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Yesterday, I was told my presence is required at a family reunion in June and I should bring a my tent because I'm sleeping outside.  Apart from any initial reactions, I immediately took this opportunity to do what I do best - spend time online to see if my existing gear needs replacing.

When shopping online, I rely heavily on editorial and customer reviews, putting the most weight on customer reviews because they are usually written by people like me - casual shoppers who want to share their experience with a product.  Although an in-store expert opinion can really help influence a purchasing decision, I find customer opinions more valuable for products I am not going to wear.  Reviews provide me with a range of opinions, both positive and negative, that I can use to make my own buying decision.  According to Forrester, MarketingSherpa, Jupiter and others, I am not alone in thinking reviews are a critical part of the purchasing process.

Finding a list of products I'm interested in with quality reviews can be a daunting task, but I remembered reading something on TechCrunch about the customer review site Buzzillions.  This site takes reviews submitted from vendors using PowerReviews and publishes them all together - so if a review was submitted on this site for a North Face VE 25 Tent, it will eventually appear next to other reviews on Buzzillions for the same tent.   Brilliant. 

So I search for 'tent', and up comes a great list of tents that have been reviewed.  Fantastic.  A few reviews even included vendor feedback, which seems like a great opportunity for vendors to respond to customer comments.

Another interesting feature is the opportunity for vendors to link back to their own product page within a review.  The ability to drive traffic back to a vendor site is an interesting twist - the site not only guarantees me a review on any product listed, it also connects me to vendors selling the product.  This provides me with a single place to do initial research prior to visiting my preferred vendors for purchase.  I might also find a few new vendors that I hadn't considered before.

I might lose a whole day on this.

What does “Multi-Channel” mean to you?  For traditional retailers, multi-channel generally refers to the integration of web, catalog, POS, phone and kiosk sales into a cohesive retailing engine (dare to dream). For many eCommerce pure plays however, multi-channel often involves the ability to distribute products into multiple eCommerce channels such as a clearance site, auction site, comparison shopping portal or large public marketplace such as eBay or Amazon. 

I thought I would share how a client’s unique focus in the sports vertical has allowed them significant growth online via a unique “Multi-channel” strategy. Steiner Sports Marketing is one of North America's premier sports collectible and Memorabilia companies, with many exclusive deals for sports-related products including relationships with sports licensing giants the New York Yankees and New York Mets . Their goal is too reach the true fan with the best product possible. 

One of the key reasons for Steiner’s online success is a very targeted eCommerce distribution strategy aimed at their core audience – sports nuts.  Steiner reaches this niche market by utilizing various vertical online auction sites and eCommerce destinations.  They have developed a formula whereby they distribute inventory directly to web sites managed by the various sports leagues in North America – this strategy serves to build their brand amongst sports fans, and also acts as primary online sales channel for many of their products. Multi-channel retailing of a different sort you might say…

Below is a list of sites they currently sell products on.

MLB Yankees

MLB Mets

The NHL

Steiner uses these league sites to help drive awareness to their own private label auction destination, Steiner Auctions - http://auction.steinersports.com/ I think in the next couple of months you will likely see Steiner Sports continue to expand their multi-channel distribution business directly to wherever sports fans gather online.

As retailers increase online sales and compete with traditional brick and mortar shops, the line between ecommerce and brick and mortar continues to blur.  While Paco Underhill seems to have made great strides in understanding the consumer behavior within a brick and mortar store, we have much learning left to do.

However, we can certainly take most of what Paco has learned, apply it to ecommerce and watch for positive results.  While most of his studies occurred within the confines of a physical store, the behavior of a person within the online shopping experience should be similar.  The 'browser' exists in both the online and physical store - the shopper who just walks around and buys nothing.  The consumer who purchases a single specific product and leaves exists both online and at your store.  So, the people shopping are similar and the tactics to upsell and cross sell are similar, but the traffic patterns are very different.  Why?  Because your online store reaches a much greater audience than a physical store.   

Consumers visiting your online store from locations around the country (or world) is both good and bad.  It's great because you are able to reach a much larger audience, thus potentially sell much more product.  It's bad because the assumptions you had about your brick and mortar customers no longer apply.  While consumer behavior is similar, your customers are no longer bound by geography.  This means the 'Winter Coat' promotion you had scheduled for October does not apply to any consumer outside of the North Eastern US, or Eastern Canada.  If 75% of your web traffic is from outside of this region, you are missing your mark.  Retailers would never do this in a physical store, so why do it online?

