Category Archives: ecommerce

10 Makeover Tips For Your Ecommerce Site

Dale Traxler just asked some useful questions on the Practical eCommerce blog:

“When was the last time you really looked at your online store with the same level of critique as you did when you first launched it? Are you featuring seasonal products in your featured items or are Mother’s Day gifts still at the top in August? Are your promo banners the same ones you used last month? When is the last time you created a completely new promotional idea? When did you last add a blog post? A Facebook wall post? Tweets? Do you have your “back to school” category created? Is your navigation optimized to get traffic to the right parts of your website?”

Dale’s post shares 10 Tips to refresh your site. These are our top five favourites:

  1. Clean up the site weekly. Assign someone to go through the home page, category pages, shopping cart, any other parts of your store where content might be changeable. Clear our old promotions and seasonal content. Make sure there are no missing images. Look at customer product reviews to make sure postings are appropriate. Make sure you don’t have featured products that are out of stock.
  2. Feature new products. Consumers want new products. Make sure you launch new items, and then tell your visitors about them. Create categories that feature new items. Move new items to the top of your product listings. Write a blog post about them.
  3. Rotate your promotions. If you feature daily, weekly or seasonal specials, rotate them regularly. In my previous online jewelry stores, our “sale” pages were among the most trafficked. They were the first place many visitors went. If visitors see the same promotions week after week, they stop noticing them at all.
  4. Be competitive. Pick your top five competitors and review their stores at least weekly. You may find one offering a 50-percent off sale, or a 2-for-1 deal on your best selling products. You may not decide to match the offer, but you should at least be aware of it and be prepared to modify your promotions or featured items.
  5. Product videos are becoming mandatory in some retail segments. When you shop online, note the things you like and incorporate them in your wish list for your next redesign. Investigate the amazing capabilities of CSS3 and HTML5. Your site may look dated if you don’t keep up.
For the full set of tips, head to:

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3683-10-Tips-to-Freshen-Your-Ecommerce-Site

eCommerce Predictions for 2015

This week's Online Retailer conference in Sydney, Australia saw plenty of predictions on the future of eCommerce. Here are just some of them, as reported via Smarthouse.com.au (http://smarthouse.com.au/Home_Office/Industry/W9L4C6B2):

A peek at eCommerce 2015 from Jake Hird, eConsultancy's Director of Research:
  • QR codes, although big news at the moment, won't be here in five years, Hind believes. He reckons Near Field Communications (NFC) – the touch and tap payments technology – is the way mobile shopping is going. NFC will be widely used by consumers in the future, eConsultancy predicts.
  • Facial recognition (FR) technology, where a user's identity will be immediately recognised when they visit a particular site, will also be massive.
  • And mobile will be huge. The ecommerce guru cited the words of Google Chairman Eric Schmidt: "if you don't have a mobile strategy you don't have a future strategy. "
  • Instead of the 4Ps of marketing (product, price, promotion, place), retailers should be thinking of the 4 Es – experience, everyplace, exchange and evangelism.

 

To see what you missed — and perhaps plan your attendance for next year, check out http://www.onlineretailer.com

Mastering eCommerce

The latest (2012) Nielsen Online Retail Report is out, and it confirms what we’ve already suspected: half of New Zealand (49%) now buys products online! That translates to more than 60% of Kiwi internet users who purchase online — and 97% of NZ web users who research products and services online (even if they eventually buy the products offline).

Already 5.1% of NZ retail sales are made online — and that percentage is expected to double over the next few years (it’s close to that already, in the U.K. and the U.S.).

So are you ready to take your business online?

Our online course, “Mastering eCommerce”, tells you what you need to know in a seven-week programme that steps you through the principles and practices of eCommerce in New Zealand.

The course has been created by Michael Carney, longtime marketer and author of the top-selling book “Trade Me Success Secrets” (now in its Second Edition) which tells how to sell effectively on this country’s largest and most successful eCommerce platform. Michael is also the creator of a number of other online courses (including several Social Media Marketing courses) and consults on many digital business initiatives.

This is an online course, conducted on a web-based e-learning software platform, enabling course participants to proceed at their own pace, accessing materials online. This particular eCourse provides content in a variety of multimedia forms, including videos, slideshows, flash-based presentations and PDF files. No special software is required to participate.

Course lessons will be provided in seven parts, for participants to access in accordance with their own timetables.

