Ecommerce Consulting.com | Experts in Online Retail

Don't Waste Your Time Hiring an E-Commerce Consultant

Here's a piece of information that might surprise you (it surprised me):  In many, if not most of my consulting engagements, the hiring process takes longer than the engagement itself.

Now, there's no right or wrong amount of time that it should take to hire an e-commerce consultant.  But when I'm approached by prospective clients, they typically indicate some sense of urgency in getting started with their work. A looming deadline, the close of a budget year, or more often, the critical need to get a problem solved or an opportunity tapped.  So then, it would only make sense that the selection and hiring process be reasonably efficient.

It's extremely important to be thorough and thoughtful when you hire an e-commerce consultant. They need to be the right fit for your company, your project and your budget.  And you need time to think about and define the specific objectives and deliverables of the engagement.  But it's also important that you not waste your own valuable time or the time of the stakeholders in your company with an arduous or drawn out selection process.  A bit of up front planning and preparation can cut costly bottlenecks and delays. 

I should confess that while I think the points below are good advice to anyone in the hiring seat, they are a bit self serving.  As an e-commerce consultant, I like to see the hiring process be smooth and efficient, regardless of whether or not I am ultimately awarded the engagement.  Time is valuable and time is money, for everyone involved.

Here are my top seven tips for a smooth hire:

1) Get internal alignment: Do all key stakeholders agree on the work that needs to be done? Do they all agree that a consultant is the solution?   Write up a few sentences on the project and the desired outcome.  Circulate it to the stakeholders.  Is there agreement?  If not, rinse and repeat until you get it right.  This will speed up the proposal and evaluation process later.

2) Identify the skills and background you need:  E-commerce consulting is a specialty, but there are specialties within the specialty.   Some e-commerce consultants focus on a specific discipline, like platform selection, online marketing, or UI evaluation. Others are more strategic/general management in nature.   Determine if you need a specialist or a broader generalist.  Doing so will speed up your research and identification of appropriate candidates.

3) Know when you need it: Do you expect your consultant to start immediately? Within the next month? 60 days?  When do you need/expect the work to be completed?  Your consultant may not be able to start immediately if she/he has other client obligations.  Also, keep in mind that it will take time to interview candidates, check references and get internal approvals for the hire.   Be sure you build appropriate time into your plan to account for the hiring cycle as well as the actual project work.

4) Set your budget:  Many companies don't do this, and it usually costs them time in the long run.   Even if it's a price range, have a budget in mind.  You'll save valuable time going back and forth over scope and pricing if you have a number in mind going in.  Your consultant should be able to tell you early in the process if their rates are within your budget.  This will help you avoid lengthy proposal gathering  & negotiation with candidates outside of the range.

5) Talk to legal: Find out what your company requires from a legal standpoint to make the hire.  Do you need your consultant to sign an NDA?  Do you require a contract?  If the answer is "yes" to either of those questions, have your legal team provide the documentation early in the hiring process, and find out how long you should allow for them to turn around any revisions or reviews.

6) Think ahead on references: If you plan to check references, determine how many you'll need and ask your candidate for them a few days before you plan to start making calls.  Remember, it may take a few days or more to track down the people you need to speak to.  Do everyone involved a favor and have a short list of questions prepared in advance.  Remember, these people are just like you: busy e-commerce leaders.  Be concise and appreciative.   Ok, I confess, this one is really self serving.  A consultant's references are hard earned.  A good consultant will want to alert her/his references that someone will be calling.  If you don't call or tie up their time with a poorly organized call, that reference might not be willing to repeat the favor.

7) Get your act together for the decision maker:  Be sure you're clear who's approving the decision to hire your e-commerce consultant and what they need to do their job.  The quick hit list of the things they need to have in hand when you seek approval probably looks something like this:

• The consultant's proposal, complete with costs and timeline
• The consultant's bio and background
• References
• Final legal documents for signature (NDA, contract, etc.)
• Your recommendation on why this person is right for the job

Give yourself a timeline for getting all of the above together and then communicate your timeline for seeking approval.  There's nothing more frustrating that getting a proposal in June for a project scheduled to start in July, only to have it still sitting on the approver's desk in August.   Your project is now behind schedule, and your consultant may have moved on and booked other work, delaying things further or causing you to go back to square one.

