At the conclusion of Magento’s 2013 Imagine eCommerce Conference, we gathered with Solution Partners for the Annual Solution Partner Leadership Summit. 110 Solution Partner companies from all over the world came together to review the past year, discuss forward-looking goals and plans, and recognize the valuable contribution of our Solution Partners.

During this meeting, we acknowledged the outstanding performance in 2012 achieved by the Solution Partner channel. We are honored to have so many partners committed to delivering creative, innovative and successful Magento Enterprise Edition-based sites.

Special “Partner Excellence Awards” were presented to nine partners for their outstanding performance based on Magento Enterprise Edition revenue, quality of implementations and customer satisfaction. An additional five awards were presented to companies who showed their potential as rising stars in the partner network, with accomplishments including remarkable year-over-year growth (2011 to 2012), and proven dedication to the development of their Magento Enterprise Edition practice.

We congratulate these Solution Partners, and thank the entire Solution Partner network, for their hard work and commitment to Magento and to our joint customers.

“Magento’s Solution Partner program continues to play a critical role in the growth of Magento in key verticals and markets. Our Solution Partners are leaders in the creative and technology communities, driving towards merchant success. We are honored to acknowledge their continued contributions to our thriving ecosystem, and express our appreciation for their relentless dedication and hard work.” – Roy Rubin, COO and co-founder of Magento.

Partner Excellence Award                                                                              

These partners showed significant success in their markets selling Magento Enterprise Edition and in delivering quality implementations to customers.

Fast and Emerging Partner Award                                                               

These partners showed the greatest growth in their Magento Enterprise Edition business, or greatest expansion in new and emerging markets.

Magento Solution Partners are design and eCommerce experts, but more importantly, they are Magento specialists who can help you achieve excellence in eCommerce.” that links to “find a solution partner

Earlier this week, 1500 developers and merchants from 45 countries descended upon the M Resort in Las Vegas for the 2013 Imagine eCommerce conference to network and share their ecommerce ideas, innovations and best practices around the Magento Platform. Here’s a recap of the most memorable moments and takeaways.

Day One

Day One focused on how Magento is driving quality in the marketplace and how developers and technology partners can achieve further ecosystem success. The day concluded with sessions on best practice search engine optimization techniques and a networking “BarCamp” event for developers to learn about a myriad of Magento topics in short, rapid-fire presentations. Among the most popular topic “tracks” were “Developing Magento Apps using the Mobile SDK,” “Previewing Extensibility in Magento 2” and an “Open Forum” with Magento Chief Technology Officer, Matthew Mengerink.

Day Two

Day Two kicked events into high gear, with keynotes from eBay Inc. Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe, Magento Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer Roy Rubin, Jeff Jordan of Andreessen Horowitz and Magento Chief Technology Officer, Matthew Mengerink.

Roy Rubin was the day’s first main speaker. He addressed Magento’s amazing year of growth for both the platform, as well as for the customers and ecosystem worldwide.  He also spoke to the conference theme — “The Art of Commerce” — and inspired the audience by conveying to them that they are the artists, and with the Magento tools available, they have the continued ability to create something powerful and unique.

Rubin was followed by John Donahoe, whose keynote focused on how technology is “obliterating” the lines between online and offline, calling it all “connected commerce.”  In this commerce revolution, he said, the individual is at the center and the consumer is in charge. Jeff Jordan, meanwhile, spoke to existing trends in the ecommerce market, like the physical retailer disadvantage and show-rooming 2.0, and Matthew Mengerink closed out the morning keynotes with a discussion on how to push the boundaries of how we think about things and how the commerce of today no longer marries yesterday’s principles.

Afternoon breakout sessions from the technology and business tracks were standing room only, and included topics ranging from “Creating Successful Magento ERP Integrations,” “SEO/SEM Trends for 2013” and “Where, Why, and How of Responsive Web Design.” In particular, Roy Rubin highlighted how Magento is leveraging the power of  eBay Inc. to create an even brighter future and that moving forward,  “this will translate into more benefits for merchants.”

Day Two concluded with a keynote by Sharon Meers, Magento’s Head of Enterprise Strategy, who took to the stage to share Magento’s tremendous success within the fashion industry. She kicked off the segment with a discussion of how Magento Enterprise Edition has become the platform of choice for many of the world’s most prestigious brands and concluded with a live, fashion runway showdown with 14 models showcasing the latest looks from Magento customers Custo Barcelona, Erin Fetherston, Missguided, Nanette Lepore, Paul Smith, Rebecca Minkoff and Zadig & Voltaire.