Course Content for MASTERING eCOMMERCE includes:

INTRODUCTION

In which we explore current eCommerce trends, locally and internationally, and identify what it takes to be a successful online seller. We also provide an Action Plan to help you construct an effective eCommerce programme as we proceed through the course.

LESSON ONE: KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS: TURNING PROSPECTS INTO BUYERS

Customers have changed, largely thanks to the Internet. Google talks about a new process, the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT), which reflects the many ways that today’s consumers now research and but products. In this lesson we talk about prospective buyers, discuss what makes them buy (or not), review how and why they’ve changed in the last few years, discuss ZMOT and its implications for Kiwi sellers; and explore buyer motivations (and how you can trigger the urge to buy).

This lesson also covers:

  • The 10 most important factors that consumers look for when deciding whether or not to buy from you (and how you can improve each aspect)
  • The seven aspects of online shopping that shoppers most want to see improved
  • The five most attractive offers that you can make, to close a sale
  • The six factors that consumers are most likely to consider when comparison shopping
  • The most popular items that Kiwis are buying online these days
  • The four most-important services you can provide that will have consumers recommending you to their friends
  • The five most likely reasons why consumers abandon their shopping cart in the middle of a purchase
  • The growing trend towards “showrooming” — visiting a store to view a product but then actually purchasing it online — and what you can do about it
  • The perils of too much analytics: how Target figured out a teen girl was pregnant before her father did

LESSON TWO: KNOW WHAT ACTUALLY SELLS ONLINE (AND WHAT PROSPECTIVE BUYERS WANT TO KNOW)

In this lesson we show you how you can find out what people are actually searching for on the web — and where to go to find out what’s hot now (and what may be hot soon). Are you actually selling the right products online? Here’s where you find out.

Lesson Two also covers:

  • How you can tell if your business is really suited to eCommerce
  • The seven most common fears of online retailing
  • The 71 keys to successful eCommerce websites
  • Twenty bad practices to avoid
  • The amazing market intelligence you can steal from your competitors
  • The hot secrets you can learn from Trade Me, Daily Deal Sites, eBay, Amazon and Alibaba
  • The world’s leading online retailers — and what they can teach us about best practices in ecommerce

LESSON THREE: KNOW THE MARKETPLACE

So where should you actually sell your products online? In this lesson we explore the characteristics of, and the opportunities (and pitfalls) associated with, the marketplaces available to you: your own website, Trade Me, eBay, local Daily Deals sites, Amazon.com, Facebook, Mobile, location-based commerce, niche sites and more.

Lesson Three covers:

  • How to structure your website pages to make more sales (not lose them)
  • How to turn your shopping cart into an effective selling tool
  • The untapped power of the “Thank You” page
  • The staggering growth of smartphone and tablet usage in New Zealand — and why that matters so much to online retailers
  • The surprising range of products purchased by consumers on their smartphones and tablets — and the significant implications for online retailers
  • The 10 most important ways in which consumers are using their mobile phones to shop online more effectively — and what you absolutely must do to take advantage of this hottest of new trends
  • The seven most important steps you must take when listing your products on Trade Me or eBay
  • Why Daily Deal sites can destroy your business if you don’t take these precautions
  • What consumers are really looking for on Facebook — and how to turn a casual like into real (and profitable) conversations with your customers

LESSON FOUR: GETTING NOTICED

You won’t sell anything if you don’t attract visitors to your listings — but how do you get noticed online? We explore digital marketing tools such as Organic Search, Pay Per Click, Social Media Marketing, Online Video, Affiliate Marketing and of course email.

Lesson Four shows you:

  • How to see what Google sees when it looks at your website. We don’t want to scare you, but you’ll probably be horrified (most online businesses are, at least at first).
  • The strategy we call Trojan Horse Marketing — and how you can use it effectively to build ongoing relationships with customers and prospects
  • The brave but risky strategies adopted by some of the world’s best ecommerce operators — and why they’re now virtually compulsory
  • The source of more than 30% of all traffic to leading ecommerce sites — and the steps they take to maximise that traffic
  • How often you should communicate with your customers, and what happens if you talk too much or too little
  • How an observation made long ago by one of the world’s leading admen is now absolutely vital to your online success
  • The single technique that accounts for a whopping 77,316 website visits each month to a leading U.S. online retailer
  • Cheap and cheerful tools you can use to streamline your online marketing, whether you’re a massive multinational or a sole trader
  • The key ingredients that can spell success or failure for your online store

LESSON FIVE: MAKING MORE MONEY FROM EVERY SALE

Great — you made a sale! But how do you grow the money you earn from every sale? We take you through smart strategies to ensure that you’ve maximised the amount of money you can earn — all the while adding value to the customer. And we tell you how best to track key metrics such as clickthroughs and conversions.

