LOS ANGELES-NAIOP's I.con: The Industrial Conference is just around the corner. The event offers the most up-to-date trends and information presented by some of the most notable names in industrial real estate.

I.con takes place on June 5 and 6 at the Omni Los Angeles. To preview the event, GlobeSt.com has reached out to some of the key speakers to discuss what they will present.

Today, we talk with Curtis Spencer, president of IMS Worldwide, who will be discussing “The Expansion of E-Commerce and its Effect on Industrial Real Estate” at I.con.

GlobeSt.com: Why this topic?

Curtis Spencer: First of all, e-commerce is probably the single largest trend that industrial real estate should be paying attention to and it started four or five years ago and will last for the next 10 to 15 years. It's huge.

GlobeSt.com: What is e-commerce doing for the sector?

C.S.: What it did over the last five years is it absorbed all of the big box development that was still overhanging the market. (A real estate publication) noted in its report last month that e-commerce or multichannel absorbed 1/3 of the 2012 absorption.

I just attended the National Retail Federation Logistics Summit and spoke there. One half of the ten sessions in the two days were on e-commerce and multichannel. It is literally becoming the largest trend that we're watching right now, and the reason is the consumer wants to buy with convenience and they want it now and they want free shipping.

So, brick and mortar will still remain 70% to 80% of all sales. We won't lose brick and mortar. But it will become much more flexible and creative in how they approach the sale. Today a customer goes into Nordstrom's and can't find his size. And without missing a beat, the sales attendant pulls out an iPad and goes online and finds the product and says, “No problem. We will deliver tomorrow.” They can make the sale in the brick and mortar using their e-commerce platform.

Amazon will add another 50 million square feet in the next four years. That includes what's in planning today. The next tier of e-commerce is already building separate size fulfillment. Walmart is increasing separate locations for fulfillment, and I can imagine Target's not too far behind.

In summation, this session is great because you'll get an overview from me, you'll get an actual user in a half-million square feet talking about how they need their building positioned, what are the extra line items in the design build they'll need. And you'll hear the largest equipment manufacturer talking about internal structure requirements. We'll also get to see a video of the inside of one of these fulfillment centers. It's very rare to get to see that.

GlobeSt.com recently reported on e-commerce's boost to the industrial sector.