Day Three

Jimmy Duvall, Head of Product for Magento, introduced the Magento Enterprise 1.13 release and spoke to how the release was designed to enable large and growing merchants to scale more effectively and support even greater numbers of visitors and buyers to their core eCommerce sites, while streamlining their back-end operations.

PayPal Chief Technology Officer James Barrese also addressed the crowd on Day Three and announced that two new PayPal extensions – “order ahead” and “in-aisle selling” – would immediately be available on Magento Connect.

Closing out the morning session was “Freakanomics” co-author Steven Levitt, who captivated the audience with his anecdotes and stories. His most poignant messages were that people don’t spend enough time thinking about ideas, and that we often overlook even the most obvious ones. Further, he exclaimed that we can make up for the low quantity of ideas by the high quality of ideas. Even one or two breakthrough ideas per year from each of us can help bring about great change, he said.

For more detailed write-ups and recaps of the Magento conference, be sure to check out the Imagine website and stay tuned for more photos and videos from the event.

Think technology and design don’t mix?  Or that performance is all back-end? Well, think again.

This morning’s technology breakout session with Brandon Falkowski, Founder of Gravity Department, proved that getting the most from technology means marrying it with great design and thoughtful content.

Brandon’s presentation, “Mobile First: Responsive Web Design & eCommerce”, not only disproved some long-standing assumptions about how the front-end affects performance, but also provided an approach to effective responsive design and practical tips for optimizing your site’s front-end.  Here’s just a few of Brandon’s pearls of wisdom:

14 Ways to Improve Front-end Speed

1. Reduce http requests
2. Use DNS pre-fetching
3. Use cookie-less domains for static assets
4. Use two domains for static assets
5. Put JS at the bottom
6. Use asynchronous JS loading
7. Use one CSS file
8. Link CSS from the site domain
9. Use a CDN
10. Minify all CSS and JS
11. Use gzip compression
12. Optimize images – remember format is important!
13. Use caching and far-future expires headers
14. Use conditional loading

Make sure to check out Brandon’s complete deck for a whole bucket full of Brandon’s pearls of wisdom (all decks will be posted after the conference).

Thanks Brandon!

See y’all at the closing session at 2:30!

If you’ve been thinking about growing your business internationally, then the last session of the Business Solutions track today was the place to be. Here’s a recap of some of the key takeaways from the “Passport to Global Growth” session of day 3 at Imagine.

There’s big opportunity for growth in cross border trade.  Cross border trade is expected to account for 20% of ecommerce by 2017. Currently, while US and Europe growth rate is approximately 10%, Latin America, APAC and the rest of the world are growing at rates around 20%. Expanding into these new markets can help your business grow.

Where there is opportunity, there are also hurdles to overcome when doing cross border trade. One of the most important things is getting the shipping fee right. There are hidden carrier fees that may actually be more than the cost of the item that was shipped. Getting the correct “landed cost” is essential so that you set expectations for the customer on how much the item will actually cost.

In this session, a case study of QVC Italia was discussed. There were challenges with complex business features, integration with multiple servers and Italian-specific requirements as they prepared the site in Italy. However, using Magento Enterprise Edition extensibility and the extension market, QVC.it was launched in only 3 months. This is an incredibly fast timeframe, as international sites usually take much longer to build and deploy.

One of the best ways to get started with cross border trade is to use marketplaces to validate whether or not a new market is right for your business. eBay and Amazon marketplaces have a prominent presence in many countries. You can focus on being a retailer in a specific country without all the hassle of dealing with logistics as the marketplaces take care of this for you.

In the image below, here are some tips to consider as you think about cross border trade.

During today’s afternoon keynote sessions at Imagine, Magento CTO Matthew Mengerink announced the three finalists for Magento’s 2012 Most Innovative Enterprise Site award.   All Magento Gold and Silver Solution Partners were invited to submit entries on behalf of clients whose sites went live during 2012. The finalists were chosen from a wide range of submissions, representing the best examples of “The Art of Commerce” in action. The submissions were evaluated by a cross-functional team of Magento experts, and judging criteria included design, user experience, integrations, customizations, and achievement of specific business goals.

The three finalists are:

1) Delicious Karma

2) Erno Laszlo

3) Heath Ceramics

Learn more about the Most Innovative Enterprise site award and our three prestigious finalists.