In the online world, you have the power to show each customer that walks in the door a completely different store.  While no one has perfected this concept, we can certainly use some tricks to help us better target our customers.  Leveraging this idea, we can show customers in our geographic area the 'Winter Coat' promotion, while showing the remainder of users a non-climate specific promotion.  This is a very basic example of 'personalization', which takes something we know about the consumer and uses it to customize their online experience.  This is a tricky, but powerful concept in ecommerce that really differentiates it from brick and mortar retailing. 

Although, you can also apply some degree of personalization to a physical store.  Imagine being able to change the end-aisle display for each and every customer that walked by with a product in hand?  In theory, you could if you used RF security tags on your products.  Your end-aisle display could be smart enough to detect someone walking by with a 'blue shirt' and display a promotion for matching ties.  Sure, it's not a cheap solution, but as RF tags are included in more manufacturing models (hard goods and food), it becomes more of a possibility and an interesting one to think about.

Now that I've introduced the subject, I realize I meant to discuss the difference between Flash and HTML carts.  I suppose I got a little distracted...  :)  I'll save that for later.

Thinking of spending big budget dollars on a hot new design for your eCommerce site?

You might want to reconsider.

At the end of the day, eCommerce is still not a "browsing experience"  per se-- most consumers do not go to a retailers site to do some "virtual window shopping".   For the most part, online shoppers know what they want, and god help you if your site makes it difficult for them to find it.

While an esthetically pleasing, well thought-out web design can increase customer loyalty, brand affinity and all that good stuff...if your customers can't find what they are looking for, all the lifestyle shots in the world won't make much of a difference.

A recent study conducted by MarketingSherpa (run, dont walk to get their annual ecommerce marketing benchmark guides -- they are fantastic), indicates that web shoppers pretty much already know what they want before they start looking.

According to Sherpa, the biggest two chunks of eCommerce site activity are using the site search box (43% ) and navigation, such as tabs, menus and sales hotlinks (39%).

Together, that's 82% of consumers surveyed who go directly to navigational elements rather than browsing to see what they like.

Still thinking  about that big "hero shot" for your new homepage?

So what's a retailer to do?  First, get your internal search and navigation in order.  Quick results, spelling correction, synonyms and pluralization should be tops on your list.   Guided navigation is also quickly becoming a standard...give your customers the chance to easily drill down by brand, price, style or any other facet that fits your product line.

Check out the chart below for some more interesting data on this subject, courtesy of MS:

For a few different reasons, I have been looking deeper into Affiliate and Search Marketing this week. As it turns out, this story has many twists and turns. The relationship between online merchants and their affiliates is pretty love- hate, and it doesn’t look like its going to get any less complicated, anytime soon.

While Affiliates still make up about 10% of all traffic driven to a typical eCommerce site, many marketers have shut the door on allowing their affiliate partners to conduct e-mail campaigns on their behalf (CAN SPAM).  To add insult to injury, some merchants are now also refusing to compete with affiliates on keyword buying.  Trouble is, this keeps those same merchants from dominating the search page on trademarked brands and products.

Wait a minute, aren’t multiple listings one of the keys to lead generation success via paid search?

What are your thoughts on this? Is your organization part of the “more the merrier” set, or do you refuse to pay commissions on a tactic that you can do yourself in house?

How do you feel about competing with your own affiliates on keyword auctions?

While Google is trying to bridge the gap between brick and mortar retailing and ecommerce, this isn't really a new concept in retailing.  Catalog shopping has been a part of our lives for a long time - I can't remember a time when my home was without a Sears Catalog.  However, Sears was a huge department store that offered a full line of products in store and via their catalog, not really an optimized showroom for products. 

There was a company in Canada that tried to optimize this model - Consumers Distributing.  Consumers offered a full selection of products via their catalog, and a subset of products in stores.  This allowed customers to see and touch a limited number of products in the store, but do full shopping via their catalog.  The business model is focused on catalog shopping, but gave the consumer a chance to view some of the inventory prior to purchase.

While we still have traditional catalog companies, we see new companies trying to optimize the catalog model by hosting small product showrooms with limited quantities of each and every product.  In Canada, Lee Valley Tools has managed to do well with this model.  Their stores are small, but big enough to carry one of almost everything for the consumer to try out.  When you purchase, it follows the catalog model where an employee takes your order and it's either pulled from the warehouse in the back, or mailed to you.  I have heard they have taken it a step further by introducing product ordering stations in their downtown Toronto location - allowing the store to handle even more orders per square foot.

There is a company that is taking this model one step further - Nau.com.  They see the opportunity in brick and mortar for an apparel company, while also understanding the advantage of online shopping.  As a result of some keen business sense, they have setup small stores that carry limited quantities of all products but encourage customers to order online - so the stores act as true product showrooms.  In the clothing business, seeing and feeling the product is a critical part of the first purchase.  Once the consumer understands the sizing, the texture and fit of the products, most barriers to online shopping have been broken. 

