wider public. I’ll probably write something about this project soon. Stay tuned.

A week later, Eshopista was held at Kino Přítomnost on the topic of Creativity not only in e-commerce, with speakers such as Marek Říha from Alza, Radovan Andrej Grežo from Somebody & Somebody, or Jonáš Čumrik from Notino. Well, non-selling lectures are the best!

The following week, on March 16, eCommerce BEERS took place again. This time, Retino and Skladon presented a big logistics test. They chose a beautiful space in the center of Prague, Opero, for the presentation. You’ll definitely hear more about this space – Meet & Deal coming soon. The next day, we guys went to a great work-not-work dinner at Červený Jelen. I love these work dinners, or should I say, representation costs!

In the third week of March, I went to Slovakia and Brno. It started on March 23 in Bratislava, where TrustPay organized eCommerce Connect at Viecha Malých Vinárov. That’s also where I first showed my offline marketing on the E-commerce Calendar and found it was a great investment. From Bratislava, I then moved to Brno, where we at Ecomail had a stand on E-commerce Day – which is a smaller event (good for Brno!), where Petr and Vítek entertained us at one of the lectures, which was about how to fire marketers and not collaborate with influencers. Wait, what?! The penultimate day of March, we visited the Stars of Email networking, which was the culmination of the online conference. Pity about the venue, it’s not an ideal place for networking.

What’s next
Strange combination, isn’t it? 😅 Next time, we’ll take a look at the events that took place from April to the end of June 2023. Like in the first quarter, there won’t be a shortage of them. If you don’t yet have an overview of interesting e-commerce events, let me share my E-commerce Calendar with you for free. As a bonus, you’ll also receive articles like this one by email. Want to know not only when something is happening, but also more information about each event? Then you’ll be interested in E-COMMERCE AKCE, where you’ll find answers to these questions. Thanks for reading this far. It was a chore, just like running through all the mentioned events. But the days are not over yet…