Ecommerce Consulting.com | Experts in Online Retail

Proper Prior Planning for Platform Picking - Part 1

It seems that just about every e-commerce company I speak to lately is either in the process of re-platforming, or gearing up for a platform search.  And it makes sense; after all, now that the channel is well over 10 years old, many e-commerce sites are running on aging technologies.  They've served retailers well, but it's time to reap the benefits of functionality and administrative advances that have evolved over the last 5+ years.

The search for an e-commerce platform solution can be daunting. The landscape is crowded and confusing, and the list of requirements alone can make for an RFP that rivals War and Peace in length. 

Given the importance of the platform decision, it would remiss of me to tell you to just "take these 5 easy steps and success will be yours...."  The truth is, this is a big, important decision and making the decision will take significant research and effort.  There are, however, some steps that you can take early on that will help considerably in preparing the organization and streamlining the process.

1) First, decide who will be involved in the decision process. This will likely (and rightly) be a cross functional effort across merchandising, marketing, IT,  customer care, operations and more.  Identify the team members, the decision maker and the approver.  Who will need to weigh in throughout vs. just check in at key decision points?

2) Agree to an organized selection process. If you can afford the luxury of a project manager, by all means assign a good one to map out the milestones and keep the group on track.

3) Agree on the problems you are trying to solve with a new platform.  There is no "perfect" platform solution, but you will be able to get closer to perfect if you clearly define the problems you have with your current platform and prioritize which are the most critical to solve.  You may want to put more control in the hands of business people vs. developers, or you may want to decrease the time it takes to deploy new features. You may need a more robust functionality set, or better content management capabilities.  It's common for companies to believe that a new platform will solve every current ill, and chances are it won't.  Be clear about what you must solve vs. what you'd like to solve.

4) Look at your e-commerce business goals 5+ years out.  You will need your new platform to take your business to the next level, whatever that may be.  It will be important to understand not only your sales and order volume growth, but also important changes to the way you plan to operate and do business.  Do you foresee bringing currently outsourced operations in-house (such as customer care, design, development, etc.)?  Do you plan to launch new lines of business or brand? Are you planning deeper levels of integration with your other channels?

5) Get an overview of the platform landscape.  Before you dive in to specific providers, get an understanding of the models and choices: full service providers, hosted solutions, custom build shops or build yourself on licensed software...and yes, there are providers that blur the lines between the models (just to make it even more confusing).  Learn about the differences in payment models and service offerings. You will want to select a model first, then a provider within that model. The more work you can do to eliminate models that are not appropriate for your business up front, the smoother your search will go.

Note on point #5 above:  Companies who do NOT take this step typically regret it. Getting RFPs from vendors in different sectors of the market with different models will make it impossible to do an apples to apples comparison, and will create internal confusion and delays. Hint: you might want to consider getting a market overview from an objective third party or someone who's been through the process before.

Taking the early stage steps above will make gathering of requirements, writing an RFP, scoring potential vendors and making a decision a more efficient effort.  You'll be clearer on what you need, which means that eliminating inappropriate providers will be easier. 

Stay tuned for a follow-up post, where I'll cover the selection process itself in more detail, and some best practices for choosing the right solution.

Virtual Gets Real: The Avatar Grows Up

It's been a frantic month of travel and client deadlines, so the time since my last post has been unacceptably long by any blog best practice standards.

If there's an upside to that, it's that I've had enough airplane time in the last month  to get through a virtual (no pun intended) rash of new articles that are well worth reading about virtual reality, and how retailers are beginning to see glimmers of success in their practical application of these technologies.

Unlike earlier stories about the failures of expensive virtual world marketing campaigns (see my previous post on this topic), the articles listed here are well worth taking seriously and indicate that we are, indeed, starting to figure this out.