NAU also makes headway in a few other areas, including sustainability and social causes, but their overall approach at blending the online and brick and mortar retail experience is pretty impressive.  See video of their Boulder location and decide for yourself.

Many clients have asked me what strategies can be deployed to drive their online business upward.  There are many ways to approach a web strategy and obviously each retailer needs to tread their own path to build a business amongst the thousands of competing sites.  However, some fundamentals are common to all.  I thought I would jot down some ideas on tackling the first steps of the challenge.

The most fundamental of all is to understand the end user shopping experience.  Have you put yourself in the shoes of the end user and went shopping on your site?  Did you analyze each step in the path from getting to the site to getting the item at your door? Use Snag It to capture the screens along the path, paste into PowerPoint and post on the wall.  Improving the end user experience is common sense – it just takes setting aside some time to review.  Check out www.zappos.com for a fabulous end user experience (I never thought I would buy shoes online…) and read the ancient text “E-Commerce User Experience’ guide by the Nielsen Norman Group for the never aging axioms of adding to cart.

Products, price and promotions are also critical to success.  I have seen clients fret over usability, traffic etc but a pricing review relative to competition was the key to sales growth.  This subject is a whole other blog…

Make sure that a web analytics solution is in place. Grab a coffee and check out the dashboard delivered to you in an email during the early hours.  Unique visitor sessions, conversion and order size are metrics that should be on your frontal lobe every morning.

Web strategies can take many fascinating paths once you have the fundamental pillars in place. Ask yourself the questions:

·         Can I convert with a usable shopping experience?

·         Is the combination of product, price, and promotion the best on the net?

·         Can I track the results of my efforts?

·         Do I have the natural search infrastructure in place?

Be careful about spending your marketing budget prior to building the pillars (we all wish for the PPC budget of eBay…). We can then all look forward to topics of affiliate programs, shopping feeds, additional marketplace distribution, keyword buys, rich media….

Cheers,

-- Rick

Spotting a good patent application is like searching for sunken treasure - lots of shipwrecks, only a few are full of bullion.  With this in mind, I spotted a Google patent a little while ago that peaked my interest...

Google applied for an interactive Kiosk patent, that would essentially replace the information kiosk at your local shopping mall, airport, hotel, etc.  Replacing those 'mall maps' with something more interactive is an interesting idea, especially when you consider the advantages to both the business and consumer.  The patent suggests such a device would allow people to search for specific products and it would return a list of retailers with the product in stock, details about the product, a map to the store and promotional material for that specific retailer whether it is a coupon or sale price.  There are endless possibilities for such a device that Google will no-doubt take full advantage of.

One of the things I find interesting about this is how it mixes traditional shopping (the mall) with online shopping.  Google is essentially building an 'intro to online shopping' and dropping it into places where there are high concentrations of non-online-shoppers.  Knowing that Google generates most of it's revenue from advertising, it would make sense for online retailers to advertise on such a device...

Imagine a non-online shopper walking into a mall and searching for 'sony wega'.  The results show 3 hits, listing the price ranges, a map and promotional material for different retailers in the mall.  The results also list 2 online retailers selling the same item for 20% less with free shipping.  At this point, as a consumer, the mall becomes a giant showroom for products.  I can view, touch, try and discuss the product  with experts at length, then walk away and purchase exactly the same product online for considerably less money. 

Awesome!

I saw a great article on the front page of last weeks USA Today Travel Section highlighting a number of Loyalty Auction Sites we are running with our Partner Points.com - "Out: Boring rewards. In: Dreams come true."

The article seems to indicate that these Loyalty Auction Sites are a new concept but the idea dates back to the late 1990's...

In the heady days of the dot.com world circa 1999, there was a brief flourish in the development and launch of points based online auctions – used primarily for promotional programs which were often tied to physical redemption of goods or services.

A good example of this is an early auction program for Coke and early programs for Miller Beer and Burger King.  The basic premise of these auction programs was the ability to include codes inside retail packages. Consumers would open the package and enter the code online. The codes would have pre-determined values or points associated with them which consumers could then use to bid via these branded online auction sites.

These programs were generally expensive to run and required extensive tie in to the packaged goods side of the business. They also required significant prizing budgets and fulfillment partnerships. As a result these programs did not seem to gain significant traction.

The real growth has played out on the loyalty side. Loyalty auction programs use existing loyalty or air mile programs as currency, with no retail product required for redemption. The cost to launch and operate these programs is significantly lower and most companies who utilize loyalty type programs are anxious to engage existing point holders to use them.

Starwood - http://auction.starwoodhotels.com/

Priority Club - http://auctions.priorityclub.com/