A record attendance of 500 men and women showed up to hear from industry experts and leaders in the field of eCommerce in Borough Park last Wednesday night.
Held in The Palace, a spacious and elegant venue on McDonald Avenue in Brooklyn, and hosted by Crown Heights Young Entrepreneurs (CHYE), Employment Parnassah Initiative (EPI), and The Jewish Entrepreneur (TJE), the event, “Finding Success in eCommerce” was packed with participants from Crown Heights, Borough Park, and elsewhere.
The event began with eCommerce seminars at 5:30pm followed by informal schmoozing and networking over a gourmet kosher buffet.
At 7:30, Motty Gross, CEO of AJ Madison, delivered the keynote address entitled “How to Transform Your Business into an eCommerce Powerhouse.”
Keynote
After the keynote, the CHYE hosted its first-ever panel discussion. Moderated by Ami Magazine business columnist, Nesanel Gantz, the panel featured four eCommerce superstars: Motty Gross, Chaim Piekarski, the founder of C+A Global, Marc Bodner of L R Distributors, and Jeremy Greenberg of Sellercloud.
During the lively discussion, panelists handled questions submitted by attendees about a variety of topics related to eCommerce, such as how to launch an eCommerce business, how to manage inventory, and and how to navigate thorny issues that come up when running a family business.
Q and A Panel
The panel discussion was followed by break-away round-table discussions and Q&As. Tables were set up around the room, each one featuring a different industry leader who answered questions related to a specific area of expertise, such as eCommercec and taxes, building your own brand, transitioning your traditional business to eCommerce, mastering eBay, Amazon compliance issues, the art of buying, and many more.
Rabbi Yehoshua Werde, co-host of the event, explained: “We wanted to reach both the beginners just getting into eCommerce as well as people that have spent more time in the field who feel they have more to learn.”
Shaya Katz from Crown Heights has never worked in eCommerce, but he saw this event as an opportunity to learn more about it.
“I came here to educate myself and see what kind of opportunities there are for me in eCommerce,” he said. “Tonight I realized that many of my friends are in [eCommerce] and I learned a lot about the industry.”
One sponsor of the night was PCS Wireless. PCS representative, Alexandra Amrami said: “We were happy to help CHYE organize this event. It was inspiring to see how many people were involved in setting it up, bringing communities together, and making sure it would be a success. There is so much valuable information concentrated in this room and you get extreme access to people that you don’t have in a regular scenario. I hope everyone who came out tonight took advantage.”
“The event was fantastic!” declared Yossi K, an Amazon seller from Crown Heights. “Even more than the speeches and the panel, the most valuable part about it was the networking. Meeting other people and seeing how we can help one another was really great.”
There’s no doubt this event was the beginning of many new professional careers and business relationships in the frum community.
Below are videos from two of the event workshops:
HIRING AND KEEPING GOOD EMPLOYEES
NAVIGATING CHINA
Like a Boss!! rock on buddy!!
A lot of familiar faces!! My son just went on Shlichus and he went around to different members of Anash (some of whom I see in the pictures) who were so generous and opened their hearts and wallets to partner with him startup his Chabad house, we need more entrepreneurs to go in to business same as it was with yissachar and zevulun.
Hoping to see more Lubavitcher yungerleit make some serious money so they will be able to double their efforts in donating to Shluchim!!
Super impressive!
go Yehoshua!! you are the best uncle ever!!!!!!