Off the Shelf: The Retail & CPG Blog

Continue reading "Are Brick and Mortar companies facing extinction?" »

Posted by Tanveer Singh Khanuja at 2:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I have discussed about some important strategies that a retailer's social media plan should entail, in one of my blogs earlier. It is extremely essential that we also provide the right features in our social solution.  In this blog I have discussed some very interesting features that a social solution must include. This list is a result of an extensive research of various social features currently available in the market and being put to effective use by various online businesses. We had also presented these ideas through a PoV last year. 

We have all known of the facebook and twitter share/like button and this has been extensively talked about thus far. We also know about features such as the "Shop" tab on facebook, But there are some very interesting features that can make your social shopping solution savvy and fun..... 

Continue reading "Essential and Savvy features for your Social Solution" »

Posted by Sanjeev Kulkarni at 9:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We do realize that social media plays an important role in the way we conduct business today. Every retailer yearns to be a part of the social revolution. In their quest to stay ahead of the competition, is very important for every online business to strategize a social media plan. How should retailers go about planning their social media strategy?

There are a few important facts that any retailer should analyze before they jump to a strategy:
- What is it that I want to achieve, through a social media strategy?
- Do I really believe this is an unearthed goldmine?
- How should I implement a successful social media plan? How easy is it to implement different social media strategies and what is the timeline I'm looking at?
- What is my budget?

Well, as we find answers to these questions, we do realize that there are two different strategies that a retailer may plan to implement:

1. Retail layer on a social layer:
This strategy aims to build a retail layer on a social layer (For eg. Building a retail layer on facebook). Very recent examples are that of J.C.Penny embedding their complete product catalogue on facebook, and Hallmark cards embedding the "Shop" tab on their facebook page to allow customers to buy cards on Facebook.
Features such as the Facebook "like" button and "share" on twitter may also be considered part of this strategy. Another very important feature would be open id or facebook/twitter login.

Amazon implemented facebook connect in order to provide product suggestions based on likes and favorites pulled from your social graph. By connecting your account, you allow Amazon to scrape the interests and favorites of your friends. You can then view suggested gift ideas based on this data. Amazon also will populate lists of items that are popular among all of your friends, as well as suggestions based on your own interests.

What can I achieve?
In simple words -
- Connectivity to customers and a more informed and a knowledgeable customer.
- Easy Viral marketing on social media.
- Personalized recommendations using interests/likes/dislikes etc of customers based on their social graph.

What about the time and budget?
Easy to achieve. The easiest parts being "Facebook like" and "Share" buttons. The overall strategy is easy to implement and requires a few months of efforts. An agile implementation model helps in interim analysis of the success of various features you implement.

2. Social layer on a retail layer:
This is a comparatively difficult and a time consuming strategy to implement. It aims at building a social network within your retail network. Mysears.com is an example of this. Department store Sears have given their website a social shopping makeover by adding a social layer that allows you to "message" and "follow" other users, see their profiles and their onsite social activity, like products (as well as dislike, want and own them), and join groups.

What can I achieve?
- Connectivity to customers and a more informed and a knowledgeable customer.
- Easy Viral marketing within the retail network.
- Personalized recommendations using interests/likes/dislikes etc of customers based on their social graph within the retail network.
- Though most of the results are same as the first strategy, the following points are worth taking a look at.

What about the time and budget?
Time required to implement this strategy is greater than leveraging an already existing social network like facebook or myspace or twitter to do your job. If you have a greater social media budget and want to own all the trends of your customers without letting a 3rd party to know what your customers like, what they dislike, what are their gift lists etc. then this is the strategy for you to implement.

Which strategy is the best for you?
The answer to this question depends on a multitude of factors, which have been considered above. But if I were to consult you, I would recommend you to go with the first strategy if your budget is not huge and you are ok to let facebook or whoever your social media partner may be, to own all of the shopping and activity trends of your customers. Also, this is the best strategy for you to implement as long as you feel you are only testing the waters and not actually swimming. You may take a plunge into the second strategy if you have a solid budget and have already tested waters for yourself. A detailed analysis of your business format, product portfolio, customer profiles, market demographics, customer preferences and your Social commerce budget will help portray a better picture of your future social strategy.

These are some thoughts that might help you as retailers, marketers, social media executives or as consultants to help align social media strategies of the future.

Posted by Sanjeev Kulkarni at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If Social media were a human, it would barely be 5 years old. A child, really.

Now imagine beating a 5 year old child with a stick demanding him to grow-up faster. Not a pleasant scene to visualize, is it?