Lesson Five shares:

  • The very best moment to ask your customer to spend a little (or a lot) more
  • Upselling and cross-selling strategies that work best online
  • Data, data, data — and why that replaces ‘location’ as the online retailing mantra
  • How an oddly-named technology pioneered by Pattie Maes at MIT now powers the world’s most effective online selling machine (and how you can and must use it yourself)
  • The three crucial ingredients of online retailing success — and how you can constantly refine them to improve your profitability in any market
  • The secrets of today’s online retailing sales funnel
  • Lessons you can learn from a long-dead professor

LESSON SIX: SURVIVING ONLINE SUCCESS

So now you’re selling successfully online — but you’re also drowning in paperwork, struggling to get goods out the door and in danger of being overwhelmed by your own success. We look at currently available tools and best practices (including listing, multi-channel management and logistics systems) and talk you through what you need to do to cope. In this lesson we also explore the steps you must take to build your reputation and credibility online — and how to protect that reputation at all costs.

Lesson Six takes you through:

  • The ten questions that will kill your business if you don’t know the right answers
  • Effective economies of scale and how they can be applied to your business
  • The one common failing that will absolutely doom virtually any online sale
  • Logistics solutions — where to find them and what to evaluate
  • The importance of tracking for smooth after-sales service
  • How to identify and exceed consumer expectations

LESSON SEVEN: COMPETING AGAINST GIANTS

One of the most common issues facing online retailers: “how do I compete effectively against the category killers? They have the buying power and I’m just a small business.” Well, as David found when he went up against Goliath, there are definitely ways to compete and win. We explore the most effective of those strategies (even in commodity-based categories) and start you thinking about what steps you need to take to redefine your business and your products in the online space.

Courtesy Lesson Seven, you’ll discover:

  • How Curation has become perhaps the most important new strategy for online sellers
  • Why today you need to be more hare than tortoise to compete effectively
  • The new 10 Ps of online retailing and why they matter to you
  • Business-changing lessons we can learn from Procter & Gamble and other global marketers

CONCLUSION

Time to turn all that learning into a planned sales programme. We give you the tools (or tell you where to find them). We also share research that reveals online retailers’ top priorities this year and show you how to prepare for retailing tomorrow.

For details of the next Mastering eCommerce course (including timing and pricing and how to register), please click here.

Mobile Shopping Perils & Promises

Smart retailers, in New Zealand as well as elsewhere, are resorting to a low-tech solution to (at least in part) combat the latest high-tech challenge: mobile phone scanners that allows customer to scan bar codes on merchandise and then find the cheapest prices elsewhere.