The areas of promise fall into three camps:

First, consumer research.  Driven primarily by CPG companies (Kimberly Clark, P&G, General Mills), virtual store aisles are providing valuable insights into consumer shopping behavior and response to packaging, product placement and promotions. First, read and article from MediaPost Publications (The Power of the Virtual Shopping Trip), about how virtual environments trump in-store testing on a number of levels, including speed and ability to control environmental factors.  Three more articles worth reading are from E-Commerce Times (Around the E-Commerce Corner: More 3-D, Avatars) the Indystar (Market Research, Virtually Speaking) and The Post-Crescent (Virtual Reality Gives Kimberly-Clark a Head's Up). You can also read my previous post on this topic; clearly progress has been made since that writing.

Second, marketing.  While there are still many issues around effective measurement and the cost of execution, there's evidence that retailers are moving beyond the virtual shopping mall storefronts and into tactics that promote virtual brand engagement and community.  You can read more about this and get some good stats at eMarketer (A Second Look at Virtual Worlds) and Business Week (Second Life Marketing: Still Strong).

Third, business productivity. Read a recent WSJ article (Virtual World Gets Another Life) about how IBM and others are creating virtual corporate environments and meeting spaces where training, presentations and discussions can take place.  For some great visual examples of this in action, look at Business Week's CEO Guide To Virtual Worlds.

I for one, was thrilled to see how these technologies are evolving past the video game stage into valuable business application. Now if I could just find an avatar that would write my blog for me when I get too busy....

Newsflash from the Hive: Old Habits are Hard to Break, Even in Nature

Many times, the best information about marketing comes not from industry trade publications or business books. It comes from the Science Times section of the New York Times.  This week, a short piece appeared about one of my favorite subjects, the honey bee waggle dance (see my previous post, "Want to Create Buzz?..."), which has sparked books and a myriad of fascinating articles about swarm theory and social interaction. 

The more we watch the bees, the more we learn about our own behavior, and yes, marketing.  The article, "Efforts of Dancing Bees Are Often Wasted on Distracted Audience"  explains that often, when a bee dances to alert his hive mates of a hot new food source,  some of the bees ignore the information. Instead of going to the new location for food, they go back to their favorite restaurant (or flower patch, in this case).  These bees rely on their own memory of where to find food, though other bees that are new to the hive do respond to the waggle dance and seek out the new food source.   

To bring this to human terms, it works like this: Let's assume I go to a new Chinese restaurant and it's fantastic. The best I've ever had. As I leave the restaurant, I run into two of my friends on the street.  One of them is new in town, the other has lived here for a while. I start raving about the restaurant. I point to it. I let them smell the leftovers in my doggie back. I jump up and down and tell them that they have to try it.   The friend who's new in town thanks me and head's straight to the restaurant.  The other friend who's lived here for a while remarks that Chinese food sounds good,  and then heads to her favorite Chinese place that she always goes to, not the new one I'm recommending.

In other words, old habits are hard to break.  If a new, fantastic search engine came out tomorrow, most of us would still use Google.  I know there are some great new restaurants in town, but I still go to my familiar favorites. 

Despite the power of word of mouth recommendations, those receiving information about new products and services have to be receptive to the information. In other words, they have to be "in the market" to be persuaded. 

The lesson for marketers: While you're worrying about how to create buzz and get new customers, it's equally important to worry about how to become habit forming to those customers you already have.  If you do it right, buzz about your competitors will drive them straight back to you.

   

Has E-Commerce Turned You Into a Brat? Or RU2 Old?

One of the things that I love about working in e-commerce is the diversity of skills and talent that are required to make it work.  You need rock solid retail know-how, operational expertise, state of the art direct marketing knowledge, design and user interface skills and, of course, incredible technical ability.

Usually, this means that e-commerce team members not only have different career backgrounds and training; in many cases, they come from different generations.

A few years ago, I had the good fortune to attend a presentation by David Stillman, who, with Lynne C. Lancaster wrote the book When Generations Collide. I left the presentation looking at my team, my own career and my customers from a very different angle.  The book is a few years old now, but the premise is highly relevant. In the words of Lynne C. Lancaster:  "So much of what is going on in our lives is seen through our own generational lens".

The book is full of interesting insights on how cultural, political and economic factors have shaped generational attitudes toward work, family and consumption.  Case in point:

5 Common Blind Spots on the Road To E-commerce Success

If you are the operator of a small to medium sized e-commerce business that is not meeting your expectations, you're not alone.   