But that's exactly what we, the marketers, are really doing to Social media. Beating it senseless with an 'ROI' stick!

Not that I don't understand the dilemma that the marketers are in right now. Really, they are not in an enviable position right now. It is quite natural for marketers to spontaneously ask for ROI estimates and approximate conversions the minute one utters the word - 'Social Media'. After-all, we have just about escaped the clutches of one of the most dreaded recessions after the great depression of 1920s. Marketers across the board have been left struggling to manage decreasing consumer spending while scrambling to meet the growth numbers and targets.

However, let's take a step back, and look at some facts:

-          Average corporate spend (%) on Social Marketing, GLOBALY, is around than 3.5% of the marketing budget. (Source: http://www.socialmediaexpress.com/social-media-spend-double-2010/)

-          The remaining 96.5% of the budgets are allocated among the traditional media - with print & Television taking a lion's share. Who gets how much money, depends mostly on the following criterion:

o   Print - Circulation figures of publications; which have been proved to be easily manipulated and an incorrect representation of the reach. Readership numbers shared by any publications come with numerous fine prints and are 'estimates (guess work)', at best.

o   TV - TAM numbers based on a few thousand boxes placed in houses across the country.

So where do the above facts leave us?

It would not be too reckless if we were to thus assume, that we are spending most of our money on the basis of 'Sample' data that can no way give a complete and accurate picture of the consumer sentiment. After-all it's highly improbable, if not outright impossible, that a few thousand people will be able to correctly depict the feelings and behavior of millions of others.  

No wonder the average consumer response has been sliding for new product and service launches last couple of years! Barring a few exceptions off course - iPhone! But no one seems to be complaining, surprisingly.

Social Media could provide the solution - Only if we let it!

There is no denying that Social has its own set of problems. Not the least of them being the overall penetration especially in the BRIC countries that are the markets of tomorrow. However, like I mentioned earlier, the medium is barely a few years old and what it needs is for the marketers to work with it rather than against it.

Unlike the traditional media, Social Media has the capability provide actual, useable and real-time data. Data that is not based on sample populations but holistic, integrated and meaningful. Social is the only medium that really puts us directly in touch with the consumer, so that we can understand them better. (And there is no dearth of analytics and listen solutions that could help us make sense of all the reams of data. The analytics landscape is only going to improve as we go along).

The possibilities in terms of business applications are phenomenal - consumer engagement, co-creation, customer service, collaboration...you name it. Returns will come but only when we have invested enough time and efort nurturing the medium.

But that's only if our constant beating does not kill it first!   

Posted by Amit Handa at 8:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

No other technology or phenomenon changed the way we work, live or play, the way internet and specifically social media did. It quite literally erased boundaries of all kinds - geographic, interpersonal, corporate...

People across demographic profiles took to the internet and social media for 'Instant everything' - connections, music, movies, information, shopping. The age of 'instant Gratification' has set in.

And the march of Social has only begun...

With 500 million people using Facebook and Twitter seeing more than two billion tweets per month, social media usage is skyrocketing.  This trend is clearly visible not only among users accessing the internet through PCs but also amongst mobile users, who spend 1.4 times as many hours using social networking sites than reading and responding to e-mail, according to a recent study by research company TNS.

The study, which tracked the online activities and behaviors of nearly 50,000 subjects between 16 and 60 years of age in 46 countries, cited "the increased need for instant gratification" as well as "the ability to offer multiple messaging formats, including the instant message or update function," for the popularity of social networking platforms on mobile devices. More consumers, both in the U.S. and abroad, expect to spend even more time accessing social media on their mobile devices in the future, rather than their PCs.

Consumers are spending more time on social media than on television. Facebook, linkedin, Orkut, hi5, blogs, youtube, twitter...you name it. Consumers just can't seem to get enough of Social Media.

How to Measure the Index of Instant Gratification

All this hoopla is attracting marketers' attention and they are loosening the purse strings. A February 2010 survey by Duke University's Fuqua School of Business found that survey respondents were devoting 5.6 percent of their marketing budget to social media -- up from 3.5 percent six months prior.

While all this buzz social media in general is creating a lot of interest that has led to a slew of campaign/application launches by brands across verticals, the measurement of the resulting impact and consumer engagement has, so-far, been hazy at best.

This might just be about to change as some innovative analytics solutions enter the seen. The leader among the pack so far is the social media analytics service Klout. Well-known for its Twitter influence measurement scores, Klout, has finally launched a version of its platform that determines your influence on Facebook.