The low-tech solution? Print price labels with the store’s own (store-specific) barcodes and stick them over the product barcode.
Of course, price comparisons are not the only use for mobile phones at retail — and many of the other possible usages are actually beneficial for retailers. At the weekend The New York Times reported on some of the ways that many US retailers are using mobile technology to make shopping easier for consumers and more lucrative for themselves.
The main way they plan to do it is by turning people’s mobile phones into information displays and ordering devices. Can’t find the flour at the grocery store? Grocers will offer phone applications that tell shoppers exactly where to go. Is the department store out of size 8 jeans? Retailers want to make it simple to punch a couple of buttons and have the desired size shipped home.
Some supermarkets intend to offer real-time coupons while people shop. For example, a promotion for milk may be sent to a shopper’s mobile phone the moment her cart rolls into the dairy aisle. Drugstores will offer loyalty programs on cellphones, not on plastic cards. And specialty chains will allow shoppers to breeze through the aisles compiling a wedding registry, just by pointing at merchandise.
It remains to be seen how readily shoppers will embrace such aggressive merchandising, which will generally require them to download free applications onto their phones and consent to being tracked electronically while in a store. But many stores are betting they will go along. After all, people already wander city streets guided by maps on their mobile phones. Why shouldn’t the same technology lead them to the toilet paper in Aisle 3?
Hoping to use the technology as a competitive advantage, some big chains are reluctant to discuss their plans. The Sam’s Club division of Wal-Mart, Crate & Barrel, Kerr Drug of North Carolina and Disney stores are among the retailers that confirmed they were testing various mobile technology or planned to do so soon.
Technology companies behind the products say retailers are sniffing around, with some planning limited introductions this year and wider deployments in 2011 or 2012.
A technology called ScanLife was recently installed at designer Norma Kamali’s boutique in Manhattan, and it already allows people to scan bar codes on merchandise and obtain details about the clothes through videos. The ability items day or night will come in another week or two.
“To say that I’m excited is putting it mildly,” Ms. Kamali said. “I’ve been in this business since the ’60s and I have to just tell you, nothing — nothing at all — has been as powerful a change in the psyche of the way we do everything as this technology.”
Other retailers have begun testing a product from I.B.M. called Presence. Shoppers who sign up can be detected as soon as they set foot in a store. That enables Presence to offer real-time mobile coupons. And tracking shoppers’ spending habits and browsing time in various departments can help the system figure out who might be moved to suddenly buy a discounted item.
Presence can also make product recommendations. If a shopper was buying cake mix, Presence might suggest buying the store’s private-label frosting and sprinkles, too.
“We’re also able to do predictive analytics — predict what we think you might want based on what we already know about you,” said Craig W. Stevenson, an I.B.M. executive who oversees Presence.
Cisco Systems, the supplier of networking equipment and services for the Internet, is also a leader in the field. The company’s Mobile Concierge system is capable of connecting customers’ smartphones to retailers’ wireless networks — so a shopper could type “Cheez Whiz” into a cellphone, then pinpoint its location in the store.
“We see the smartphone being used more and more in the shopping experience,” said Dick Cantwell, Cisco’s vice president for retail at Cisco’s Internet business solutions group.
Beyond privacy worries, retailers recognize other potential pitfalls. If the phone applications freeze or give bad information, they will most likely frustrate consumers. So reliability will be a priority, a reason retailers are starting with limited tests. And as some executives said, many stores cannot yet afford such technology.
As the more daring retailers see it, the potential benefits outweigh the risks. More aggressive profiling of shoppers — along with a novel, entertaining shopping experience — could help increase sales. And the technology may help retailers save money by cutting workers, essentially substituting electronic guidance for store clerks. Motorola, for example, has stores testing kiosk systems that enable consumers to summon a clerk to a particular department or fitting room when needed.
A new Motorola product promises to eliminate loyalty cards, instead putting the program, as well as coupons, onto shoppers’ cellphones. “Probably by the end of 2010 we’ll have 10 to 20 retailers up and running,” said Frank Riso, a senior director at Motorola, adding that most of the activity will begin in 2011.
Many big retailers have already created cellphone applications that do more than just dole out coupons. Target, for one, has an application that can identify which store aisle sells nightgowns.
So far, many stores have focused on improving their mobile shopping sites, which some consumers use when browsing the aisles to see product reviews and specifications. Retailers like Sears and American Eagle Outfitters work with a company called Usablenet to optimize their mobile sites.
Jason Taylor, Usablenet’s vice president for mobile products, said retailers began clamoring for improvements around Thanksgiving. The company is also working with a retailer, which it said it could not name, to enable shoppers to use smartphones to scan items in its stores, then add them to gift registries.
“Extending the phone to use as a scanner in the retail world — especially gift registry, wish lists — you’re going to see a lot more of this year,” Mr. Taylor said.
In the end, though, stores may not have much control over the way consumers use mobile technology, especially for price comparison purposes. The only real method of combating such usage: the old-fashioned notion of providing a retail experience so superior that consumers are willing to pay a little more.

Afraid of Customer Reviews? A Word of Advice.

Are you hesitant about implementing ratings and reviews on your website because you’re concerned about negative comments?

It’s a common complaint. The US National Retail Federation’s Ellen Davis spoke about the issue to Brett Hurt, CEO of BazaarVoice, a social commerce technology company that powers ratings and reviews for 50 of the top 100 US retailers. Here’s what he had to say:

“Every day people are coming to your store and having experiences – positive and negative. You’re kidding yourself if you think all customers have great experiences, and the truth is that most unhappy customers won’t ever take the time to write a letter or complain to a manager. So, what happens? You see the negative effects in one way or another – defection to your competitors, high return rates, and decreasing sales. Why guess at what is happening when you can make it easy for consumers to communicate with you, and each other, so you can solve these problems and uncover new opportunities?

