It's that time of the year again — when we ask you to complete our survey of Australian online retail professionals.

What do we want? A few minutes of your time spent completing this survey. It asks a few simple questions about how you're approaching the challenges that face Australian online retail professionals. All information is kept confidential.

What do you get? The warm fuzzy feeling that comes from advancing the state of knowledge. Plus you go into the draw to win two free tickets to the Online Retail Expo & Exhibition. Plus you can have the final anonymous survey results at the end of the research process.

What happens next? I use the survey results to create research reports about the state of Australian online retailer. (You may have seen my earlier Australian survey-based reports covering everything from the business performance of online and multichannel businesses to their use of technology to their approach to marketing, merchandising and customer service.) Then I present the research at Online Retail Expo & Exhibition. And after we publish the research to our subscribers, we release the raw, anonymous survey results to anyone who helped make this all possible by partaking in the survey.

What if want to be involved even more deeply? Beyond the survey, I will interview a range of Australian online retail professionals about 2012, and how it's different to what they may have expected in 2011. We'll discuss topics ranging from business strategy to merchandising to use of the technology. The information gathered may end up in reports, and participants receive free copies. If you own or are employed in a significant, established online retail business and have a story to tell, why not email me so we can determine whether or not we should have a discussion for this research.