Over 200 members of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance (PESA) trade association met in Atlanta March 19 and 20. Attendees included top eBay sellers and representatives from third-party vendors who participated in workshops, listened to speakers and networked. Representatives from eBay, Overstock and Amazon were among those attending.

The summit was PESA's third. According to PESA Executive Director Jonathan Garriss, the purpose of the summit is "to provide a first-of-its-kind interactive forum between major online marketplaces and the world's largest independent merchants."

The Summit included sessions and workshops on selling on eBay, Overstock, Amazon and sellers' own websites. Joe Cortese, Founder and Chairman of PESA, gave the opening welcome, and Derek Brown of Pacific Growth Equities gave the keynote address. Brown spoke on the topic of multi-channel selling and told attendees to be "indifferent to the channel," and be everywhere consumers are on the Internet.

David Yaskulka, Chair of the Marketing Committee, said the biannual summit is a unique opportunity for top eBay sellers to learn from each other and from leading ecommerce channel providers. "At the same time, it's a unique opportunity for executives from these channels, of course including eBay, to learn from such top sellers."

Sponsors included Ethical Technologies (title sponsor), Overstock Auctions, BuySafe, Infopia, Assistant, Zoovy, ChannelAdvisor, Truition, Marketworks, Andale, BizRate, Main Street Commerce, Vendio, Shop.com, Sellathon, Kyozou, Liquidation.com, Square Trade, MyStoreCredit.com and onlineauction.com.

Participants said networking was one of the biggest benefits of attending the event. One PESA member called the Atlanta summit "eBay Live on steroids."

PESA's next gathering will be at the eBay Live community conference in San Jose in June where they will exhibit in the solutions hall and host a charity event.

http://www.gopesa.org