Online

Click to Talk

Faye Brookman — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:22:41 +0000

SaaS provides personalized shopper assistance online

T hanks to the Internet, consumers can tackle many retail issues themselves, from researching products prior to purchase to digitally “trying on” cosmetics. Now some of the most nagging tasks associated with online shopping can be addressed, thanks to a new software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform.

“People can get more done quickly on the Internet, but what it has lacked is a personal way to shop,” says Yuval Moed, co-founder and CEO of HBR Labs, the company behind VeriShow. “You can buy a book online for less than going to Barnes & Noble, but people still go for the experience and interaction.”

Moed says VeriShow “mimics” the positive aspects of in-store shopping, and believes consumers are more comfortable spending more if they feel there is a human element to shopping online.

“Internet retailers and their customers expect top-notch live help and real-time online sales and support,” he says. “We’ve already seen tremendous interest in the VeriShow solution built on the LivePerson platform.”

Facebook integration
VeriShow has been used for content-sharing and video conferencing and is now blossoming in the retail universe. To further increase accessibility, a new live support feature is available to add to retailers’ or manufacturers’ Facebook pages. Once a retailer partners with VeriShow, the Facebook application is added to its Facebook page and a Live Help button is displayed for their Facebook customers. Clicking the button lets customers chat and view content with no download or installation required.

“We provide the company with the ways to add the call button to their site or page,” Moed says. “When the customers click it, the platform will instantaneously launch on the agent side and the customer can start the communication immediately.” What makes Facebook so attractive, he adds, is that social networking is already an interactive platform — the consumer is engaged and interested in immediate knowledge and information.

“Facebook is another communication avenue and it’s effective,” says Moed. “Companies can use this to encourage customers to come to the Facebook page for support, thereby giving your Facebook interactions a business meaning.”

Consumers have become used to seeing web ads, Moed says, but “add a live help button to your banner or text ad and potential customers will get to a live sales rep quickly and easily — which helps to move the sales process along toward completion. We have found that adding this technology to a banner or text ad increases sales dramatically.”

Leveraging the sales ticket
Showing and telling is extremely important for generating sales, especially for expensive (jewelry) or more complicated (appliances) merchandise. Other applications with a retailing reach include detailing new pharmaceuticals to doctors or pharmacists, or having a home center associate “share” designs for a new kitchen without the client coming to the store.

“It is like OnStar in your car but for understanding a product,” says industry consultant Allan Mottus, who thinks any avenue merchants can use to educate shoppers will separate them from the competition. Mottus adds that live support and real-time collaboration are two of the brightest areas in the web business as companies look to maximize online opportunities.

VeriShow is easy for users because no downloads or installations are required. And to help companies looking to go global, VeriShow features an instant chat translator.

Playing with Friends

Karen M. Kroll — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 05:22:41 +0000

Sociable Labs boosts Active.com’s interactivity

T he equivalent of one in every three U.S. citizens has completed a transaction on Active.com, an online destination at which people can sign up to do everything from run a 5K race, enroll in a pottery class or reserve a night at a campground. Clearly, the site gets a great deal of use.

Even so, management wanted to “engage participants even more” and boost the number that signed up for different events, says Kristin Carroll, vice president of media and marketing with Active Network, the parent company for Active.com. “As a merchandiser of activities, we focus on how to get more people to be more active.”

The more visitors to Active.com who sign up for an event, the more revenue that flows to the company’s customers. These range from local groups — say, the running club that hosts a neighborhood fun run — to its largest event, the 85,000-participant Sydney (Australia) City2Surf 14-kilometer race.

Active Network provides technology, including online registration, transaction processing and marketing services, to these customers. The result is what the company calls “the world’s largest network of events, activities, communities and participants.” In 2010, Active Network handled 70 million transactions. At any point in time, about 200,000 events are live on the site, and Active.com averages three million unique visitors monthly.

Sharing purchases
To more fully engage its customers, Active.com began working with Sociable Labs, a company that develops software to integrate social media applications into its customers’ websites. Founder and CEO Nisan Gabbay recognized that socializing and commerce are a natural fit, “given how people are influenced by their friends offline.”

While Facebook and other social media sites clearly play into companies’ e-commerce plans, they’re not the entire picture. “The key to success is helping consumers connect with their friends on e-commerce sites,” Gabbay says. “That’s what our solution does. It helps consumers share what they bought with their friends.”

E-commerce systems, of course, have a great deal of information on their customers’ transactions, “but it’s largely anonymous from a social media point of view,” Gabbay says. That is, Expedia may know who is staying at a particular hotel, but it has no way of knowing whether any of the guests know each other.

At the same time, social media sites know which users are friends — but the sites don’t necessarily know what they’re buying.

Sociable Labs merges data from social media sites with that from online transaction systems. The company is currently targeting the 500 largest online retailers; at the same time, it’s focusing on the sectors in which consumers appear particularly influenced by peers’ opinions, such as health and vitamins, travel and sporting goods.

Recreational events also fit into this category. “Participating in activities like running a 5K or heading to a campground is inherently social,” Carroll says. “We know that people want to participate with other people.” In fact, a recent Active.com study found that two-thirds of respondents ranked being with friends and family as one of the most important reasons to participate in a sporting event. Active.com wanted to leverage that mindset.

In its experience, Active.com has found that “Women often invite friends to participate,” Carroll says. In contrast, men tend to challenge each other, she says.

The company has integrated Facebook “like” buttons into its website. “What we really wanted to do was take the inspiration and motivation that people get through each other and apply it to the shopping part,” Carroll says.

RSVP and Purchase Share, Sociable Labs applications located on Active.com’s event detail and purchase confirmation pages, allow users to share their plans to attend events. So far, users don’t appear concerned about sharing this information with their social network, Gabbay says. In fact, according to studies that Sociable Labs has done, about 58 percent of people authorize the use of their e-commerce data on social media.

The ROI
Online merchants that implement Sociable Labs’ applications typically see visitor conversion rates jump 50 to as much as 300 percent, Gabbay says. The level varies by product type: Some items, like electronics, can be heavily influenced by others’ opinions; others, like printer paper, often are more a function of price.

At Active.com, visitors referred by a Sociable Labs application convert to customers at a rate that’s 300 percent higher than the rate achieved when an event is posted to a Facebook fan page, the company says. The conversion rate also is 67 percent higher than that achieved through e-mail marketing, Active.com reports.

“It’s the power of a direct personal invite,” Carroll says.

The Push to Paperless

Karen M. Kroll — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 05:22:41 +0000

Online receipt storage provides easy access to purchasing info

Holding onto paper receipts, warranties or return policies can be a never-ending chore for consumers. Retailers, too, find it difficult and time-consuming to access the receipt information residing within their sales and financial systems. “Their systems were built to sell products and track purchases, not serve the data back in a form for analysis,” says David Crossett, CEO of Ready Receipts.

A new solution from Ready Receipts provides an online location where electronic versions of receipts can be stored and retrieved digitally. The solutions “act as a bridge” between retailers and consumers, Crossett says. The company’s Receipt Assurance provides consumers online access to their receipts, and also will be able to stream purchase information to personal finance tools.

Online retailers working with the Magento shopping cart software will be able to offer this service just by having customers download a plug-in, Crossett says. (Ready Receipts is steadily adding the ability to work with other brands of shopping cart software.) The plug-in takes a copy of the receipt and transmits it to Ready Receipts’ secure servers using the ARTS Digital Receipt XML standard. Ready Receipts is PCI-compliant and doesn’t transmit or store credit card data.