Klout currently uses various data points from Twitter to figure out your "Klout Score," a representation of your influence and ability to compel action by others online. Its Twitter analytics platform takes into account metrics such as re-tweets, follower counts, list memberships and unique mentioners to calculate everything from who influences you to your "true reach" on Twitter.

Klout's now trying to do the same thing on Facebook. Once connected to a Facebook account, Klout will pull in data such as likes, comments and your friendship network in order to determine your influence on Facebook. Moreover, instead of representing Facebook and Twitter with different scores, Klout has decided to integrate them into a single Klout Score.

This opens a whole new chapter in online analytics and consumer engagement as marketers (or anyone using Klout) begin to get a broader view of the consumer response and engagement on social media.

It's Social Listening on steroids!

Posted by Amit Handa at 6:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Everyone as a child has at least one moment when they think to themselves, "I will not be like my parents."  Although this thought tends to appear in a moment of 'unfair' punishment or discipline of some kind, it does seem to be the beginning of one's fear of growing old.  At the extreme, the elderly are described as being 'invisible.'  The Pharmaceutical industry cherishes this population, but from a retail industry perspective, I cannot argue against the attitude of invisibility.  Gap, Inc. has a brand for every generation of one's life up until the stretches of middle age.  If however, there is a huge demographic shift occurring, why is the retail industry not focused on this population?

Continue reading "The Next Facebook Generation (psst...it has a lot of spending power)" »

Posted by Whitney Hunter Thomson at 1:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In one of my earlier blogs on rediff i had discussed this concept of a socially networked marketplace. I had discussed the concept of a market-place like Amazon or Ebay with an embedded functionality of social networking. Therefore, sellers and customers end up socially networking - Sellers to promote their services and products and customers would network with other customers and sellers. Also there was another idea envisaged there - A scocial networking site with the functionality of an e-commerce website (e.g what happens if Orkut / facebook / Myspace - enable their users to list products and services with a basket checkout functionality). There are other nuances to be considered as well, when we talk of a socially networked marketplace - Would an ecommerce retailer ever want such a functionality to be built into their website, where customers can network amongst each other? 

I happened to come across this artice http://www.storefrontbacktalk.com/securityfraud/setting-limits-on-customers-talking-with-each-other-in-e-commerce/ last week. Amazon has made its first move against customers and sellers getting in touch with each other directly. This only means that Amazon is now moving into a phase where they want customers and sellers to network through the amazon network and not through personal email, as before. Once the communication between users of the marketplace goes out of the network, Amazon looses all control. Having said this, we may assume that amazon would want to enable the feature of social networking on its own network - rather than customers joining the sellers personal twitter, myspace or linkedin networks and letting amazon loose all control over its customers.

This is probably the first move of its kind and in the days to come other retailers would take cue and follow.  

Posted by Sanjeev Kulkarni at 5:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

As social commerce becomes more and more widespread, companies are starting to realise the ‘power of the people’. By this I mean more and more shoppers are speaking to each other about their purchases. What they liked about the product, what they disliked, and how their expectations were different from what they actually received.

Continue reading "There is nothing average about my star rating!" »

Posted by Jonathan Nobbs at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Previously shoppers in major cities such as New York, London, Paris and Los Angeles were the only ones privy to one of the best kept secrets - the designer sample sale!  Shoppers typically line up for hours on end and rush to get designer outfits at stellar prices.  Some sample sales require exclusive invitations and set up allocated appointment times in secret locations all over the city.  Traditionally sample sales include a narrow selection of high end merchandise with limited inventory at ridiculously reduced prices for a very short amount of time.  Now shoppers all over the country are getting access to sample sales that were previously only accessible to the fortunate few to be at the right time and right place.

Over the recent year, there has been a rise in the phenomenon of online sample sale websites. While the retail industry has seen a decline in sales this past year, online sample sale sites are doing relatively well in this recessionary climate as shopaholic women (and men!) with a taste for high end fashion are drawn to this online guilty pleasure. 

While there are a few top contenders that have taken the market by storm, the market is starting to see more and more e-tailers attempting to grab a piece of the pie.  Some of my favorite sites are:

Continue reading "Online Sample Sales - E-tailers Beware!" »

Posted by Behnaz Ghahramani at 7:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

By now, you’ve probably heard about the incident where two Dominos employees decided to enhance food intended for customers with their own special recipe of additives.  If not, you can read about it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/business/media/16dominos.html?_r=2&ref=business

The internet is dense with examples of how web 2.0 communications, e.g. blogs, gripe sites, social networks have created havoc and damage to corporate brands and images.  There is no question that these new media will persist and likely proliferate.  Just pick a company name and insert it into the URLs www.IHATE(companyname).com or www.(companyname)SUCKS.com.  There’s a good chance the site already exists.  The internet is a double edged sword that can buy you desired awareness and public praise or place a giant e-spotlight on your least proud moments faster than child actor gossip travels to TMZ.  Some of the most compelling sources of information are employees, current or past, publicly praising or covertly condemning.