“You should also note that our research over the past four years has shown that over 80 percent of all reviews are positive – worldwide. There’s simply no reason to hide from reviews. They are proven to increase sales, decrease returns, lift customer loyalty, and transform the practices of your marketers and merchandisers. To think you can hide from the effects of word of mouth are misguided, and there is no debate about the positive, highly quantifiable effects of embracing it.”

Is Customer Loyalty Even Possible Online?

How does a brand create loyalty when shoppers can easily switch to other brands they see on the Internet? David Selinger, CEO of Rich Relevance, a San Francisco company that makes personalization and product recommendation tools for eCommerce sites, such as Sears, WestLaw and Patagonia, shared his insights in a recent Forbes article.
Creating and maintaining loyalty as consumers move across channels is the biggest obstacle for all marketers today. Shoppers are constantly searching for items online, comparing prices at different sites, coming back to a retailer’s site (or not) after searching on Google ( GOOG – news – people ) or Amazon for the same product. Or they might go into a store intending to buy a certain product, but then use their mobile to look up prices at competitors’ Web sites. (According to Motorola ( MOT – news – people ), 51% of shoppers overall and 64% from the 18-to-34 age group used their mobile phones for in-store shopping-related activities during the 2009 holiday season. This included comparing prices, finding user reviews and making a purchase via mobile.)
Overall, 43% of consumers switch channels during the shopping process, according to a June 2007 Forrester study entitled “The Web’s Impact On In-Store Sales: U.S. Cross-Channel Sales Forecast, 2006 To 2012.” The problem is, as people move between channels–online, offline, and mobile–they have a 45-50% chance of changing the retailer they will end up purchasing from. People want the best deal today; they are not loyal to brands or certain retailers.
The loss of loyalty isn’t simply a problem, it’s got massive opportunity cost as the multi-channel shopper should be considered our most valuable asset. Whatever the channel a customer uses to interact with a retailer, those interactions should be problem-free, but they should also be full of value-added, personal, engaging offers. And these interactions should be seamless–one customer, one experience. When a customer frequents a retailer’s site online and then goes into the physical store, the sales associates should be able to access that person’s past sales history to recommend items they’d be interested at the price points they are willing to pay–and vice versa.
One way to build loyalty is to converge on one concept of engagement across channels. Most retailers do this independently in the offline and in the online channels; but few focus on creating a consistent user experience across channels, which may explain why retailers are losing 45-50% of shoppers as they switch channels. Instead, retailers need to give consumers a reason to continue shopping at the same retailer–regardless of channel by providing a personalized experience in every channel–enticing people not only with recommendations for specific products and services that meet their needs, but with recommendations for products at price points that match their past purchase behavior. After each purchase marketers should utilize every channel to present consumers with relevant, personalized offers over time–by e-mail, Twitter, iPhone app, personalized recommendations on their site, etc. That way shoppers don’t need to switch to another retailer to get the products they want at the price they want to pay; they trust their preferred retailer to present them with the most relevant products and the best deals, so they don’t need to comparison shop.
It ain’t much, but it’s a start.

Coupons and/or Promotional Codes: Now is the Hour

There’s never been a better time to offer coupons and/or promotional codes than right now, in the current economic conditions.

Consumers have started to rediscover ‘The Joy of Coupons’, with US coupon usage rising in 2009 for the first time since 1992. That’s according to Inmar, a leading promotion transaction settlement provider.

US coupon distribution in 2009 hit the highest level recorded since Inmar began tracking trends in 1988. For the first time in 17 years, consumers used more coupons than they did the year before, with 3.3 billion consumer packaged goods coupons redeemed, a 27% increase over the 2.6 billion redeemed in 2008.

The rise in coupon use started in October 2008, coinciding with news of the US financial crisis. That has led to five consecutive quarters of double-digit growth (based on percentage change from the same period of the previous year).

The increase in redemption goes hand-in-hand with an increase in distribution. Despite the tight economy, marketers invested heavily in coupons, boosting the number available to the highest level in over 30 years. Brands issued 367 billion coupons, at an average face value of US$1.44, indicating that they were committed to promotions in 2009.

Of particular importance to our constituency:

  • Online coupons also contributed to the rise in coupon distribution and redemption, with internet distribution up 92% and consumer redemption of these coupons up over 360%.