When retailers offer Ready Receipts, the purchase confirmation online shoppers receive includes an option to transmit the receipt to their Ready Receipts account. Even if the shopper hasn’t signed up for the service, the system saves the receipt in the event the shopper does so at a later date. Receipts are matched using e-mail addresses.

Reporting trends
Bricks-and-mortar retailers can also work with Ready Receipts, although the process is a bit more involved. While the merchants can offer their customers Receipt Assurance for free, merchants will need to pay to gain access to the receipt data. The cost varies based on the retailer’s revenue and the analytical tools they choose. Most implementations are completed in a matter of days.

Ready Receipts’ analytical tools remain in development, although the system currently can provide retailers with receipt data in raw format. Crossett envisions a portal through which retailers can run various product or brand reports that provide shopping trends over time. For instance, if a grocery store manager wants to know the impact of sending the store’s customers a coupon for $2 off Tide detergent, the analytical solution will allow the retailer to see not only the amount by which sales increased, but the percentage of the increase that came from customers who already purchased Tide on a regular basis -- that is, the extent to which the promotion cannibalized existing sales.

Also in the works is a more sophisticated analysis tool that will allow retailers to develop promotions for particular customer groups. For instance, they might want to offer a coupon offering a 10 percent discount to the bottom fifth of their customer base, while simultaneously providing their top quintile of customers a larger discount.

“It boils down to the retailer giving different deals to different customers, like the airlines. Everyone pays a different price,” Crossett says. “Retailers should be able to do that.”

Updating a Classic

Fiona Soltes — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 05:22:41 +0000

London Fog weathers first foray into e-commerce

Before the first cold snap of 2011, iconic outerwear brand London Fog aimed to sell merchandise from a domain previously unheard of: its own website. Though the company had an online presence — and regular traffic — consumers had to go elsewhere to buy.

Richard Kay, president of London Fog outwear licensee Herman Kay, says he’s been “pleasantly surprised” with the e-commerce results. “The demand has exceeded expectation in the space,” he says. The success in this story, however, has as much to do with a strategic partnership as it does popular coats and a solid reputation.

‘An agile partner’
New York-based London Fog turned to ShopVisible for its e-commerce solution, as well as help in customer service, order fulfillment, staffing and other areas.

“It’s something we see happening increasingly,” says Sean Cook, CEO of e-commerce platform provider ShopVisible. “There’s a big trend in the market right now. You’ve got brands that ... have not traditionally sold directly to consumers. ...[And] consumers are now looking directly to brands and manufacturers to build and develop a relationship, and have the ability to purchase directly from those brands.”

Companies like London Fog represent a growing portion of ShopVisible’s business. Many companies have already built some sort of e-commerce technology in-house. It’s too demanding to innovate and keep up in that model, Cook says, “so they look to us to be an agile partner that can help with re-platforming and for ongoing innovation.”

In some ways, London Fog has a distinct advantage, Cook says. “They don’t have all this embedded technology that they have to worry about unplugging and unraveling. [They could] just jump right in and use best-in-class, innovative technology.”

Good thing, too; the companies came together in February and kicked off the project in March. The original timeline — to launch LondonFog.com ahead of coat season — was aggressive, Cook says, but things went so smoothly that the deadline was beaten by weeks.

New divisions, new channels
Cook realizes that moving e-commerce can change an organization’s culture. In the case of London Fog, the effort required adding an entirely new business unit.

“Previously they didn’t have the people in-house that were going to do this,” he says. “But they were excited not only about the great opportunity for revenue, but also that it ... gives them a new frontier for marketing and customer interaction.”

Overall, Kay says, it’s been a great partnership — and a great next step in the company’s efforts to reach new markets. And it wasn’t a moment too soon.

“You’ve got a customer who’s engaging with companies in numerous ways,” Cook says. “They’ll hear an ad on the radio and, at the next traffic light, they check out the mobile site on their phone and maybe forward the promotion to their e-mail address. Then they browse the product catalog on their tablet device as they’re sitting waiting for a table, and go back to their computer and transact.

“It’s really critical that retailers and brands have the ability to see and attribute the different channels’ activities to a particular customer and to that revenue,” he says. “What you need to do as a company is to understand that all of these touchpoints complement one another and contribute to an entire customer experience and to the transaction that’s going to happen, whether it’s at a bricks-and-mortar store or online... If you can see and map the activities across them all, then that is power.”

‘Bring it on’
In the midst of the London Fog project, ShopVisible received word that client Vapour Organic Beauty was chosen to be featured on NBC’s “Today” show. It was a great opportunity for the burgeoning Taos, N.M., brand of next-generation mineral cosmetics. But it came with a warning: The sites of much larger companies had been overwhelmed or crashed after similar segments had aired. It wasn’t just that they should expect several thousand orders, “Today” representatives said, but that the site could receive a couple million hits.

Vapour captured 1.8 million visitors when the program aired in April 2011, compared to a daily average of less than 1,000. The daily order volume skyrocketed 20,000 percent, and the company saw a 400 percent increase in revenue over the same quarter the previous year.

But the site didn’t crash. Working with ShopVisible, Vapour was able to replicate VapourBeauty.com on numerous offsite servers.

“I usually have the attitude of, ‘Bring it on and we’ll figure it out,’” says Vapour co-founder and CEO Krysia Boinis. “I’m naïve in some situations, and I certainly was with this. I don’t understand all the technicalities of the backend and the servers and the way information travels.

“We were concerned because we knew that our reputation would be incredibly tarnished if we couldn’t pull it off,” she says. “But because ShopVisible did pull it off ... we looked like the rock stars, our website looked better than the big boys’ and our fulfillment was better than they expected.”

ShopVisible strives to “set realistic expectations with our clients,” Cook says. “We don’t ever want there to be a feeling that we’ve under-delivered. It is ultimately a partnership, and together we determine if there are things we should reasonably put into phase two, either because the client is not ready or it’s something that will take more work on our side,” he says. “It’s that kind of interaction that makes these things possible.”

Seeing is Buying

Craig Guillot — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 05:22:41 +0000

Customer-centric e-commerce solutions deliver life-like shopping

Retailers seeking ways to strengthen their web presence are incorporating more rich shopping experiences and social media into their sites. In 2011, Fluid partnered with software R&D provider GlobalLogic to develop and implement solutions like Fluid Experience, which allows shoppers to change colors on products, rotate them, zoom and see multiple views. Fluid says such capabilities can increase conversions by up to 40 percent.

JELD-WEN, one of the largest door and window manufacturers in the world, sells its products through a number of retailers, including Home Depot and Lowe’s. While it doesn’t directly participate in e-commerce, it plays a large part in developing the platform its retail partners use.

Rob Jellesed, director of Internet sales and marketing for JELD-WEN, says the company’s previous website was “a manufacturing-driven site written by our operations and plant personnel. It was too technical and distant from what our consumers wanted. We wanted to be able to speak directly to them.”

With Fluid’s help, JELD-WEN built a new site that presents doors and windows in all the configurations — up to 15,000 — that can be made with each product. It spent six months conducting interviews and working with focus groups to fully understand the door and window sales process. In many cases, JELD-WEN found that the selection isn’t made just by consumers – designers, architects and general contractors can play roles, as well.

“We wanted all of the decision makers to be able to visualize the design, change the color of the sash, frame material and other things,” Jellesed says.

Through Fluid Configure, JELD-WEN can simplify the shopping experience for its complex product offerings by allowing for direct customization on the website.

“No other door or window manufacturer has come close to offering the kind of service we can,” Jellesed says. “In real time, you can have different people build the doors or windows, change the style, the color, the finish and share it with the group.”

