What makes a good logo?

Leaving aside my antipathy to tooth-rotting schmaltzwasser, this is a great timeline of competitive head-to-head logo change.

From http://justcreativedesign.com and via @peterabraham

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Inspiration Index – MyDeco takes the top spot in the “Customer Engagement” dimension – Internet Retailing

So – it’s not official: MyDeco.com has grabbed the top spot.

You can read the full results and analysis of the second ‘dimension’ of the Internet Retailing Inspiration Index (IRII) at the post above.

The next dimension is open for voting NOW and for a week, just a week, until 8 June…

Vote here:

https://ecustomeropinions.com/survey/survey.php?sid=349531418

Vote now. Tell your friends.

This time, it’s “Operations and IT”: who do you envy? admire? copy? Tell all – the gloves are off!

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I agreed (very pleased to have been asked) and then immediately regretted it (a combination of _hating_ being filmed and a bit of a panic attack that I’d have nothing to say in such august company).

Both of these concerns were well founded and the first attempt was utterly awful. Google kindly allowed me to hit the virtual ‘delete’ button and re-shoot. I (and all viewers) owe them a debt of gratitude

The format was a difficult one: a straight-to-camera piece on a topic. This requires more skill and preparation that I had understood. I generally prefer a ‘Q&A’ approach – being interviewed by someone else makes it easier to keep on topic and respond to a lead.

That said, I’m really pleased that I’ve had this experience. At InternetRetailing we’re starting our video podcasting programme in June and going through this experience has been a timely shock that I hope will improve our approach.

In the meantime you can find me burbling and only loosely in charge of a Welsh accent here:

In fact, this piece was a ‘version’ of my ‘profit per pixel second‘ metric provocation that I’ve been covering in print. It’s an area in which I’m interested, but I think it suffers here from being too long (maybe I’m too used to giving this as part of a presentation?).

All of this goes to prove Mark Twain’s (well, Blaise Pascal) thought: “I have only made this [letter] longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter”. The same seems true of videos

You’ll see in the linked videos some very impressive (and more succinct!) contributions from a great range of people – from Boris Johnson, Mayor of London and Martin Sorrell of WPP to numerous leading academics and practitioners.

I’m pleased to be in illustrious company (even if as the slight splotch on the otherwise immaculate canvas) and I’ve learned some good lessons about video presentation.

You can see the whole channel here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/survivalofthefastest

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To recap for those who missed the IRII announcement, the InternetRetailing Inspiration Index focuses upon:

those moments of admiration, enjoyment and – frankly – envy: when we look at another retailer’s activities and wish we’d thought of that first, had implemented as well, or have an open regard for a difficult problem elegantly overcome

You can see the full article from InternetRetailing Magazine here:

IRII Article (pdf) – download

The next dimension – Customer Experience – is now available and awaiting your comments. Please follow this link to the eDigital Research survey page:

https://ecustomeropinions.com/survey/survey.php?sid=473664927

Results and the site review will be published in the May issue of InternetRetailing Magazine.

Other links

• You can subscribe to InternetRetailing magazine  and our email newsletter on our publisher’s subscriptions page.
• You can grab the RSS feed or follow us on Twitter.

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Vote now! Internet Retailing’s “Inspiration Index”

We’re pleased to launch today our “Inspiration Index“. Speaking with senior etailers we’re struck by the attention they pay to competitor and peer activity, continually seeking new ideas, better ways and cunning angles to improve their multichannel activity.

What do we mean by ‘inspiration’?

We’re focusing on those moments of admiration, enjoyment and – frankly – envy: when we look at another retailer’s activities and wish we’d thought of that first, had implemented as well, or have an open regard for a difficult problem elegantly overcome.

We decided not to go down a company or ‘awards’ approach since these tend to favour the established large players or the shiny new ones – in reality we’ve found that people covet the delivery capabilities of one, the design elements of another and the promotional campaigns of yet others.

There are six ‘dimensions’ to the Inspiration Index:

1. Moments of brilliance and delight
2. Customer experience
3. Operations and IT
4. Merchandising
5. Marketing
6. Strategy

How will it work?

Every other month we’ll ask our readers and members of the LinkedIn group to undertake a short survey on ONE of the dimensions. We’ll then cover the results in the coming edition of the magazine.

