The Internet Merchants Association (IMA) is hosting its first conference for eBay and online sellers in Las Vegas next month. The two-and-a-half-day event will begin on February 27 and is being held in conjunction with major product-sourcing tradeshows produced by ASD/AMD, which will market the event to its attendees. IMA consists of high-volume eBay PowerSellers, and IMA organizers plan to produce the conference annually.

The inaugural conference will feature sessions on ecommerce, multi-channel selling, product-sourcing and importing. Speakers include representatives from eBay, Amazon, ChannelAdvisor, the Small Business Association and ASD/AMD. Google will spend 3 hours explaining its ecommerce programs, AdWords, Google Checkout, Google Base and Froogle, and Deutsche Bank Securities Analyst Jeetil Patel will speak in a session entitled, "Trends in Ecommerce in 2007 and Beyond."

Conference registration will open later this week, at which time more information will be displayed on the IMA and ASD/AMD websites.

IMA is the second group of high-volume eBay PowerSellers to form in the United States. In 2004, a group called the eBay Elite - now known as the Professional eBay Sellers Association (PESA) - held its first summit in New York. PESA has traditionally held two "seller summits" per year, and made news recently when it introduced member dues (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m11/i13/s01).

http://www.imamerchant.org

http://www.merchandisegroup.com/merchandise/index.jsp