Ease of use
Fashion retailer Isaay.com started working with Fluid a year ago and recently launched a new website that brings the latest trends and products straight to consumers’ laptops and phones. Vice president of operations Jennifer Conforti says six different views are available for each product on Isaay.com. Shoppers can also select and change colors of shoes, clothes and accessories.

The new site even has features specifically requested by customers, such as “My Loves,” a virtual closet wish list, and “The Trend,” a video blog. The expanded trend area also features look books, outfit pages and a designer boutique.

“Because [customers] don’t have the opportunity to touch and feel the product, we wanted to give them as much visual information as possible,” Conforti says. “Fluid Experience gave us the opportunity to do that.”

As a result, Isaay.com has seen dramatic increases in traffic and conversions, but the biggest advantage was the ease of use on the back end.
“It’s the easiest visual software I have ever worked with,” says Isaay art director Holly Machacek. “You just upload the files to the ftp server, do a couple of clicks and it automatically maps the images to the product based on the names.”

Unique outsourcing
Fluid’s products are the result of a unique style of outsourcing that allowed the company to build its staff with limited resources. CEO Kent Deverell says working with GlobalLogic to secure offshore resources allows it to offer cost-effective solutions; Fluid employs virtual team members in Argentina that connect via phone, chat and the cloud. Deverell says Fluid now has 10 full-time staff members working in the Argentine office.

“We wanted them to be a virtual part of our office here in San Francisco,” Deverell says. “They are a real part of our team and we view them as an extension of who we are. It has really helped us build out our product suite and do a lot more for our customers.”

GlobalLogic CMO Mike DeVries says that, for a company based on the West Coast, Argentina is a “near shore” location. With English-speaking resources that operate near the same time zone, Devries says it offers a “seamless” experience that allows Fluid to create and customize those products for retailers.

The social connection
Fluid Social brings integrated chat, Facebook functionality, SMS, e-mail and social network sharing to e-commerce sites, allowing users to easily share products. On average, Fluid Social users have increased time onsite by 147 percent and product views by 59 percent. Deverell says it can help increase brand awareness, drive higher conversions, increase engagement and boost traffic.

“You can’t just put up a website anymore and sell a few products,” he says. “You need people to be able to engage your experience and interact with your products in social media, anytime, anywhere.”

As competition between and among online retailers grows stiffer, e-commerce sites must constantly reinvent themselves and stay ahead of the technology curve, DeVries says. Social media is playing a major role here: When consumers talk about products online, they share those comments with their entire social network. Boosting a website’s social media presence and capabilities gives consumers the ability to market a company’s products for them.

“People want to talk about what they are buying and they want to interact together around that,” DeVries says. “The winners are going to be those retailers that take that whole experience and replicate it online.”

Couch Commerce

Susan Reda — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 05:30:41 +0000

Here in Redaville, we’re pretty traditional when it comes to celebrating Thanksgiving. The turkey will be in the oven shortly after the Macy’s parade kicks off on Broadway; sweet potatoes, sausage stuffing, string beans and the rest of the fixings will be served along with pumpkin, pecan and apple pies. The house will be chock-full of family, and football play-by-play will be the soundtrack of the day.

And, if retail experts’ predictions are on the mark, a few of us will waddle to the sofa after the big meal with our smartphone or tablet in hand to get an early jump on holiday shopping. PayPal executives are predicting that the first mobile shopping spike of the holiday season will take place right after Thanksgiving dinner, starting a new holiday tradition dubbed “couch commerce.”

The findings of a recent mobile shopping survey reveal that they may be on to something. Almost half of respondents (46 percent) said they plan to make holiday purchases with a mobile device this year. More than 60 percent of mobile buyers will make purchases at home — and more than one-third (35 percent) of those mobile purchases are spontaneous.

Google executives expect 44 percent of total searches for last-minute gifts and store locator terms to come from mobile devices, and they found that one-third of mobile shoppers plan to start their shopping before Thanksgiving.

While there’s no telling if shoppers will be itching to press the buy button in their tryptophan-induced state, it’s fair to assume that they’ll be doing a bit of browsing and price comparison — and that many smartphone users will log in to Facebook to send their friends good wishes. There’s no predicting how they might react if retailers they “like” are savvy enough to serve up some blockbuster deals.

STORES’ Mobile Report (page 20) makes it clear that shoppers are comfortable using mobile devices to interact with retailers. Actual buying trails m-commerce interaction, but it’s clear that shoppers want a dialogue with retailers. They expect merchants to have a mobile website and they expect information about promotions, store locations and the like to literally be at their fingertips.

Customers are in charge; they’re going to shop when it’s convenient for them, and you can bet they’re going to search for the best deal. The challenge for retailers is one they’ve faced for several years now: Ensuring that however shoppers choose to interact with your brand — in your store, on your website or from their couch via a mobile device — you recognize them and deliver an experience worthy of your brand and their business.

Go Fetch!

D. Gail Fleenor — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 05:22:41 +0000

Milo helps shoppers find local products

Small local retailers have been at a disadvantage since the Internet changed the way the world shops. The little store around the corner could not compete online with national retailers, but eBay’s recent acquisition of local search engine Milo may level the playing field in the near future.

David Ramadge, head of small and medium business development at eBay and vice president of sales and marketing for Milo.com, says the parent company wants to put every product on every shelf in every store on the Internet. “Small and medium-sized businesses can benefit most from Milo because they don’t always have the money to invest in complicated technical solutions,” he says.

The first step in connecting independent retailers with shoppers is a free beta plug-in called Fetch. After a one-time, three-step installation process, retailers can upload their local inventory to be shared online with real-time availability. Fetch software automatically updates inventory through the POS.

San Francisco-based Honeys & Heroes, a trendy baby and children’s boutique, has been using Milo/Fetch since March. Honeys & Heroes “didn’t have to touch it — it runs itself,” says Alanna Klein, who opened the store after stints as a children’s buyer for Macy’s, Old Navy and Gap.

There was an extra challenge for Fetch where Honeys & Heroes was concerned. “We create our own UPCs rather than use the ones bigger retailers use,” Klein says. With a tweak or two, Milo/Fetch was able to use these unique UPCs to upload and track the boutique’s inventory.

Millions of eyeballs
Shoppers can pull up Milo’s local search results on their mobile phones. Results also appear on eBay and several partner sites, including RedLaser, PriceGrabber and Yellowbook.com. All help drive traffic to retailer websites and bricks-and-mortar stores.

Milo also attempts to convince shoppers researching products on the Internet to make purchases in physical stores, Ramadge says.

There is no limitation on the type of retail, though Milo is not currently able to handle retailers who sell services or fresh produce.

A small electronics retailer in Kentucky joined forces with Milo and “appreciated the ease of set up,” Ramadge says. “Within 30 minutes of installing the system, he saw his products on Milo and eBay — he never dreamed he’d get that exposure.”

QuickBooks POS is the most-installed system among small and medium-sized sellers, Ramadge says, but testing of Milo with other POS systems is underway and the list of compatible systems “will keep increasing the rest of 2011.”

Integration of retailer products with the eBay website is currently managed through “Garden by eBay,” an area where users try out new eBay features. Access to retailer products through eBay’s general site will be rolled out in time for the holidays, Ramadge says.

The “big takeaway” for retailers, he says, is that Milo “is the first truly easy way for smaller merchants to get their inventory on the Internet and in front of millions of eyeballs.”

E-Commerce Elite

Susan Reda — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 05:23:41 +0000

The retailers that are defining the online channel

Consumers have their favorite online retailers — and so do e-commerce experts.