Over time we’ll build a picture of inspiration in internet retailing.

Best of all the winners will know that they’ve been nominated and rated by their professional peers — this is not a PR-led or sponsorship-driven activity: you can’t buy or promote prominence — it’s a question of whether you inspire others!

We’re really pleased to be partnering with eDigital Research on this. We’ve worked with them a great deal in the past and we welcome their support as a research partner on this project, helping shape the questionnaire and analysing the results.

I hope that you’ll make the time to take the survey and we’re really excited to see the results!

More in the March issue of Internet Retailing, and of course on the portal.

Here’s the link to the survey: https://ecustomeropinions.com/survey/survey.php?sid=986312169

Vote Now!

About eDigitalResearch

eDigitalResearch is a leading provider of digital market research, enabling customers’ to make critical business decisions with the benefit of comprehensive consumer insight and informed direction. eDigitalResearch possesses a unique combination of research expertise, marketing background, web technology and knowledge of the cross-channel consumer. As well as providing invaluable research data, the modules of its fully integrated research system — ratings, surveys, panels and forums — can combine to provide holistic analytics and essential market-leading insight. This gives our clients the power, confidence and backup to make crucial decisions on key aspects of their business including product range, marketing, customer service, supply chain, even basic positioning.

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zapposinsights.com

Well well – this is a fun idea. Zappos, a US$ 1 billion etailer that’s done for shoes what Amazon did for books, has created a ‘club’ for the “Fortune One Million” group.

The club, c$40 a month membership, is a mix of video content, happy-clappy employee indoctrination videos and general bigging-up of the company culture. It’s all very ‘can do’ (and more importantly ‘have done’).

In addition there’re knowledge base articles, interviews with key staff and execs, and opportunities to post questions.

Although a little ‘American’ at times, it’s an interesting approach from a company that clearly believes in values of staff and customer engagement, delivering great service and in sharing insights. After all, it’s one thing to be given an insight, but an entirely more difficult thing to interpret and then implement the requirements of that insight.

Having worked for years in best practice publishing, training and indeed the structured, state-supported business development sector (with Business Link for London, formerly Europe’s largest enterprise support agency) this initiative is to be welcomed.

That they’re clearly going to monetise the One Million is simply an elegant example of that commercial spirit

Please let me know your experiences if you join.

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Appearing on SkyNews at 7pm

I was called this afternoon to ask if I’d be willing to appear and comment and of course the answer was ‘yes’. Then I started to feel nervous!

I don’t recall much about the interview itself – I was in a dark room, staring at a focus point and desperately listening to the question so that I didn’t burble. Intentionally, anyway.

Up earlier had been David Walmsley, Head of Direct at John Lewis, and as I’d arrived in the studio I’d thought how composed and fluid he was on TV. I decided to become more nervous immediately

The studio was intriguing: not quite a ‘radio car’, but certainly a compact and lean operation, mainly focused on political happenings at nearby Parliament.

The Millbank studio for Sky News

I’ve not been able to track down a ‘recording’ of what I said, but my intention was to cover off how the predictions for Mega Monday were tending toward the blindingly obvious, and how even a scrooge-like consumer was now running out of shopping days to Christmas. Behind the headline figures of revenues (predicted, btw, by IMRG to be £320m today, with Retail Decisions predicting that Mega Minute will be 1.31pm today, with an expected near £1m in transactions that minute), the real issue is that revenues this year will have been bought by discounting. In order to have a higher cash value of transactions than last year, therefore, retailers will need to ship proportionally more boxes – creating an additional strain on their logistics operations as well as reducing their margins even further.

Pressed on the reason for the success of the web I recall mentioning that the web was now a mature component within multichannel retail. The web is used by some 90% of people questioned in an IMRG survey to help decide on purchases made in-store. Interestingly, only 68% of those questioned said the reverse – that they needed to see goods in-store to inform their internet purchasing.

I was asked whether there was anything fundamental to the web that would make it an inherently ‘cheap’ channel, but of course there’s a need to have a capable infrastructure as well, ideally, as a traditional retail channel in order to maximise sales. I challenged the draw of the web as being “cheapness” alone, noting that customers now required service as much as price. In the US on CyberMonday, for example, nearly 11% of all shopping traffic went to Amazon.com – a combination of breadth of product, excellent pricing and exemplary, proven service.