However, in spite of the meteoric rise in online and digital couponing, the traditional newspaper-distributed couponed inserts still account for 89% of all coupons distributed and over half of the coupons redeemed. American consumers expect to find coupons in their Sunday papers, and they will continue to look there for them.

As coupon numbers across the board rose in 2009, brands were forced to mitigate the cost of increased redemption by maintaining face values and keeping expiration periods in check. In 2009, face values declined by a penny, reversing a multi-year trend of increasing values. Expiration periods were shortened by 10% last year, after years of virtually no change.

So — time to get into couponing and promotional offers (if you hadn’t already). Just one note of caution — be totally transparent about your offers, and avoid falling into the trap that Borders did (which attracted the attention of an unwanted suitor, the Commerce Commission):

In November and December 2009 Borders advertised a promotion with the headline offer “Receive $20 in vouchers for every $75 you spend at Borders until Christmas.” The promotion was widely advertised in-store and online through an e-newsletter and on Borders’ website. However, the small print of the offer specified that customers could only redeem one $10 voucher in January and a second $10 voucher February, which, in the Commission’s view, materially changed the headline offer.

The State of Online Retailing: US 2009

The average customer service cost per online order for American retailers surveyed in mid-2009 was US$4.30.

That stat comes from Shop.org’s The State of Retailing Online 2009: Merchandising Report, conducted by Forrester Research amongst 119 US retailers.

Based on that research, it seems that optimizing the basics – not just adding “shiny objects” – is where retailers were prudently focusing in 2009 (and are likely to continue to focus in 2010).

Specifically, retailers set the following as priorities for their Web sites:

  • Checkout process redesign – 79%
  • Improved content on product detail pages – 73%
  • Site search and browse results – 71%
  • Home page – 60%
  • Redesigned help section / FAQs – 35%

So, what should the etailing industry expect to see in terms of specifics?

  • Check out. Retailers recognize that giving customers the full total for their purchases, i.e. calculating specific shipping and handling charges, prior to actual checkout is one key to preventing shopping cart abandonment.  A 2005 Forrester study found that over half of consumers who left items in their shopping cart did so because they didn’t want to pay shipping charges, and almost as many again noted that the total cost was higher than they anticipated.

    According to the survey, 88 percent of retailers will focus on providing more shipping information within the next year, including such details as when a customer can expect to receive a package and information about when products have left the warehouse. In addition, two-thirds of retailers (67%) said they would pay special attention to calculating the loaded cost of an order prior to checkout.

  • Product detail pages. Merchants surveyed anticipate investing more in alternative images, zoom and, to a somewhat lesser degree, lifestyle or on-model photography.  Additionally, they plan to augment product information with user-generated content such as ratings and reviews.  Streaming video, a much-discussed site feature among online merchandisers, appears for now more of a medium priority.

    Retailers are also relying on shoppers themselves to provide key information to product detail pages. According to the survey, more than half of retailers (60%) use customer ratings and reviews and 55 percent of companies will make ratings and reviews a priority for the coming year. In addition, 34 percent will incorporate automated recommendation tools by third parties for their site.

    In addition to improving detail on current pages, retailers are adding new pages to their sites to better accommodate shoppers on a budget. According to the survey, 89% of retailers say that they are introducing sale or clearance pages to their sites in the coming months.

  • Search results. Recognizing the power of the first items featured on a search results page, retailers surveyed noted that filters for on-site search are another area of focus for them.  Presenting products in terms of top-seller or top-rating status can yield strong results.  Some retailers surveyed also noted that overhauling their site search capabilities entirely will be a focus this year.

    Many online shoppers have specific items in mind and retailers are paying special attention to site search features to make it easier for customers to find what they’re looking for. According to the survey, nearly three-quarters of retailers (73%) plan to add different skins or filters to their search functions, which would enable shoppers to choose multiple attributes like brand, color, price and size to their site search. In addition, 41 percent of retailers surveyed said they are evaluating introducing an entirely new search engine to their websites.

“The State Of Retailing Online 2009: Merchandising Report” can be purchased directly at www.shop.org/soro.

Where “stylish young Kiwi professionals” shop online

Recession? What recession?

Not everyone has bought into the notion of doom and gloom and economic downturn that’s been afflicting the chattering classes around here.