You probably read the reports that tell you of the strong online sales growth, profits and innovation being driven by the e-commerce leaders, and you might wonder why the same good fortune has alluded you.  Chances are, it's due to one or a combination of the following "blind spots" .  These are popular misconceptions about doing business online.  Despite more than a decade of  e-commerce learning, it's surprising how prevalent these blind spots still are in many companies.

Warning: getting past these blind spots will probably take some work and money, but it  will be time and resource well spent in getting your business into growth mode.

Blind spot #1:  " We built a web store and we don't know what we're doing wrong...we're just not getting enough orders..." this is otherwise known as "if you build it, they will come" syndrome.  What you're doing wrong is either a) not attracting people (or the right people) to your site via effective marketing or b) not converting people once they show up.  Both of these things can be remedied, but it helps to know which problem you're solving.  If you have both problems, start with being sure the web site experience is sound and that it's easy for customers to buy.  If you don't have that, any marketing dollars will be wasted.

Blind spot#2: "I don't have time to look at reports and data from the web site..." It used to be that small to medium sized companies complained that they couldn't afford a good analytics solution for their online business. Google Analytics is free, and produces easy to read reports that can provide critical insight as to what's going on and what you need to fix.  Data is critical, there's no way around it. Find the time. Start with an hour or two a week and see what you learn. Chances are you'll realize that it pays to spend more time monitoring the metrics and using them to drive decisions.

Blind spot#3:  "My web designers should be able to figure out how to put the site together...." Knowing the skills your designers have and how to provide them with direction and feedback is essential to a successful design.  Before you turn them loose, be absolutely sure you've provided the fundamentals:

a) who are the likely visitors to this page? (note - personas can be highly effective in defining key customers and helping unite the design and business teams. For more on personas, see this post)

b) what are the key tasks they will want to accomplish and key information they will want to access?

c)  what are the main business objectives of this page (actions we want the customer to take, data we want to collect, etc.) ? 

Also be sure that the team has talent in information architecture, interaction design and visual design. These are three distinct disciplines that often get lumped together under the heading of "design".  Certainly many designers can cross the chasm and cover multiple disciplines, but co-mingling these things is a common flaw that leads to usability problems and poor customer experience.  And one more thing: be sure that you either have a good web copywriter or someone on staff who can write well in a language that customers understand. Terminology, calls to action, clarity - they all matter as much as the design.

Blind spot #4: " I watch my marketing spend like a hawk - I only spend on what I can track, and if something isn't performing as well as my best tactic, I drop it. "  This is otherwise known as tactic tunnel vision.  Watching your spend and tracking results is critical, of course.  But thinking that all marketing tactics can be viewed in a silo, or that all should perform at the same return is unrealistic.  When customers see your presence across multiple media, their likelihood to remember you and visit you is higher.  Be a maniac about measurement, but don't assume that the "compound effect" is not effective just because it's not easily measured.

Blind spot#5:  " This should be a low cost channel, I shouldn't have to hire a bunch of people or pay a bunch of agencies to keep it going."  The web can certainly be  an efficient sales channel.  But "efficient" is not the same as "free", and efficiencies are often gained through investing in automation, people and tools as the channel grows and scales. If your e-commerce business is not growing, it's probably time to invest wisely.  Do a thorough competitive review and audit of your business to help you focus investment in the most needed areas.   

      

"The Scoop" on Viral Marketing - It Can Happen By Accident

Yesterday, when looking at (of all things) the traffic stats for my blog, I did something I rarely do. I clicked on an online ad.  There was a mildly humorous banner that featured a cat. It promised something about a new way to deal with the age old burden of litter box cleaning.  I clicked.  Now, I should say that while I do own a cat, I have absolutely no issue with cleaning the cat box nor am I actively in the market for any sort of change in this part of my life.

The banner took me to a website selling the Cat Genie. Get this. This is an actual flushing toilet for cats which hooks up to your plumbing, flushes, then washes the litter-like filler and air dries it for the next use.  I am all for advancements in cat hygiene, but I really don't t think that this product is solving a problem that needs to be solved...at least it might not need to be solved so elaborately.