Knowing that they’re often reticent to speak publicly about such issues, STORES asked a few dozen e-commerce luminaries — retailers, vendors and analysts — to share, under the cloak of anonymity, the online retailers they believe are delivering the best user experience in 10 key areas of business.

After compiling their feedback, we’re delighted to present the 2011 E-Commerce Elite — retailers that rise above the competition to deliver excellence in various areas of customer engagement.

The methodology is far from scientific, but that was intentional: It’s been our experience, after years of reporting on this channel, that if you really want to know who’s winning, losing and making waves, the best way to find out is to chat with a few experts willing to share an honest point of view.

As any e-retailer will attest, having the tools to drive sales online is one thing; integration, implementation and execution are what truly separates the “elite” from the rest of the lot.

On-Site Search
bhphotovideo.com
Go ahead… search for that GPS HD Helmet Camera you’ve been thinking about. At bhphotovideo.com it’s no more than a few clicks away, thanks to simple, intuitive search and navigation that serves as the launch pad for a user experience that is immersive and relevant.

Manhattan-based B&H Photo and Video is an institution for selection and deals on cameras and electronics and a particular favorite of photo professionals. “We listen to our customers and implement changes based on what they say,” says Zisha Schnitzler, director of the web channel. Nowhere is that more apparent than on the website, where rich images, user reviews, real-time pricing and inventory availability are served up in a nanosecond.

B&H customers are assisted by robust search type-ahead, automatic spell correction and redirection capabilities. Customers are immediately shown all the relevant product attributes and content they require to make an informed purchase decision.

Leaving no stone unturned, there’s also a search feedback box at the bottom of the page that asks: “Did you find what you were looking for?” Shoppers can click “yes,” “no,” “chat now” or leave a comment.
Honorable Mention: ebags.com

Check-Out Process
Amazon.com
The beauty of the Amazon.com process can be boiled down to two components: simplicity and ease of use. The site has been around for more than 15 years and has never lost sight of the value of making it effortless for shoppers to make a purchase. As a result, Amazon’s conversion rates are best-in-class.

Shoppers key in payment data once and Amazon.com remembers. The payment system stores multiple addresses and payment options and allows shoppers to complete transactions in record time.

And then there’s 1-Click, the payment option that makes Super Moms super and allows those shopping while they work to be in, out and back on the job before the boss catches on.

The Amazon Prime delivery option that provides shoppers two-day free shipping on all orders for a $79 annual fee has spawned a cadre of devotees who refuse to shop elsewhere because Amazon has made it so convenient. Amazon recently upped the ante by allowing this select group instant access to the streaming of more than 5,000 movies and TV shows for no extra charge.
Honorable Mention: Gap.com

Multichannel Experience
BestBuy.com
The electronics giant leverages its biggest assets — stores and associates — to deliver a crosschannel shopping experience that blends the best attributes of the physical and digital realms.

Consumers are enamored with shopping online, but they also love to touch and see the items they’re about to buy. The concept of buy online, pick up in-store resonates with those who can’t wait (40 percent of online purchases are now picked up at Best Buy stores), and there’s a degree of comfort that comes with knowing that if it’s not what they expected, they can easily return it in the store.

Plans are in the works to expand the online assortment, adding SKUs not available in stores, and Best Buy capitalizes on being a multichannel retailer by offering a host of services (home installation, Geek Squad repairs) that generate higher margins. Best Buy executives say they’re committed to servicing customers where they want, when they want and leveraging the brand’s multichannel capabilities as a competitive advantage.
Honorable Mention: Moosejaw.com

Integration of Online Video
QVC.com
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how do you value an online video? For QVC.com the answer is through more sales from satisfied customers spending more time on its website: It attributes conversion rates of 15 to 20 percent to online videos and product reviews.

Having cut its teeth as a broadcaster, it was only natural for QVC to leverage video for online product presentations. What sets it apart is the sheer volume of items embedded with video.

QVC’s online videos are excerpts of the TV presentations, highlighting product demonstrations and pointing out key features. The beauty of the online video is the opportunity to watch an instructional clip over and over, learning the precise technique for applying that new eye pencil or printing photos from your digital camera. It’s considered the single most effective method of selling products online — coming as close as possible to replicating a one-to-one retail shopping experience online.
Honorable Mention: WilliamsSonoma.com

Presentation of Product Information
Crutchfield.com
When researching Crutchfield.com, phrases like “the standard for excellence” and “unparalleled customer service” pop up over and over again.

Crutchfield, the electronics retail business Bill Crutchfield founded 37 years ago from the basement of his mother’s house, raises the bar when it comes to delivering informative and immersive product information.

Click on any item and the data unfolds. The product overview is front and center, but not to be missed are tabs for hands-on research, features and specifications, accessories and reviews. Prepare to scroll down; there’s information there you never thought to ask.

Still not sure? Check out The Crutchfield Know Zone, where the learning continues —expert staff and technical support agents assist with choosing, installing and using gear.

With annual sales of roughly $250 million, Crutchfield is a relatively modest-sized player in its space, but it is the only merchant to win 11 consecutive Circle of Excellence platinum awards from Bizrate, a website that rates the customer service provided by online retailers.
Honorable Mention: burton.com
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Innovation
WetSeal.com
Some companies talk about customer centricity; at Wet Seal, merchants live it. Their reward: a highly devoted customer base that has become an adjunct design team for Wet Seal products, yielding incredible ROI in the form of higher average order sizes and conversion rates.

A combination of social media, user-generated merchandise content and online engagement has been the crux of Wet Seal’s ability to lift e-commerce revenues tenfold despite the sluggish economy.

Wet Seal began the process of melding online, mobile and social commerce in 2008 when it launched its Fashion Community on both the website and Facebook. Shortly thereafter, Wet Seal linked the Fashion Community to its stores, adding kiosks where shopper could scan an item and be presented with outfits generated by others.

In 2009, Wet Seal extended these capabilities to an app called iRunway, allowing customers access to a library of user-generated outfits and ratings via their iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad. Later that year, the retailer enabled a mobile-optimized website that made it easy and convenient for consumers to instantly shop Wet Seal products and find store locations.

Last fall marked the launch of a new Facebook game, Chic Boutique, which allows users to run a Wet Seal store, design their own outfits and share their creations with friends. Wet Seal also is pioneering the idea of teen tendering — allowing teens to shop online using their parents’ credit cards in a controlled fashion.
Honorable Mention: 1-800-FLOWERS.COM

Personalization
Netflix.com
E-tailers far and wide are quick to admit that executing website personalization is complicated, but it’s part of Netflix’s DNA. Nearly from the outset, Netflix has been gathering vast repositories of data from customers intended to fuel their recommendation engines. The more a shopper uses the website, the more Netflix is able to mix and match categories to improve on the personalized genres it offers.

Netflix recently debuted several new features intended to place even greater emphasis on movie discovery. These include the ability to set preferences across a variety of moods (dark, gritty, goofy), storylines (courtroom intrigue, mid-life crisis) or qualities (critically acclaimed, visually striking). Homepages reflect a member’s taste preference and recent activity, and customized browsing provides not only a selection of relevant movies/TV shows, but also a way to mix-and-match other categories to create new combinations.

Approximately 60 percent of Netflix users select movies based on recommendations tailored to their individual tastes; many say the personalized suggestions save time and lift their level of delight.
Honorable Mention: Dell.com

Lastmile/Fulfillment
Zappos.com
The WOW factor encompasses many things that are at the heart of Zappos’ success, including an unheard-of selection, 365-day free returns, 24/7 customer service and 110 percent price protection. Still, for most consumers, free overnight shipping tops the list. (Even though the website states that delivery will take 2-5 business days, Zappos regularly provides free “surprise” upgrades to overnight shipping).