An Experian Hitwise study (the New Zealand Lifestyle Mosaic Report) compiled by Senior Analyst Sandra Hanchard explores the online behaviour of this lucrative segment, which it dubs “Urban Intelligence”:

  • Urban Intelligence consumers are stylish young professionals, aged 25-34 years. They are very ambitious, driven by success and well-educated. Most work in professional and technical occupations where they earn well above average household incomes, of over $56,000 per annum. Cars, clothes and accessories are seen as an extension of themselves. They wear stylish clothing with the right labels to get them noticed, and express themselves through conspicuous purchases.
  • These people are technologically savvy early adopters and are into computers and associated technical gadgets. They are heavy Internet users, using it for music downloads, online shopping and entertainment, and would prefer to do all their banking without having to visit a branch. They consider themselves intellectuals and enjoy cultural pursuits, appreciating art and fine food, but are just as comfortable with takeaways and a movie.
What does Experian Hitwise know about this Urban Intelligence segment (accounting for 4.8% of New Zealand households)?
Quite a bit, much of it detailed in the free report.
What caught our eye in particular?
  • This group includes a higher proportion of those of Asian descent than the population at large, and as a result they can be found participating in disproportionate numbers on Asian language networks, including SkyKiwi (9.54%), 6park.com (10.09%), Yeeyi (10.4%) and Cyworld (11.94%). In comparison, Facebook attracts 7.42% of the Urban Intelligence Group.
  • The Urban Intelligence set are significantly lower users of Trade Me (indexed at 69 versus the general population) — presumably their obsession with brands and with the finer things of life means they’re not afraid to pay retail.
  • Retail verticals that did perform strongly in attracting visits from Urban Intelligence included Apparel and Accessories (indexed at 125), Grocery and Alcohol (125), Department Stores (111), Flowers and Gifts (111), and Health and Beauty (109).
  • Retail verticals under-represented by Urban Intelligence included Toys and Hobbies (69), Sports and Fitness (80), Music – Shopping (89), and House and Garden (92).
  • In that top retail vertical, Apparel and Accessories, T-Shirts were the most popular offering. Designer t-shirt online shop, 1-Daytee was the leading Apparel and Accessories website visited by Urban Intelligence. US t-shirt company, Threadless.com also ranked in the top 10, and attracted a significant percentage of visits from Urban Intelligence (14.36%).
  • There was a mixture of overseas luxury brands (e.g. Net-a-porter.com and Louis Vuitton) and domestic retailers (e.g. Ezibuy, MaxShop.com, Pumpkin Patch New Zealand) visited by Urban Intelligence.
The Top Ten Apparel and Accessories Destinations (ranked by volume of traffic):
1 1-Daytee 5.94%
2 Ezibuy New Zealand 3.52%
3 UDN Shopping 12.44%
4 MaxShop.com 7.97%
5 ASOS 17.38%
6 Louis Vuitton 19.30%
7 Kathmandu New Zealand 5.66%
8 Net-a-porter.com 18.46%
9 Threadless.com 14.36%
10 Pumpkin Patch New Zealand 3.16%
  1. 1-Daytee 5.94% of Urban Intelligence segment
  2. Ezibuy New Zealand 3.52%
  3. UDN Shopping 12.44%
  4. MaxShop.com 7.97%
  5. ASOS 17.38%
  6. Louis Vuitton 19.30%
  7. Kathmandu New Zealand 5.66%
  8. Net-a-porter.com 18.46%
  9. Threadless.com 14.36%
  10. Pumpkin Patch New Zealand 3.16%

The Urban Intelligence segment of the New Zealand Lifestyle Mosaic Report is available free to registered downloaders here.

Top Ten Tips to stop eCommerce becoming eChaos

The best investment you can make in any eCommerce project, according to UK e-commerce and marketing consultant James Gurd?

Spend the time and money required to scope the project comprehensively BEFORE you invite any organisations to bid on the project.
That may seem obvious, but (as Mr Gurd observes in his article on the Econsultancy digital marketing blog), the devil is in the scoping detail.
Here’s his take on the top ten project elements you should include in your scoping phase before you write an RFP:

Spend the time and money required to scope the project comprehensively BEFORE you invite any organisations to bid on the project.

That may seem obvious, but (as Mr Gurd observes in his article on the Econsultancy digital marketing blog), the devil is in the scoping detail.

Here’s his very helpful take on The Top Ten project elements you should include in your scoping phase before you write an RFP:

  1. What are your project goals?
    Start by defining commercial objectives – it’s essential you know how your e-commerce platform supports the overall business so that you can prioritise project elements and evaluate each solution provider’s ability to deliver core functionality to support targets.