But here's what intrigued me about my own behavior. I watched the video demo of how the kitty toilet works. I watched it again in disbelief. Then, you guessed it, I forwarded the thing to a handful of friends, knowing that they would stare incredulously at the screen the same way I did, and probably laugh, the way I did.  And, I don't know for certain, but I expect that they too, forwarded it to friends.

Now, I have no idea of if the makers of the Cat Genie are sophisticated enough in their marketing efforts to have made "the pass along factor" the intention of their website, but it worked on me.  The fact that there was no "forward to a friend" feature on the site makes me wonder if they have any idea how much of a viral opportunity they have on their hands.

Now of course, I forwarded the video in jest.  I never intended to promote this product, nor do I expect anyone who I sent it to to buy it.  But without intending to be influential and viral, well, I guess I was.   I was just an Average Joe bee, out there creating buzz (see my previous post "Want to Create Buzz?").

So, I'm sure by now you're itching (or shall I say, scratching) to see the video.  In true viral fashion, here's the link:  Cat Genie Video

Will Tough Times For Retail Mean Tighter E-Commerce Integration?

With signs of a softening economy and reports of lackluster retail sales, it appears that many leading retailers are belt tightening.  Just this week, a number of organizational restructurings were announced at Sears, JCPenney, Eddie Bauer and others.  And there are likely more to come.

A recent study presented at the NRF convention by the J.C. Williams Group focused on the organizational structures of e-commerce teams.  Among the big findings, as many of us know first hand, were that a) e-commerce has taken a larger and more prominent "seat at the table"  in recent years, as online sales volumes, profitability and customer engagement have grown in importance to the total company results, and b) that online teams, while more integrated into the "mother ship" of the organization than in the past, still very much need focused leadership and resources to thrive.  The result for many companies is a "semi-integrated"  organizational model, which allows web teams to execute and make day to day decisions somewhat independently, but yet ultimately report to and share information with a larger entity, such as total direct sales or global marketing. 

As I read about the belt tightening and re-organizations focused on cutting cost and "streamlining efficiency", I worry about where the e-commerce teams will land in the shuffle.  While senior management in most organizations clearly recognizes the importance of online selling, experience tells me that many of them are woefully void in really understanding what it takes to manage an online business day in day out.  We've done an amazing job of making online shopping easy for the customer....trouble is, that makes many people who are unfamiliar with the channel think that is is just as easy behind the scenes.  I, and my seasoned colleagues will tell you, it is anything but easy.

Temptation will likely be to break online teams apart; have online merchants report to catalog merchants, have designers report into the creative team...after all, the web is pretty automated, right?!? 

There could be long term advantages here.  Certainly, tighter channel integration, if executed well, yields a better customer experience and better knowledge transfer across the organization.  Combining teams in a well thought through way with that as the primary objective can work, I've seen it work.  However, combining teams with the sole purpose of cost savings may yield a loss of focus and attention to a channel that has been the bright spot of innovation and profitability over the last decade.   If you're an executive considering such a move:

• Talk to the people who are the smartest about e-commerce in your organization.  Ask them to help you understand how it works operationally, the challenges and  resource needs.  Don't be afraid to admit that you don't know much about what it takes to run the website. They'll be glad you asked.  And you'll be surprised at how hard it is.
• If you must eliminate jobs, be sure you have a clear understanding of what things you'll be giving up - both short term and long term.  Don't assume that it will all still get done. It probably won't.
• Determine how will you maintain critically needed focus on the channel: what's happening in the industry, with your competitors, with technology needs?  Most importantly, who's the person who will be ultimately responsible for the customer's experience on your website? 

The good news here, of course, is that e-commerce has proven itself to be a survivor in many troubled organizations and through troubled times, and it will continue to survive.  But e-commerce growth rates are slowing. Thriving (not just surviving) will take more focus and muscle than ever.  Have you positioned your e-commerce team to do the great work they need to do?