So from a governance and management perspective, how do you wield this potentially awesome yet dangerous tool to your advantage?  How do you exert control over the effect of your employees on your image and brand while still respecting them and respecting their rights?

• Is it ethical, moral, and/or legal to disparage your employer online?  Does it matter whether you do it during work hours versus during time off?
• How do you differentiate between an employee stating an opinion versus disparaging their employer and possibly sharing sensitive information?
• What are the implications of posting trade secrets?  How do you define a trade secret?
• What policies should be instituted to protect against these damaging information?  What policies and enforcements can be instituted?
• Are there consequences for posting false information?

Some ideas about developing your corporate position on participating in web 2.0 communications related to the company:

• Do you have goals/ guidelines for what you want to accomplish using social media (e.g. raise awareness and visibility, supplement the traditional channels of communication like help lines)?
• Do you have relevant guidelines for this area for proper business conduct?
• Are employees explicitly informed as to whether they are allowed to participate in social media during company time?
• Do you have/ want/ need an oversight or review function?
• Do you have explicit guidelines on what can be posted on internal social media platforms?
• Are employees allowed to identify their company affiliations on their public messages and postings?
• Do you have guidelines for how your employees discuss the competition?

Some thoughts for employees thinking about sharing their thoughts indiscreetly:

• Are you really anonymous on the web?
• Can the company find you?
• Can the company monitor your web activity?
• If the company does find you, can it fire you?

Yes, plenty of questions and not many answers at this stage of the game.  What I can tell you in this space is this: Enterprises should manage social network dangers with sensible policies leveraging a combination of proper training and use of technology.  Do not do this reactively to a recent fire that was created, but go through the necessary thought process (like the questions above) and develop a position on what you want to accomplish.  Then your policy can be developed to support these goals.

Your next challenge will then be getting your employees to follow the policies, but that’s a topic for another time.

Posted by Lester Lam at 4:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My fellow blogger Rockey has recognized the arrival of Mobile-apps and the increasing retail presence in the space[i]. I want to further expand on this topic by recognizing some important trends – predicted boom in smartphone usage and increasing demographic variety of users. Both of these suggest customization as a way of creating value of the consumer interaction in this space.

1.       Mobile-apps are booming

There over 30,000 apps on the Apple appstore and they are growing by the day. The rest of the major players – Microsoft, Palm, RIM and Google either already have or are planning to open an appstore of their own. The number of smartphone users capable to access those apps is expected to quadruple in 2013 growing to 100MM[ii] . The large variety of apps paired with the ever improving technical specs of the phones are truly driving the convergence into a single device for work and play – work an Excel sheet, level a bookcase, find a favorite song or your parked car and play an office prank with the iFart app.

2.       User profile is changing

At first, smartphones were only used by the high income early-adopter user type. However, this trend is quickly changing with prices becoming more affordable and users willing to spend more for a multi-functional device. The growth rates in iPhone adoption are three times higher in incomes $25K - $50K as compared to over $100K[iii]. This trend will most likely continue into the future and smartphones will penetrate even further into a variety of demographic segments where users will have starkly different interests and needs. Combined with the plethora of information, available apps and the small screen size for access, customization will become of high priority.

Both of these trends imply that if a retailer does not yet have a viable presence in mobile-apps they need to start working on it. But even more importantly, the retailer needs to be thinking of ways to provide a customized experience that will be essential in user satisfaction and creating value in this space.

Retailers can start by customizing the landing page based on the user profile when their domain is accessed by a smartphone.  To solve this they can marry their current segmentation approach and identify the top 3 product groups and activities that those segments perform on their web page or store. Then, they can classify the phone user (getting the data from the mobile carrier) based on the segmentation and offer them the tailored landing page. If the user is classified to be part of the “Retired Consumer” segment, then they could be shown quick links to books, prescriptions and online photo. For the “Teen” segment the user can see music, fashion and school supplies.  This can be further tailored by the specific user behavior and preferences exhibited over time.