Inside Zappos’ state-of-the-art pick, pack and ship facilities, systems have been designed to process an order in under an hour: Where else can someone place an order by 11 p.m. and find it on their doorstep the next morning?

Zappos doesn’t believe it’s competing with other e-retailers: It measures itself against the store experience and insists that offering the best service and selection — and delivering the goods to the consumer as quickly as possible — is the path to sustaining customer loyalty.

Truth be told, there are shoppers who say Zappos has made it easier to buy shoes online than to visit the local shoe store.
Honorable Mention: Staples.com

Mobile Site
eBay.com
No one is driving more sales via mobile phones than eBay. Considered the most aggressive retailer in the m-commerce space, eBay executives project that the company will double its mobile transaction volume to $4 billion this year.

Though still a tiny portion of eBay’s total revenue, executives say consumers are increasingly shopping via their iPhones, BlackBerrys and Android-powered smartphones. During eBay’s second-quarter conference call, president and CEO John Donahoe said that, if asked a year or 18 months ago what kind of company eBay is, he would’ve replied, “an e-commerce company… But [today] the mobile device is absolutely … blurring the boundary between online and offline.”

eBay offers seamless shopping and selling applications across a slate of device platforms. Consumers bought and sold more than $2 billion worth of merchandise via eBay’s mobile site last year. Much of the spending comes through PayPal Mobile, which is on track to handle $3 billion in payment volume in 2011 — a four-fold increase from 2010.
Honorable Mention: Target.com

Social Media
Charlotte Russe.com
Lots of brands are experimenting with social media; only a handful are getting it right. Sitting at the top is Charlotte Russe.com, whose campaign spans Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter and features promotions, online polls, fashion news and more.

Its desire to be part of the conversation began with a tool called ShopTogether. Initially used to help teens in their prom dress search, ShopTogether lets multiple users browse, chat and shop online via social media.

The success of that program quickly snowballed, leading Charlotte Russe to build a social media campaign focused on user-generated content and social engagement. Some of the leading-edge steps they’ve taken include using QR codes inside the stores to encourage sharing, and posting bold in-store signage inviting shoppers to get on the social media bandwagon.

One of the most notable aspects of the campaign is the retailer’s weekly trivia contest on Twitter, which compels consumers to visit the website. Another popular social engagement event: the ‘Be the Next Charlotte Russe Design Star’ — a t-shirt design contest in which the winner has his or her shirt produced and sold online.
Honorable Mention: VictoriasSecret.com

What’s happening in the world of global e-commerce? STORES reports on new data from Cisco that looks at global trends in online retailing and examines how retailers can capitalize on the potential of markets outside the U.S. Tap into this global insight by visiting “Next Stop: The World,” which appears exclusively at www.STORES.org.

Bidding Gone Bad

Susan Reda — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 05:22:41 +0000

A recent e-mail from my daughter Jill caught my eye. “Check this out … It’s pretty cool,” she wrote. Being a well-trained Mom, I investigated a website called Quibids.

In case you’ve not heard of the site, it’s an auction format: Basically, you buy “bids” and use them as tender to purchase products — mostly electronics, appliances and gift cards. I was skeptical, of course, but the Better Business Bureau symbol allayed my fears. To be honest, I was also finding it hard to ignore the “wins” being posted. A MacBook Air sold for under $30. Oakley sunglasses went for less than a dollar. Monster Cable Beats pro headphones sold for under $15.

Ever a student of retailing, it seemed I was obligated to buy some bids and give this a whirl. And, to be completely honest, I had my eye on the Dyson Animal Canister (it may seem like an odd item to covet, but I have three cats and this vacuum cleaner is reported to be “the best”). Priced at around $500, it’s certainly not at the top of the Reda family “must buy” list, but I figured that if I could bid my way to a fur-free home, it would be a win-win for all.

So I took the plunge and bought some bids — 100 for $60. That should have been my first clue, but I told myself I had to pay to play. I started bidding right away, hoping to score the Dyson in a matter of hours. Each bid raises the price by a penny and I quickly learned about the bid-o-matic option — which, best I could tell, was a really fast way to use up a whole bunch of bids.

Several hours in I realized that this was going to be more difficult than I’d imagined. Watching my bid count drop precipitously, I turned my attention to a less-popular item among my bidding competitors. In a matter of minutes I scored my first win, a Kalorik waffle maker. It typically sells for around $35, but I got it for 7 cents — plus 9.99 for shipping and handling. And there was a bonus: 25 extra bids added to my account.

With one win and some extra bids under my belt, I rallied; that Dyson was going to be mine. I bid with a vengeance, figuring it was just a matter of time before those “amateurs” would succumb to my personal quest to rid my home of cat fur.

I didn’t get the Dyson; somebody else did for just $27.55! Trying to make myself feel better, I shared with my son the economics major that I had “won” the waffle maker for just 7 cents. “Let me get this straight,” Nick said smugly, “You paid $70.06 for a $35 waffle maker? Good job, Mom.”

Trust me, I know why some members of the Animal Kingdom eat their young.

Next Stop: The World

Sandy Smith — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 05:22:41 +0000

Web-only article: Global trends in online retailing

The growth rate for e-commerce in markets like Mexico, Brazil, India and China is expected to far outpace that of the United States over the next four years. The combination of a struggling U.S. economy and maturing e-commerce market is forcing retailers to look elsewhere for the type of growth experienced domestically over the last decade.

“E-commerce is still very strong here, but it’s moderating and no longer [growing] in the 30-40 percent range,” says Joanne Bethlahmy, director of Internet business solutions for Cisco. “The rest of the world is taking off with e-commerce -- growth rates are still in the 25-40 percent range. Everyone is looking at these growth rates and wanting to participate; the question becomes ‘how?’”

There are two basic approaches. Some retailers have one universal site, enabling shoppers from around the world with automatic currency conversion and global shipping from domestic facilities. This works well enough for domestic-only retailers, but Bethlahmy believes it doesn’t fully capitalize on the market potential.

The other approach, appropriate for retailers that already have bricks-and-mortar stores in foreign countries, is to open country-specific websites with e-commerce operations abroad. “You can imagine [that] you’d rather buy from an American website and not have the product shipped from Japan,” Bethlahmy says. “You’d prefer to buy from someone local. It’s not shipped as far and you’re able to pay in a more comfortable manner.”

The global payoff
Some 20 percent of online shoppers purchase most from stores that have bricks-and-mortar outlets, so retailers that operate in foreign countries without a local e-commerce solution are missing out. “Some countries are even more multi-channel than the United States,” Bethlahmy says, citing Korea, with the highest penetration of online buyers in the world, followed closely by Japan.

The payoff can be significant, according to Cisco’s new report, “The Global E-Commerce Gold Rush: How Retailers Can Find Riches Overseas.” The study, which is the result of more than 30 interviews with top e-retailers and consultants, shows just how significant the results can be.

“About 70 percent of the growth is happening outside of the United States,” Bethlahmy says. “If you add in travel, global e-commerce is going to reach about $1.4 trillion in another four years.”
This global gold rush is not just about U.S. retailers expanding into burgeoning new territories. Foreign players are entering the United States, and are expanding beyond their own borders into some of these rapidly growing countries, as well.

