Bermuda's second electronic commerce conference, e-Commerce Conference Bermuda 2000, kicked off yesterday with under 200 delegates attending the sell-out event.

The two-day conference has become a run-away success and taken in nearly $160,000 in ticket sales and last week had 241 booked seats.

"We are excited at the level of discourse that will be taking place over the next few days between our featured speakers and both the international and Bermudian attendees,'' said Raymond Medeiros, chairman of the Bermuda International Business Association which has helped organise the event.

"This conference will bring together the world's foremost thinkers on e-commerce and will highlight the value that an offshore strategy can bring to American e-commerce companies.'' The big attraction for the day was undoubtable Patricia Seybold, the best selling author who spoke on the importance of the customer in e-business.

Ms Seybold is one of the most highly respected of the American e-business gurus and is the author of Amazon.com's number one e-business bestseller, Customers.com.

She said she was delighted to be in Bermuda and spoke on how customers and the value of a customer base for a company was increasingly the marker which companies are valued for. For a full report see tomorrow's The Royal Gazette .

Over a quarter of those attending -- 27 percent -- were first time visitors coming from abroad specifically to attend eCC.

The event was launched a year ago and was immediately hailed a success by those attending the event last year.

This year the two days, from September 18 to 20, have attracted more attention with two top billing names on the speaker's list -- Ms Seybold and Nick Jones.

The focus of the conference, held at the Hamilton Princess, will be bringing business to Bermuda and business to business transactions.

This year's event is called Real World Business Concerns, and sets out to be a customer-driven event.

The conference committee has enlisted the help of BIBA as a sponsor along with the Bermuda Chamber of Commerce and Logic Communications.

The event has grown from last year, when 168 local and overseas delegates attended the first eCC.

And the committee in the coming years wants to see the size of the event double from the inaugural year.

The issue of doing business over the Internet was addressed by Ms Seybold, the CEO of the Boston-based Patricia Seybold Group.

Mr. Jones is the other name in lights at the eCC. He is a senior analyst at Internet commerce research company Jupiter Communications. He is based in London and specialises in covering all aspects of e-commerce and the Internet relating to Europe. He is the former editor of Internet business newsletter New Media Finance and New Media Age and spoke yesterday morning.

Other speakers include Abbott Smith, vice president of business development for Compaq NonStop e-Business Solutions Division, who will speak first thing this morning and Christof Ehrhat, vice president corporate communications, product manager and event marketing of BOL International, the Internet media and entertainment shop of the media giant Bertlesmann, who will be on this afternoon.

For more information about eCC Bermuda 2000, go to www.eccbermuda.com.

Patricia Seybold was one of yesterday's keynote speakers at the eCC conference, being held at the Hamilton Princess Hotel.

BUSINESS BUC