YORK is to host its first ever dedicated e-commerce conference in a bid to unite online traders in the North of England.

The Commerce Exchange conference, which is being held on April 8 at the Priory Street Centre, is the brainchild of businessman Ryan Atkins, co-founder and director of York creative digital agency The Distance.

The Exchange was launched in November as a networking group to support businesses in the e-commerce industry.

This month will see its first ever conference, with the event being opened up to businesses across the North of England.

Mr Atkins said: "There's a lot of very successful e-commerce companies in the North. The problem is we don't really talk to each other.

"In York alone we've got Gear4Music, the second largest online music retailer in Europe, and Pavers the UK's largest shoe retailer.

"There's so many massive retailers and solution providers but a lot of us don't know each other exists.

"We don't share success stories, and where we went wrong. I wanted to do something to bring everyone together to advise, and inform, to share what we have and learn from each other's success."

The conference features a line-up of six speakers, with Richard Hatfield announced as the headline name.

Former chief operating officer of York-based fashion retailer Coggles, Mr Hatfield has recently been appointed as managing director of Grazia Shop, the new e-commerce offering from Grazia Magazine.

Other speakers include Lynne Wright, marketing and operations manager at AWA Digital; Kunle Campbell, eCommerce growth consultant at 2x Media; Chris Raven, CRM consultant for Camden Market; Ti Osnat, senior pre-sales consultant at Brightpearl; and Fabrice Michel, search account manager at Blueclaw.

Mr Atkins said: "Our speakers are all case study led. They are speaking from experience, and can give insight into their own ventures and careers.

"This approach has worked well so far with our regular Commerce Exchange events. We've had four now, and we've had a consistently good turn out.

"The events have been really well attended and the feedback has been good.

"Following the conference we hoping to build on to the next stage for the Commerce Exchange. We want to develop a proper online community so we can talk to each other between events. Digitalising what we do is the next step for us."