    For example, if a primary goal is to build a solution that can scale to cope with rapid traffic growth and seasonal spikes, you need a partner that offers a robust and scalable hosting solution with excellent technical support.

  2. Who is responsible for what?
    To keep your project on time and to budget, avoid duplication of effort and internal confusion. If you’re in chaos, the project manager at your chosen solution provider will struggle to hit milestones.

    You need a single project sponsor at Board level (too many cooks, broth etc), a project manager who is the go-to person for your solution provider and a project team which supports your PM. It’s essential that for each person involved, their line manager supports their involvement and has allocated resource to this project. It can’t be left as a “when I’ve got time” approach. If you want a successful e-commerce project, take it seriously across the business.

  3. Which stakeholder groups do you need to involve?
    Involving the relevant people upfront has two benefits; you get visibility of the impact the e-commerce channel has on other areas of your business, and you can tackle the politics that can impede project delivery.

    Humans are complex things. By making people feel that they have a stake in the project, you can reduce the internal barriers. Just make sure they don’t try and take over. Personal fiefdoms can be an issue, so protect your project.
  4. Visualise your in-house technology map
    I’ve always found this a great starting point when defining technical requirements. Get your IT team to map out the systems architecture to illustrate inter-dependencies between internal and external systems.

    You need to understand how each element of the e-commerce platform (database, CMS, catalogue manager etc) interacts with other systems and what data exchange formats your business supports.

    Work with your IT team (and external suppliers) to understand any restrictions that must be catered for within the new platform as well as areas for improvement where you would like the solution provider to add value with their expertise.

  5. What are the individual requirements of each business unit?
    Having got people excited, it’s now time to find out what they want. Set up meetings with key people and drill down into how they interact with the e-commerce platform, what they like/dislike and how they think it could support them more effectively. Getting these requirements accurately defined helps you prioritise project elements and cuts time/cost further down the line.

    Don’t fly blind. Produce a clear agenda for each meeting and circulate in advance clarifying how you would like them to prepare. Start each meeting with a clear summary of objectives and try to make them feel that this is a positive experience, not a grilling interview.

  6. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the current platform?
    You don’t want to reinvent the wheel. If something works well (back this up with your analytics and voice-of-customer data…if you have it) make sure it is documented. Keeping what’s good is as important as addressing what’s not and will help manage the project scope/cost.

    I worked with a client who wanted to change the entire checkout process, thinking it was confusing. Looking at the Google Analytics stats, the last two stages of the checkout had excellent conversion. We revised the requirement to include provision for testing of checkout pages to optimise basket-to-order conversion.

  7. What are your success criteria?
    Define your top level critical success factors, both financial and non-financial. This helps sharpen the mind to focus on scoping requirements that add value and aren’t just “nice to have” and is really important when evaluating potential solution providers.

    For example, a success factor could be reducing the time it takes to load new products to the web catalogue and increasing the automatic categorisation and population of data fields. Having this clearly defined helps you evaluate the user interface at demo time.

  8. What do you expect from a strategic partner?
    In my opinion, 80% of e-commerce platform requirements are hygiene factors. The solution should have advanced search capabilities, support multiple templates, enable dynamic merchandising etc.

    What sets people apart is the soft skills that they bring to the partnership and their ability to work with you to evolve your online presence. Define what’s important to you in a strategic partner and explain what evidence you would like to see.

    For example, in a recent RFP I outlined the need for industry presence and contribution to thought leadership as two key qualities for the successful partner. We wanted to see how active people were in exchanging views and offering advice proactively.

  9. What is your e-commerce roadmap?
    Rome wasn’t built in a day and it’s likely that you can’t deliver all your platform needs with the budget you’ve had signed off. Project phasing is important, so you need to outline your roadmap to chart what functionality and capabilities you want to have and by when. This helps solution providers phase the development approach to manage budget and keep the scope realistic to meet project milestones.

  10. How are you going to evaluate solution providers?
    I’ve sat in meetings where people have been unable to decide who offers the best fit solution because they’re not sure what they’re comparing.

    Before you go to market, create a scoring matrix. This maps each element of the RFP into a spreadsheet with a maximum score. The maximum score for each element is weighted depending on priority level.

    Compare apples with apples. By using a uniform scoring matrix, you can evaluate individual project elements as well as overall suitability. Believe me it really does make decision making a lot quicker.

Excellent advice from a seasoned eCommerce practitioner.