Want To Create "Buzz"? Try The Wisdom of Crowds vs. The Influence of Individuals

Last week, I attended the Shop.org Strategy and Innovation Forum and listened to Andy Sernovitz's keynote address on word of mouth marketing.  His book "Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking" is full of practical advice.   The rise of online social shopping has marketers everywhere studying up on how to create "buzz"; in other words, how to get people talking about and flocking to their products. In bee speak,  that means getting customers to do the "waggle dance",  a bee's method of using body movements and sound to alert others that they've found something good.

If you are a student of word of mouth marketing, you'd be wise to also become a student of nature and science.  In the last couple of months, I've read a number of articles on "swarm theory";  in other words, how ants, bees, birds and other "leaderless" species in large groups manage to find the right place to live, stake out the best place to eat, solve complex problems and guide one another to into forming a thriving society.  The behaviors are, no surprise, remarkably similar to humans traversing the internet in a quest to find the right product.  And, some would argue that the popularity of certain sites and certain products has more to do with randomness than smart marketing (sorry to deliver the bad news).  Despite the time and money spent trying to find those elusive highly influential people,  much of this writing suggests that more successful results will come from making your product available via mass marketing, then letting regular old non-influential people get the message out in the "random" way that ants and bees do it. 

If this topic is of interest, here's the reading list. 

1) First, read what National Geographic has to say about Swarm Behavior, and how observing bees and ants is proving to have real business value by helping companies find the most efficient means to solve complex scheduling and routing problems and save energy.  Nature's way of decision making is making it's way into the boardroom.

2) Next, read the Knowledge@Wharton article We Are Smarter Than Me: How the Wisdom of Crowds Can Help Businesses Succeed (registration is required, but the content is free) to get an excerpt of Barry Libert and Jon Spector's book We Are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash The Power of Crowds in Your Business.  There are some terrific examples of how smart companies are bringing "swarm theory" or community decision making into their product development process, creating loyal fans before the product even exists.

3) If you're still not a believer, read an MSNBC article Scientists Abuzz Over More Efficient Web Servers: Honeybee Waggle Dance Inspires System For Internet Hosting Company and you'll see how imitating bees can improve business performance.

4) And finally, this month's Fast Company magazine ties it all together with a story for marketers involving real, HUMAN research.  This one is a must-read.  Is The Tipping Point Toast? challenges the long standing belief (brought to center by Malcolm Gladwell's popular book, The Tipping Point) that trends are driven by a small number of highly influential people. According to The Tipping Point, marketers must seek out and target these influencers to be successful.  Not so fast.  Duncan Watts, a network theory scientist, argues that despite marketer's desire to believe that they can find and target these elusive influencers, the way trends happen is, in fact, much more random, and dependent upon a variety of circumstances that all have to come together.  Take the analogy of forest fires - there are thousands of them every year, but only a few are big, serious fires. The ones that do become big are less about the spark that started them, and more about the conditions that existed around the spark: the landscape, the lack of rain, the remote location, etc.

In other words, the leaderless crowd makes the trend happen by responding to its needs and the environment...and that bee doing the waggle dance because he found nectar is just as likely to be your average Joe bee than some BMOC bee.

Time for lunch. I think I'll try that new restaurant down the street that everyone's flocking to.

Kindle-ing All The Way: Making My Reading Season Bright and My Suitcase Light

No vacation would be complete without a little bit of field testing thrown in.  This past week, my husband and I escaped the last minute holiday crunch with a trip to Hawaii.  Whenever we travel together for more than a long weekend, we face a logistical dilemma: books.

Both of us are avid readers (my husband's greatest fear is being unexpectedly stuck somewhere without ample reading material) and we use our vacations as time to catch up on the books we accumulated since our last getaway.  A good week's vacation in a "butt in a beach chair" destination can require at least 5-6 books per person.   In the past, we've shipped a box of books to our destination ahead of time, or checked a separate bag full of books. 

Fortunately, Amazon's Kindle was introduced in time for me to buy one for my trip.  While my husband lugged 6 books in his luggage, I loaded my Kindle with 8 titles and packed only one "real" book (I carried it for safe measure in case I didn't like the Kindle or it broke or something, then I'd at least be safe until I could find a bookstore).

