Posts Tagged ‘multi-channel’
We’re committed to changing the way we do things around here. A lot.
One of the changes on the horizon is to push our design services in a direction closer to a human-centered approach. That’s a tall order when we practice a medium that is roundly criticized for doing more to make people anti-social than anything else. Adopting design methods historically reserved for industrial design and product development won’t be easy in interactive design, but we’re committed to it as a path for Gorilla.
Aren’t you just talking about user-centered design?
I get that question a lot. In some ways yes, but Chad Camara has a post on his blog that encapsulates the differences very well in my opinon. We’re striving to focus on real, human improvement in our offering, not just improving efficiency. I will be challenging all of Gorilla’s clients to consider how their product or service improves the lives of their customers. Focusing on holistic design concerns in addition to efficiency is something we’re seeing as critical to the mutli-channel environment. People are smart enough these days to know when you’re trying to sell to them versus have a relationship with them. For a lot of our clients, user-centered just isn’t going to cut it anymore.
We’ve got a lot of work to do in this respect. The ephemeral nature of digital media is going to be an advantage and a drawback. The technology moves far too quickly to be mired in research for too long, but the relative ease of deployment means when you consider the long view, you can take a cyclic approach that will put human concerns first.
It will be interesting and challenging no doubt to see where this direction takes us in the years to come.
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Part 1 of a 2 part series on ecommerce personalization.
At Gorilla, we see ecommerce is quickly shifting away from one-to-many conversations where retailers can submit massive communications to all customers and expect the best results. Customers today expect personal one-to-one conversations between consumers and retailers like they receive in brick-and-mortar stores. Your business and customers are unique. Your shopping experience should be too. One of our driving mantras is to create authentic shopping experiences that connect brands to the right customers. Ecommerce personalization can be a powerful tool to help retailers speak more relevantly to their customers.
Until recently, ecommerce personalization was only accessible to big retailers who could create their own personalization algorithms in their R&D facilities. What ultimately drove Amazon to the top of the internet retail hill was its ability to recommend products that users would find interesting in dynamic ways across their site. If you searched for a book on traveling to Italy, you might also see other books on Italian cuisine or lightweight travel backpacks. Ecommerce personalization is quickly becoming accessible to mid-market retailers as companies learn to scale complex algorithms into usable elements that make sense for the mid-market, both from an implementation and financial perspective. If you are unfamiliar with personalization, here is a quick overview of what it is and how it can impact your business’ bottom line.
What Is Ecommerce Personalization?
Ecommerce Personalization is a one-to-one interaction or one-to-one many interactions (site versioning for different visitor segments). A one-to-one personalization is custom web pages delivered to individuals based on explicit or inferred inputs. A one-to-many personalization is a finite set of web pages delivered to customers based on how these customers map to predetermined segments. Generalization – or one-to-all – is a single clickstream path or set of items appearing to all customers, regardless of their previously exhibited behavior or intent. 52% of consumers who experienced personalization like it according to a recent Forrester Report.
Personalization matters because shoppers value recommendations. Shoppers are often persuaded by recommendations because it helps them discover products and solutions they might not be familiar with otherwise. 77% of customers say they find recommendations in general extremely useful and 1/3 of consumers report having purchased products based on recommendations they were shown.
Personalization tools are able to drive key metrics such as revenue, conversion, average transaction value, time on site or margins, providing measurable ROI for marketers who have to fight for their marketing budgets.
How Personalization Works
Ecommerce Personalization is driven by shopper inputs, the engine algorithm and the resulting outputs.
• Shopper Inputs are data points implicitly gathered about the customer during their browsing session by observing customer behavior and then evaluated to extract commonalities, associations and cause-effect relationships. Common inputs are the time spent on site, keyword searches, customer reviews, location ID, product attributes, merchant-driven rules, clicks, sales and margin.
• The Engine Algorithm is a separate formula for determining which recommendations are most appropriate in a specific scenario. Common approaches include collaborative filtering, Bayesian reasoning, choice modeling, and simple data mining.
• Resulting Outputs are how marketing efforts are displayed onsite. Simple outputs can be cross-sells, upsells or mboxes (targeted marketing info) appearing on product details pages. Whereas a more complex result will come from landing pages or home pages changing, dependent upon the creation of different experiences retailers create for each cluster of shoppers.
But this is only the beginning of a topic that deserves some deep exploration. In part II of this post, we’ll go into detail about the functional requirements for personalization, the challenges common to retailers and the potential ROI for merchants who get it right.
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Manufacturers these days are thinking about how they can go direct to consumer online while still remaining loyal to their tried-and-true channels. Some are actually selling direct to consumer and fulfilling in different manners (e.g. from a warehouse, dealer/distributor networks, and in-store pick up.)
Since researching and finding product information is the #1 goal of visitors, it’s to your advantage to update your content and functionality available on your ecommerce platform. Manufacturers should have comprehensive and SEO-friendly product descriptions with images, videos, and specification documents to ensure the user experience is not disorganized and busy.
They can also take advantage of social media integration, customer reviews, comparison tools, advance sorting features, custom configurators, and strong site search function — all features available on Magento Enterprise, and all features that are becoming necessary to maintaining conversion rates as other sites get more and more robust.
When the manufacturer does not sell direct to consumer online, a well-designed (and functional) dealer and store locator is essential to driving sales to the channel. We also suggest using peer-to-peer inventory status, so customers know exactly where they can buy the item they are researching (e.g. online partners, in-store, distributors, dealers). Keeping that path to purchase easy and efficient will have an enormous impact on site usability. To see this in action, check out prAna, a site Gorilla recently built, where we implemented P2P inventory look-up to maintain channel harmony.
Link to:
www.prana.com
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Customer adoption of the mobile internet is growing significantly. Internet Retailer reported that in the spring of 2010 7.3M people per month were accessing mCommerce sites which is a 46% increase over 2009. Forrester is forecasting that 57% of active phones will be 3G or 4G capable and able to access mCommerce sites by the end of 2010.
These consumers expectations of mCommerce and applications will continue to rise, and retailers and brand manufacturers will be expected to keep up.
Customer service can be a more immediate and very mobile as people are no longer chained to their desk to receive attention. Customers can engage you while in your store, competitors store, or in the area of one of your dealers or storefronts.
Always include your contact information.
Optimize FAQ and help for mobile along with self service and other cool applications that can drive traffic and sales.
Ensure users have an integrated multi channel experience with a single repository of all customer information accessible from mobile or web site.
Implement mobile chat, SMS, and click to chat.
Implementing customer service via mobile will become a requirement and will give early adopters huge advantages for their brand and high touch with their customers building loyalty.
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There were some key findings in the study that can give you a view of where your peers are feeling pain, and where they plan their investments.
80% said online growth as critical to their overall business in multi-channel environment, and were not satisfied with their current site’s user experience.
33% will invest in a new ecommerce platform and redesign.
40% not satisfied with their site’s ability to drive AOV and Conversion rates, and 68% looking to increase both.
62% of Mid Market companies looking to improve their user experience.
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