Learn from those leading the way
Based on lessons learned from e-commerce pioneers, Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group created a list of eight universal principles for any company considering expanding into e-commerce around the world:

Base expansion plans on the facts. If a retailer already has bricks-and-mortar stores abroad, prioritize countries in which stores already are doing well. “The level of existing popularity is almost always the best indicator of your potential online success,” Bethlahmy says.

But that is not the only deciding factor. A country’s ability to support e-commerce is dependent upon the rates of broadband service available directly to homes or phones, the sophistication of delivery systems and online payment options. “Those are the three things that really need to be in place to do e-commerce,” Bethlahmy says. “Secondarily, retailers need to look at the relative ease or difficulty of localizing products and creating a good shopping experience online.”

Click image to enlarge

Place staff where it makes the most sense. Retailers should manage e-commerce functions at headquarters that benefit financially from economies of scale or tasks that require standardization, like branding, core technology, core navigation and global partnerships. “Those are all things that benefit by leveraging the full-on size of the retailer,” Bethlahmy says.

Not everything can be handled at headquarters, however. “Retailers need to be prepared to staff up locally or use current local staff for those functions that require feet on the ground or country expertise to be successful,” Bethlahmy says. This can include buying and marketing or making minor changes to the website so that the look, feel and language appeal to local customs. It also may include bank agreements and delivery. “Sometimes you’re better off doing local delivery carrier agreements if you don’t have scale in a particular country,” she says.

Use local buyers to match your country’s preferences. While a master product agreement may be struck at the corporate level, local buyers should have the freedom to choose items from that wholesaler that are available in a particular country. “People in different cultures prefer to buy different things,” Bethlahmy says. “You need local buyers to understand that, to respond to competitive pricing and to offer local promotions that those customers are going to respond to.”

Use local marketing resources. Similarly, a retailer needs to handle marketing locally since there can be cultural or regional differences in the response to marketing tactics. “While a 20-percent-off sale can work well in the United States, it can have negative connotations … elsewhere,” Bethlahmy says. “People [in other countries] may respond better to free shipping or free taxes.” Local experts should also be involved in increasing site traffic through search engine optimization and the crafting of local offers that correspond to regional holidays or themes.

Make sure that the core website platform allows for local variation. It’s not feasible -- or advisable -- for staff in each country to develop its own technology, or to choose a vendor that appeals to their needs. While information technology largely should be handled at the corporate level, it must have the flexibility to allow staff in different countries to slightly alter the look and feel in a way that fits better with that country’s tastes and language. “Look at Amazon’s various websites,” Bethlahmy says. “You know they’re all Amazon, but the homepage [looks] slightly different to tap into what that country prefers.”

Be prepared to meet local expectations for delivery options. Not all Internet shoppers have the same delivery expectations, and some foreign markets may expect more than American companies are accustomed to delivering. “Much of the rest of the developed world has a more sophisticated delivery infrastructure, so retailers have to meet those expectations for speed and delivery options,” Bethlahmy says.

In Japan, for instance, customers like to pick up and pay for packages at neighborhood convenience stores, so a retailer will need to develop relationships with those stores. Customers in Japan, urban Australia and Korea have grown to expect same- or one-day delivery at a reasonable cost. Australia and the U.K. expect to choose a one- or two-hour delivery window -- even in the evening. “To be successful, retailers are going to have to meet local expectations while managing their costs,” Bethlahmy says.

The same goes for payment options. In many countries, credit cards are not the preferred payment option. As with delivery, retailers will need to understand the cultural expectations and be prepared to meet them. “To really unlock the revenue in any country, you have to allow people to pay in the ways they prefer,” Bethlahmy says.

In Japan, many customers prefer to pay cash on delivery for a package at the same convenience store at which they retrieve it; COD is also popular in Taiwan and Mexico. In Germany, customers prefer online bank transfers, while PayPal is heavily used in other Europe countries and Australia.

Of course, credit and debit cards remain a dominant payment method in many countries -- just understand they aren’t the only ones.

Despite all this talk of country-specific customization, a global IT architecture is critical. Companies that commence e-commerce in one country may quickly find themselves expanding into others. This means creating a global IT architecture that can accommodate global e-commerce capabilities, like regional website templates or foreign exchange. “Similarly, you want to plan your data center so that you’re managing costs and making the most of cloud technologies,” Bethlahmy says. “Think about where to place data centers to deliver excellent online response times.”

There’s no doubt that expanding globally can be daunting, but the numbers show the potential and the struggling U.S. economy has proven the need for businesses to diversify. “The good news is that some pioneers have been doing this for a while already and they’ve learned some very useful lessons which can be applied by close followers,” Bethlahmy says.

Head Geek

Janet Groeber — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 05:21:41 +0000

Nordstrom's Social media manager Shauna Causey

Shauna Causey
Social media manager
Nordstrom
Seattle

Shauna Causey has managed communications, community relations and social media strategy for companies, nonprofits and elected officials. She was voted one of the 100 Top Women in Tech by TechFlash and was featured in the Los Angeles Times as part of the “Female Empire of Technology.” Causey also serves as vice president of Social Media Club Seattle and volunteers with Twestival Seattle.

In early 2009 Causey founded Voluntweetup, a grassroots event series in which local technology enthusiasts volunteer to train and educate nonprofits on the effective use of social media.

Tell us about your first paying job.
At 15, I was a ball girl for the Seattle Mariners. I sat on the sidelines and tried my best to field foul balls from Ken Griffey, Jr., which at times was a bit scary.

There was a bit of a retail connection with the team, because I did help out in some of the Mariners’ stores. I worked there for seven years and held various positions before moving on.

You’ve spent so much time nurturing and educating social media users and now you’re at Nordstrom. What’s your take on the future of social media and retail?
I’m excited about the future of the social web and retail. While the technologies we use will change and improve, the approach is still the same. It’s still about finding the best way to serve the customer, offering a personal presence and connecting with them where they are.

On the subject of social media and networking, what sites, services or providers do you prefer?
The social media sharing site I use most often is Twitter. I’ve been able to connect and learn from people all over the world — and that level of serendipity doesn’t happen as easily on other networks. I also use Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Tumblr and Skype on a regular basis.

When it comes to managing all the networks, I use HootSuite and CoTweet on a daily basis. These two platforms both offer a dashboard view of all of my social media channels to make the process easier. HootSuite is my personal dashboard and CoTweet is a great content and analytics dashboard for company use.

Favorite Twitter feed?
Aside from @Nordstrom — we have such a great online community — I really enjoy a technology feed by Mike Swift, a talented reporter in the Silicon Valley. He’s on Twitter at @Swiftstories. His posts and articles keep me updated on the latest happenings at Google, Facebook and other tech companies and he offers a personal presence online, answering questions and interacting with his network.

The last website you visited?
Pinterest. It’s a photo-sharing site that’s perfect for retailers. It’s also perfect for other personal projects as well. I’m remodeling my house and I share photos of various remodel ideas with our contractor.

Last retail purchase?
I just bought Burberry rain boots at Nordstrom so I could go walking in the rain this winter. After living in Seattle my whole life, I finally bought my first pair!

On your wish list?
This may show that I’m a bit of a geek, but at the top of my wish list is a Pico pocket projector. I’d like to be able to share videos and photos with a pocket screen when I’m on the go.

Your greatest extravagance?
Comfortable shoes.

Next on your reading list?
The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk. From what I know about the book, I’ll love it.

You could never have too many …?
Monitors. If I could figure out how to make them fit, I’d have 10 monitors on my desk.

Cart Culture

Fiona Soltes — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 05:22:41 +0000

SteelHouse targets customers with behavioral commerce

If a customer visited your bricks-and-mortar store four times over a two-week period only to leave empty-handed each time, what would you do? Offer to speak to a manager on that customer’s behalf? Suggest a discount?