Here's the verdict on my Kindle experience:

Portability: The Kindle is lightweight and fits easily into my handbag, so I was able to take it with me everywhere - big win.

E-commerce:  Buying books for the Kindle is a breeze, and the wireless delivery is fast and slick.  When I first ordered my Kindle it was sold out, so I used the two weeks leading up to the delivery to buy my digital books - they were all waiting for me on my Kindle the minute I took it out of the package.  I do wish the selection of books available were a bit better, but it's not bad and I'm sure it will improve over time.    Buying books and newspapers on the Kindle itself (as opposed to on Amazon.com) is terrific when you're on the road.  At the airport, I purchased that day's WSJ for 75 cents, vs. having to wrestle with a newspaper on the plane and deal with cramming the used paper in the seat pocket.  I'm not ready to give up the "real" newspaper for everyday, but for travel, I'll never lug the newspaper again.

Reading: The Kindle is easy on the eye and not a compromise compared to traditional books.  I read 4 complete books on the Kindle and started a 5th during my vacation, with no eye strain.  It has a long battery life, and reading in the sun was no problem.  The only issue I had with readability was when reading a business book (yes, I did read a business book on vacation) which had some numerical charts, and in most cases the charts did not fit on one screen and were pretty much unreadable.

Interface: Using the Kindle is more intuitive than I thought it would be.  If  a sign of good usability is that you don't have to read the manual or go to the demo screens, then the Kindle passed the test for me - I was able to figure out just about everything in one try, though the Kindle probably does some things that I have not discovered yet.

Design: There are a few design flaws with the Kindle, which you've probably read about in other reviews.  I had read that some users objected to the very large "next page" and "previous page" buttons on the side of the device, as they caused users to hit them and turn pages when they didn't want to.  I initially had this problem, but resolved it easily by using the Kindle in its case, which is easily held like a traditional book.  By resting my hand under the spine, I was able to easily turn pages only when I wanted to.  This, however, created another issues.  With the Kindle in its case, it is impossible to turn it on or off, or to turn the wireless on or off ; the buttons for each are two very tiny switches on the back of the Kindle.  You have to either take the Kindle out of the case or try to get your finger between the back of the Kindle and the case, either of which is impossible to do without hitting the paging buttons.  This is a minor annoyance, not a deal breaker for me.

The Bottom Line:  At $399, the Kindle is expensive.  It's a e-commerce winner as far as the buying and fulfillment experience goes (as you'd expect from Amazon).  There's room for improvement on the book selection and product design side, but for an "out of the gate" product, I'm calling it a success.

And my suitcase, for the first time ever, is lighter than my husband's!

A Sign of Extinction: What We Should Learn From the Yellow Pages

Sometimes in business we get so caught up in doing what works that we forget to stop and notice that it's not working anymore. 

About 2 weeks ago, a bunch of yellow page phone books were delivered to my condo building.  They come every year about this time.  Two weeks later, the same number of books are still sitting in the lobby of the building, in the exact same place where they appeared two weeks ago.

  Here they are, right where the delivery person left them.  I see them every day, and I count them every day, and not a single one has been claimed by a resident of my building.

Now it doesn't take a genius to know that yellow pages use has been on the decline since the onset of the Internet, and the rise of  search in particular.  But what astounds me is the fact that despite the declines in usage, thousands of businesses, year after year, continue to pump advertising dollars into an extinct medium.  What if all of those businesses woke up, looked in the lobby of my building and realized that no one is ever going to see their ad, let alone respond to it? 

Think of all of the other more creative and more effective ways those dollars could be deployed.  Of course, that would take effort. Finding a new way to drive business is harder than just repeating the old way, even if the old way isn't working. 

So, when you look at your business - probably an e-commerce business that's now about 10 years old, what's your version of the yellow pages?  What parts of your customer experience, your technology, your marketing spend or your operations are extinct, on auto pilot and not adding value anymore?  For those of you working the week between Xmas and New Year's, it's a great time to make a few trips to the recycle bin.