For more tips on getting the most out of your e-commerce consultant once you've made a decision, see my two previous posts:

Thinking About Hiring an E-Commerce Consultant?  The Readiness is All

5 Tips and 1 Little Secret About Hiring a Consultant

And remember, time is valuable and time is money, for everyone involved. In the time it took to hire them, your e-commerce consultant could have been helping you build your business.

   

Will Private Label Retailers Finally Get Public Online?

If you ask any smart e-commerce leader what site feature they've implemented in the last 2-3 years has been the most effective in driving sales and customer insights, most would likely answer that it's customer ratings and reviews.  While Amazon was early to the party with their book reviews, it is now commonplace to see reviews, usually powered by Baazarvoice or PowerReviews on most leading websites.  The statistics are hard to argue with. Customers love them, and have come to rely on them as the "real" source of helpful information when they shop online. Most retailers love them just as much, as they are a proven driver in search ranking, conversion, and customer satisfaction. The Baazarvoice website is loaded with great stats (in case you need to do an internal sales job to implement this feature), but here are a few highlights:

• 74% of online shoppers say they choose companies and brands based on what say about their customer service experience (2008, Society for New Communications Research)
• Over 58% of shoppers said they used product reviews to make decisions (2007, Shop.org)
• People who read a review are 30% more likely to purchase a product that those who do not (2007, Coremetrics)

Now, as an alumni of private label apparel, I have often wondered how long it would take for those selling their own goods to adapt to this level of public exposure.

Sure, it's one thing to be a brand aggregator (Wal Mart, Zappos, Petco, Office Depot, Amazon and the like). Customer reviews are about somebody else's product.  "Dell made that computer, not us, so go ahead customers, have at it, rip it apart. It only makes us look better for being so open and transparent.  Those reviews help us know which suppliers to covet or drop, and they provide valuable insights into brand preference."

So, now let's say you're a private label merchant.  You've poured your heart and soul into the Fall season line.  Everything looks beautiful together - the colors, the fabrics, the styling. It's a brand story that comes to life beautifully on the landing pages you've built, in the outfitting tools, in email... its YOURS. And then some crazy person on the e-commerce team has the audacity to suggest that you let customers make comments about YOUR product, right there on the website.  Are they crazy? Someone could say something bad and influence other people. Someone might mention a competitive brand in the review.  And for what? This is seasonal product, it's only on the site for about 8 weeks - by the time there are enough reviews to be meaningful, the product will be gone....why should one person's opinion spoil a whole season's worth of sales?

Now, I have no idea if this is really what happens in private label organizations.....but if I do a quick inventory of who has reviews on their sites, JCrew, Eddie Bauer, Gap (including Banana Republic & Old Navy), Land's End, Gymboree and a host of others in the private label game don't offer them. While these players were quick to adopt rich product imagery, outfitting tools and other "one way" forms of merchandising, they have been remarkably slow to move into the world of online interactive customer input. 

While I do understand the likely internal politics and fear, I would argue that the private label retailers have the most to gain from taking the bold move to let their customers talk.  Here's why:

• First, they have passionate followers. Brand loyalists will jump at the chance to say something good about you when you invite them to do so and thank them for their input.
• Second, a majority of the reviews you get will probably be positive. Statistics (thanks again, Bazaarvoice) show that 88% of people who posted or planned to post reviews said they would be positive reviews (2007, Neilsen)
• Third, if a review or two is negative, (get this) it can actually help conversion. Too many positive reviews can leave some people skeptical, and a constructive negative review can actually fuel shopping confidence.
• Fourth, if a bunch of reviews are bad, don't you really want to know so you can take care of the problem?  Why wait weeks/months until the returns flood in? You could catch a manufacturing defect or a fit problem and avoid an even bigger customer satisfaction issue.
• Fifth, what if you could harness those reviews and use the customer feedback to build better products for the next season?

And as for mentioning competitors, if your customer really likes your competitor better than you, again, don't you want to know?  And don't worry, you can screen out abusive, obscene or other reviews that are truly and unfairly damaging.