Some consider it good customer service. But on-site as well as online, there’s a fine line between targeted offers that make customers feel understood and “stalking” them to the point that they feel uncomfortable.

Sean Johnson, online advertising manager for textbook e-tailer eCampus.com, uses the word “creepy” to describe some retargeting methods. He jokes about the items that are viewed on one site, then seem to magically appear in ads on others.

“I think, when a customer sees that, they realize that we’re going after them, and it freaks them out a little bit,” he says. What eCampus wanted was the ability to retarget customers, but not necessarily with individual products. They found it with SteelHouse.

Match the customer to the ad
Through The Opportunity Machine, SteelHouse’s e-commerce technology platform unveiled in June, eCampus can create a real-time, high-value targeted ad based on the number and type of items in a customer’s shopping cart, increasing the likelihood of click-through to the actual purchase.

“The goal is to figure out that customer’s behavior and match it with corresponding ad copy,” Johnson says. “We want to know what someone wants to do, and then make that happen.”

A customer with items totaling $150 in his cart might receive a discount or free shipping offer. He won’t necessarily feel stalked, Johnson says, and it may be just what he needs to affirm his purchase.

“Let’s say you have a site with a million monthly unique visitors,” says SteelHouse president and CEO Mark Douglas. “You’ve put a lot of effort into driving traffic to your site, depending on what people are interested in. But once they get there … everyone gets the same sale, the same offer.

“Our perspective is, if we can take into account the personality of a shopper, then the incentive … can be tailored.”

Those shopping personalities fall into a number of categories, among them premium shoppers, buying the best; determined shoppers, researching and viewing items multiple times; free shipping hunters; loyal shoppers looking for rewards; and wish list shoppers who put everything into the cart to check the total price.

In its simplest form, it’s akin to the comp system in Las Vegas, where some players might receive a free drink, but others might receive a free hotel room, based on their behavior and past relationship with the casino.

Personality-driven campaigns
SteelHouse, whose team includes direct marketers and engineers from the likes of eHarmony, the Rubicon Project and Oracle, calls this “behavioral commerce.” The Los Angeles-based company is gathering notice: It was named the startup most likely to succeed at the Launch: Silicon Valley 2011 showcase.

Everything in The Opportunity Machine is on the same platform, with the same interface, Douglas says. That interface scans millions of records in a fraction of a second, allowing users to easily build campaigns based on customer personalities.

“This is about understanding what the possibilities are,” Douglas says. “Your analytics tool may not be telling you who’s been on the site over the last 14 days with $300 in their cart,” only to abandon it on the shopping page. “But if you knew, that’s who you would want to be offering incentives to — the person who expressed a lot of interest but lost that interest. So we’ve reinvented the analytics side of all this and made it actionable.”

Shop.org Workshop Promises Immediate Solutions

Joan Broughton — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 05:22:41 +0000

In the early years of e-commerce, it was easy for the marvels of web technology to overwhelm and distract from the basics of online retailing.

New technical features were popping up all over the place, and it was often difficult to distinguish what was vital from what was a flash in the pan.

The Shop.org Merchandising Workshop began as an event at which seasoned retailers making the transition to e-commerce could network with escapees from the web startup world as the Internet bubble burst in late 2000 (RIP Boo.com, Pets.com, Kozmo.com and so many others). Still new to the world of e-commerce at that time, I learned a lot at those workshops.

Fast forward to 2011, and there is still a lot to learn. The Shop.org Merchandising Workshop leads the way by helping attendees stay up-to-date with rapid advances in technology. As always, though, it also focuses on the basics of merchandising: source the right product, sell it at the right price, present it in an accessible and pleasing way and give customers the information they need to make the right choice.

At this year’s Merchandising Workshop, July 11-13 in Coronado, Calif., first-time speakers will join veteran Shop.org presenters to focus on the same thing: helping retailers learn today’s online merchandising best practices and giving them the know-how to put these techniques to work immediately.

Setting the tone for this year’s Merchandising Workshop are keynotes from Jon Nordmark, co-founder of eBags and UsingMiles.com; Andy Kennemer, vice president of social marketing and media for Resource Interactive; Kerry Cooper, CMO of ModCloth (and former Walmart.com CMO); and Jeanniey Mullen, global executive vice president and CMO for Zinio and VIVmag.

Want to learn the best way to present your products online? Sandbox CEO Joe Barrett’s discussion with Theory’s Tracey Strauss and David Yurman’s Amanda Willinger zeroes in on photographing products — lots of products — for online presentation. There is strong ROI in high-quality product shots, from prolonging site visits to converting lookers to buyers. And your stores benefit, too, since beautiful product shots on your website often entice customers into your bricks-and-mortar locations.

Other presentations focus on using video to drive conversion and one retailer’s experience in developing a superior product comparison tool for its site. Content — both retailer- and user-generated — gets its due as well, since successful merchandising depends so much on providing customers with complete and compelling product information. With today’s advances in technology, retailers can get much more engaged with their customers and use consumer insights derived online to build trust and continually improve conversion rates.

For those who want Shop.org to break it down into digestible bits of merchandising wisdom, experienced merchandisers Amy Africa and Lauren Freedman go by the numbers. Amy offers up “20+ Sure-Fire Tips for Improving Your Abandoned Cart Program” and Lauren covers the “20 Must-Dos to Merchandise an Efficient, Effective and Engaging Mobile Shopping Experience.”

As in recent years, retail attendees can receive individual site critiques during “The Doctor Is In” sessions. This feature has been extraordinarily well-received every year — not surprising, since attendees can sit with site usability and online merchandising experts to get tips on improving their websites. Attendees receive individual attention from senior consultants who know how to improve conversion and bring the right sort of traffic to their sites.

Roundtable discussions afford the great networking opportunities for which Shop.org is known. My own experience from my days as an e-commerce newbie and the feedback I hear from present-day attendees underscore the value of these roundtables, where retailers really do share and help one another.

Those who can’t make it to the Online Merchandising Workshop can get a flavor of the event by checking out the Shop.org blog during the week of July 18. Some presentations will be available on the Shop.org website the following week.

Christmas (Buying) in July

Fred Minnick — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 05:22:41 +0000

It's that time again. Are you ready?

Preparing for those stocking-stuffing consumers, e-commerce retailers are making holiday planning a top priority.

Holiday sales from November to December rose 5.7 percent (to $462 billion) last year compared with 2009 — the largest seasonal percentage increase since 2004, according to the NRF. These figures have retailers wondering if they can improve results even more this year.

The holiday matters
Eric Best, co-founder and CEO of online tech firm Mercent, works year-round with retailers to prepare for the holiday season. Mercent has built a strong track record for improving e-commerce sales and expects to deliver its typical results this coming holiday season.

What’s typical? Using Mercent Retail solution, which optimizes paid search campaigns to drive sales for every SKU and merchandising offer, Gardener’s Supply, headquartered in Burlington, Vt., increased return on advertising spending (ROAS) 500 percent. Year-over-year sales for FootSmart, an online retailer specializing in foot and lower body healthcare products, increased more than 400 percent, with gross profits rising substantially. REI used Mercent’s on-demand platform to automate and optimize the company’s data feed marketing efforts, while SitStay.com’s sales on Amazon.com increased after using Mercent.

As these and other clients look at their holiday planning, “They are becoming more risk-tolerant as they get more comfortable with year-over-year growth, with a trend line that is now up and to the right,” Best says. “That is giving the retail planners some level of comfort that they’re going to have another successful year.”