Additionally, retailers can improve the in-store experience by converting the smartphone into a functional shopping assistant. Large retailers can provide annotated store maps and pair them with the built-in phone GPS to assist in getting to the right places based on the user shopping list. While browsing the store the user can take a picture of an item bar code with their phone camera and use an app to match it against the product database to see e detailed list of features and reviews. Users can get tailored promotions on their phone as they are shopping and redeem right off their phone at the register. Market basket analysis performed on the specific user segment can be used to suggest relevant complements to the shopping lists created by the user.  Users could also be allowed to create “profiles” of their own, like Health Conscious , Environmentally Friendly or Price Focused and establish goals associated with that – concentrate on low-fat foods, save an additional $100 a month, lower carbon footprint etc. A mobile-app can be provided by the retailer to track the products purchased and match against the established goals, along with suggesting relevant products and additional activities that meet those goals.

Posted by Nikolay Trandev at 10:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It all changed a couple of years back when Social Media began to rear its head and retailers started participating in Blogosphere and launching their own blogs. Since then it has been a gigantic rush to keep up with the ever emerging mediums and the online marketers have been pushing out the boundaries and leaping forward with the latest trends.

I decided to pick a few retailers randomly and see how they are keeping up with the emergence of these new channels.

Continue reading "iPhone Apps - The latest entrant in Social Media Marketing" »

Posted by Rockey Nebhwani at 6:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

With today’s recessionary climate, retailers are struggling even more to retain customers and get them to convert online.  It seems that these days online shoppers are much more careful about what they spend their money on.  As a result, comparison shopping is even more common and consumers are spending more time doing their research to make sure they are buying what they need at the best possible price.  Consumers have also become more sophisticated and have higher expectations during their online shopping experience.  Figures range anywhere from 50% to as high as 75% of abandoned carts in the online retail space.   As retailers struggle with ways to reduce this abandonment rate there are a few factors that need to be taken into consideration when deciding what to do to increase conversion.

While different tactics work for different retailers, it is clear that there are some common factors that cause consumers to abandon their carts and that they may not always be what you would be expecting!

Continue reading ""Please Don't Go!" How to Reduce Abandoned Shopping Carts" »

Posted by Behnaz Ghahramani at 6:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Continue reading "Flash Mob Anyone?" »

Posted by Seth Lively at 8:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

LinkedIn recently announced launch of its open application platform for others to develop social applications. (http://blogs.zdnet.com/social/?p=600). Out of those, the one which caught my attention was an application named as the “Reading List” developed by Amazon. Those, who haven’t seen this yet, would probably want to take a look at the Demo video on YouTube. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNlANI9juY8). However, if you think about this, this is not the first time somebody has developed an application like this on a social network.  So, you might be wondering as to what makes this one different?

Continue reading "Amazon & LinkedIn – Collaborative Prospects" »

Posted by Rockey Nebhwani at 5:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

Continue reading "Credit Crunch - Crisis or Opportunity?" »

Posted by Billy Byatt at 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In my travels and conversations with clients, I’m often excited about the high levels of interest I see in all things Web2.0 and Social Commerce. Corporate executives find themselves taking cues from their teenage offspring about what’s hot in this space, chatting to friends about these weird and wonderful behavioral creatures called Social Networks, and engaging on the web in ways they never have before just to keep up with the fast pace of industry developments.

Having said that, I’m struck by the fact that, despite all their excitement, very few people and companies actually have a meaningful strategy to employ the many powerful concepts these topics embody.  As a result, they’re forced to give cagey responses to questions from superiors about how much to budget for Web2.0 and Social Commerce in the next year. It’s almost as though there’s a reluctance to experiment with the ideas because there’s no clear answer to where they should begin. Is a company blog the right place to start? Perhaps ratings & reviews are the way to go? Or maybe we should build a widget for Facebook? You get the point… lots of action but not a whole lot of strategy. Kinda like a goat rodeo…

Recently, I heard the folks from Forrester allude to this phenomenon as “approach avoidance” syndrome. You know, the “I should probably be doing something about this, but I’m not quite sure what, so I’ll just continue to dabble and perhaps one day I’ll wake up and it’ll all be crystal clear to me” approach. This isn’t a challenge unique to web2.0/social commerce, and I’m sure we can borrow countless examples from the history of emerging technologies to illustrate how disruptive technologies can put you into a strategic tailspin. But, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t address it.

So then, the question remains, isn’t it time for a simple, easy-to-apply framework for understanding the social commerce possibilities and defining the right strategy for your company? I think it is….

Stay tuned for my next blog, when I’ll break social commerce down into the handful of business models it  supports, and discuss a simple approach to creating a meaningful social commerce strategy.

Posted by Devon Ferreira at 8:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)