At the Shop.org Summit last week, I raised my glass to LL Bean, one of the first of the large private label apparel retailers to implement customer ratings and reviews.  While I am sure the internal battle might have been big, the company is already seeing  merchants embrace this powerful new source of customer insight, and thousands of reviews have been posted on the site.  So much for the worry about critical mass.

If you shop private label websites, I suspect there is good news ahead.  These retailers do tend to copy one another, and I would imagine the other private label sheep will follow LL Bean into the greener pasture of public exposure.

E-commerce Merchandising: Re-defined, Re-energized and A Lot More Fun

What a difference a year makes.  When I first started this blog back in the early Summer of '07, I wrote a post on why online merchants and marketers tend to fight, and how the lines between these critical functions were becoming blurrier as marketers with rich customer data were driving and influencing product strategy(read the post here).  I also speculated that the growing need for robust product content was rapidly becoming a runaway train in many organizations, and this was the place where merchants needed to take the reigns, view content as a strategic asset and apply merchandising know-how to the equation (read the post here).

In July of this year, the annual Shop.org Merchandising Workshop was held (always a great event, well worth attending) and I was thrilled to see that the e-commerce merchant role is evolving and gaining in importance.   And, it looks like some of my earlier predictions are coming true.  So, if the online merchandising role is evolving, are retailers keeping up?

First, what is an online merchant, and what does she/he do?  Online merchants are the product specialists on the e-commerce team.  It's their job to know the product they sell inside and out, and, using customer insights and e-commerce technologies, make that product discoverable, considerable, and purchase-able on the website or through other online distribution channels.

The devil, as we know, is in the details.  E-commerce technologies and best practices have advanced significantly over the last few years.  Merchants have more data and tools than ever, and their customers are demanding more product information than ever.  But customers are also participating more than ever, and leaving behind valuable insights into how they shop and what information they expect to find.  The difference between an "old world" online merchant and one in the "new world" is how well they have incorporated these robust customer insights into their online merchandising practices and how well they are using them to optimize the site experience.

When I listen to "old world" online merchants talk about what they do, they usually list out tasks like this:

• Decide what products to feature on the home & landing pages
• Decide what navigational categories and sub-categories products belong in
• Sequence thumbnail & search results pages so that new or best selling items appear first
• Assign coordinate or up-sell products to display on product and shopping cart pages
• Coordinate photography needs
• Determine feature products for affiliate partners and email campaigns

If you're an online merchant doing the above, you're probably a bit bored by now, and you're probably starting to sense that there's a whole new world out there.  There's an additional level of horsepower that you can be adding to optimize the effectiveness of the e-commerce channel by harnessing customer insights.  The job in the "new world" looks something like this:

• Mining product reviews and customer generated content to determine what product features and language to use in product descriptions, search meta data and comparison tool criteria.
• Creating new navigational paths beyond standard categories by mining search records and user generated content.
• Forging new ways for customers to discover product that can be automated on the back end, like "best sellers", "top rated", or "new additions" sections that are continually updated based on business rules - not manual merchant population.
• Determining automated solutions to cross selling and up-selling based on product attributes and purchase history.
• Diving deep into the way that people shop for key product categories both online and in store.  See my previous post about buying swimwear at Land's End.  They've made a deliberate decision to own the category, and their selling process is right in synch with how customers want to buy the product.  Can you say the same about your online selling experience?
• Determining the visual product presentation needs at the category and product level. Zoom, larger views and alternate views have become ubiquitous. Video is on the rise.   Smart online merchants take an in-depth view of presentation needs by category and product vs. a cookie cutter approach to display.
• Partnering with stores to make the web an integral part of the in-store selling process. What do customers want to know? What information do store sales associates need at their fingertips when they work with a customer?

We’re well into the back half of the year, and in addition to readying your site for the upcoming holiday season, you’re probably starting to think about '09 priorities and budgets. If you're an online merchant and you're feeling a bit stuck in the "old world", consider giving yourself a new job description as a holiday gift.  The "new world" might be a bit more work, but it's bound to be a lot more fun and effective.