Despite a solid January, 2011 started off slow, and some retailers are looking for holiday sales to make up for soft early quarters impacted by the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, a late holiday and bad weather.

“We actually saw a steady decline in February and March,” Best says. “Our clients were starting to feel a little jittery by the end of the first quarter, just based on their year-over-year sales comparables.

“Part of that March softness, it turns out, was related to a late Easter holiday,” he says. “January, February, March was decelerating growth. April and May have been accelerating again, getting us back in May to effectively where we expected we would be in terms of our forecast at the beginning of the year.”

Best says the trends point to a positive holiday forecast – and that forecasting itself is becoming more accurate. This allows companies to have aggressive targets in terms of their space capacity as well as their staffing expectations in the customer call center and the warehouses.

Some Mercent clients “are actually playing around with moving some inventory over to Amazon’s warehouses in advance of the holiday, using Amazon’s warehouses as contingent square footage,” Best says. “This allows them to handle the peak holiday volumes without having to necessarily make permanent infrastructure investments in warehouse space.”

Big holiday spend & buy
One of Mercent’s clients, a Midwest-based children’s product retailer, is using 47 percent of its total 2011 ad spend in the fourth quarter to capture holiday shoppers.

“The holiday is definitely one of our more exciting time periods,” says a spokeswoman for the company. “We always see the greatest growth during this time period and we get to showcase a higher amount of SKUs to fulfill the demand.”

Her company’s 2010 holiday assortment was conservative, she says, but “this year we have quadrupled our holiday gear and are thrilled about that because we usually sell out rather quickly.”

In August, this retailer will create holiday search, display and affiliate ads to hit around October. “The reason we start earlier is due to our large product assortment push, as well as wanting to keep the same ‘voice’ prevalent throughout all our text ads,” the spokeswoman says.

On the buying side, children’s department store CookiesKids.com is planning holiday buys earlier than ever, says founder Al Falack. Beginning in February, he says, the company started importing goods directly from manufacturers.

“We also plan on sending a high percentage of our toys to be fulfilled directly by Amazon.com,” Falack says. “Our primary goal is to complete buying by June 25th, with deliveries no later than October 15th. We think that if we could get a head start with receiving the inventory we will have more time to focus on aggressively marketing and selling versus chasing product.”

Amazon.com is the company’s biggest channel for the holiday season. Therefore, “in addition to following and keeping up with trends in terms of popular games and toys, it’s imperative we understand the mindset of Amazon shoppers — how they discover, evaluate and ultimately purchase products,” he says. “This impacts the way we market, promote and sell products through this channel.”

Possible holiday trends
There’s clearly a focus on the social influence for this year’s holiday planning, Best says, with retailers paying particular attention to Facebook and mobile shopping trends. “There are questions and a lot of investment occurring in mobile shopping,” he says, “which, in some ways, has potential to impact traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers even more than the pure-play e-commerce companies, because you can tie in-store shopping behaviors to digital information that you can syndicate on these devices.”

And holiday planning is no longer just a domestic proposition; even for the smaller-scale retailers, there’s planning to capture international markets. Firms like FiftyOne, which helps domestic retailers with offshore fulfillment, have filled smaller retailers’ desire to meet international demand.

Best says people are focused on Europe and Australia because of the exchange rate. “Some of it is the fact that you have cheaper, higher capacity shipping options for actually drop-shipping product overseas,” he says. “And some of it is that there are software tools that are available that make it easier to do current [currency] conversion and handle international fulfillment.”

Another 2011 shift is that consumers’ capriciousness is being indulged through private sales sites like Rue La La, Gilt, Groupon and LivingSocial. “[These sites] have implications for the holiday,” Best says. “We saw it last year. From October [2010] to January, we had a big U-shaped curve where December and January represented a spike. There’s always the peak selling days of December 12 and 13, but in the aggregate the days following Christmas and heading into early January actually contributed more volume overall than those peak selling days.”

Best believes this new consumer behavior is a reflection of the Groupon and LivingSocial deals.
“Consumers are doing exactly what retailers are training them to do, which is to either take advantage of those early door-buster discounts or wait until December 26 to take further advantage of discounted pricing,” he says.

For retailers that have yet to complete their holiday planning, Best recommends locking down promotional calendars while becoming more front- and back-loaded than in years past.

“The overall holiday sales volume is going to occur around Black Friday, Cyber Monday and post-Christmas,” Best says. “By August, you should have variable capacity to be more responsive to last-minute opportunities that are presented either through your advertising programs or through your supply chain.

“You should be thinking about what happens if sales significantly outpace or under-pace your expectations,” he says. In other words, “What are your contingency plans?”

State of Search

Fred Minnick — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 05:22:41 +0000

Google, et al. are changing their algorithms – are you changing yours?

The rules for search have changed.

Since a February 2011 New York Times article alleged that J.C. Penney used a link scheme that violated Google’s Webmaster guidelines, major search engines Yahoo, Google and Bing have changed their algorithms to make them less vulnerable to manipulation.

According to the Times investigation, J.C. Penney had thousands of unrelated websites linking to its pages. J.C. Penney fired back, calling the investigation “misleading and unwarranted” and stating that it does not tolerate violations of its natural search policies — which, it said, reflect Google’s guidelines.

Whatever happened, one thing is certain: The article changed search strategies, says Mark Smith, founding partner of KeywordFirst, a search-engine marketing consultancy.

“There’s probably been more change and turmoil this year than there has for the last several years,” Smith says. “A lot of people have lost positions and rankings. That’s caused a lot of angst from retailers.”

Starting search fresh
Retailers are coming to firms like KeywordFirst to learn how to increase inbound links. But SEO experts can’t just wave a magic wand and bring the links back.

“It’s not an easy process,” Smith says. “They have to do it the old-fashioned way and that’s time consuming.”

KeywordFirst finds high-ranking websites that are relevant to retailers and has them link back to clients’ websites. “You have to be persistent and aggressive in getting those links, because that’s really going to move the dial,” Smith says.

It takes a lot more than just scraping some keywords off a suggestion tool to make paid search pay, and KeywordFirst has developed comprehensive, customized paid campaigns relevant to a client’s business.

“It’s understanding the business, understanding the language that their end users use when they search for products or services,” Smith says. It sounds awfully simple, but actually knowing your industry’s specific keywords goes a long way.

“Too often people try and win on general terms, but they miss the opportunity with niche keywords that could provide them with the most realistic opportunity to win in the SEO game,” Smith says.

Mobile search
Meanwhile, all trends toward search indicate it’s a mobile frenzy at the moment. According to a report from Forrester Research, retailers will spend some $220.9 million to capture these mobile search consumers this year.

That research complements a recent Oracle study, which found that 48 percent of consumers use their mobile devices to research or browse products and services. According to the report, this is up from 37 percent in an ATG consumer benchmark survey in July 2010 and from 27 percent in an ATG consumer cross-channel survey in November 2009.

Smith estimates that, by the end of the year, approximately 10 percent of all search queries will originate from a smartphone.

“We’re focusing on SEO, but the paid searches have become very important if you think about the real estate on a smartphone vs. a desktop,” he says. “You have six inches of space there and the combination of the natural search and the paid [search] is very critical.”

Facebook and Twitter feeds have also been de-emphasized within the algorithm, Smith says.
“That was a quick and easy way to get a number of links out there, but Google, Bing and Yahoo understood that possibly the system was being gamed a little bit,” he says. “This is the normal evolution of search-engine optimization. It’s been a cat-and-mouse game since this has started.”