In what seemed like an age or a second it was over and, with a polite ‘thank you’ from the producer, I was back on the scooter heading home.

The kids were pleased to see me on telly (ahh) and I’ve already had abusive texts about being fat/nervous/bearded etc – to which I just say “thanks”

This is a picture of me on the telly taken by Vicky with her iPhone - I'm just blinking, not falling into a trance. Honest.

It was an interesting experience and something out of the comfort zone. It was also a chance to get some key messages to a new audience and finally whet my appetite to enliven our plans for InternetRetailing TV. We did some experiments at our conference – see the embed below -  but I think that it’s time to be a bit more active on this front.

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With new events, supplements, v/pod-casts, goodness-knows-what-else, AND French and German editions of the newsletters and portals, it’s a manic and exciting time at IR Towers, and we now have three vacancies just waiting for the right people to join us.

We’re looking for:

• Sales Manager – based in London, excellent base, unlimited commission, at the heart of a fun and expert supplier community. We’re looking for someone used to B2B, reputation-based selling who’s great with clients and not a “sales tosser” (ie talks like an estate agent, always yakking on about “closing”, pretending to discount/’do a deal’, and generally leaving civilised people aghast at their poor manners, short-termism and ignorance).
• Country Editor, France and Country Editor, Germany – to launch the French/German-language portals and bi-weekly newsletters in, er, France and Germany respectively. You’ll be commercial, an analytical journalist, with sector experience (ie this isn’t just academic, you need to understand ecommerce and retailing) with a desire to make a name for yourself in the sector. You’ll be mother-tongue fluent, of course, and also speak excellent English so that we can chat. You’ll represent IR at the highest levels in-country, build on the basis of the European eCommerce Forum, and work as part of an unformal, slightly mad, collegiate team.

I have job descriptions, further info, a keen-ness to chat – let me know if you’re interested or push good people in this direction. Don’t be shy Mail me for further info.

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Bazaarvoice pimps your badge with the great stickons…

Peter Callaway’s keynote.

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“Retailgreen.eu – challenges and issues in green and sustainable ecommerce”

I’ve been interested for a while in the tension between “retail” (encouraging customers to buy more) and sustainability or ‘green’ sentiments (encouraging people to buy less – “reduce, reuse and recycle” being the operating mantra).

There are many benefits and challenges for retailers in considering sustainability as a part of their strategy and this group on LinkedIn is a first step to exploring this topic.

Mired in conflicting claims, in questions of how far to trace and cost impacts and benefits, and struggling to reconcile customer expressed claims with their measured behaviour, we expect some lively debates!

I invite you to join the group and help shape the debate.

Editorially, Retailgreen will look at the following areas:

1. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – lessons for efficiency and saving in sustainable commerce

2. The sustainable customer – market pressures on retailers to ‘go green’. Following the ‘green dollar’

3. Profiles of companies and their green activities, tribulations or market positioning.

You can join the group directly from this link:

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/150191/365DA86DD491

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Between the excellent new apps for Facebook, Twitter and now blogging there’ll be a rash of on-the-road “presentism”, status updating and thoughtstreams. Ok, now I’ve scared myself.

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The inaugural meeting of the European eCommerce Forum (ECF) was held in Amsterdam in April – the culmination of four years of conversations with leading retailers. Ian Jindal and Joris Beckers, co-founders of the Forum, reflect upon the genesis of the ECF, the pressing issues in ecommerce and the next steps for the Forum as preparations start for the next meeting in London this October.

If the first wave of the commercial web was characterised by customer acquisition, then the second was the development of dimensional or faceted navigation (in which retailers attempt to increase online sales by helping customers find the most appropriate products more easily). The current drive is towards cross-channel integration, in which store, web, paper and phone all work seamlessly together from the customer’s perspective. This latest phase simply shows, however, that we haven’t really finished the work started in the ‘browse’ phase – the work of “merchandising” our product to customers.

Online merchandising is often misunderstood, or seen as simply the online correlative of traditional retail merchandising – the organisation, planning and ranging of products online. This is not to denigrate in any way the complex work of merchandisers, but rather to point out that on the web ‘merchandising’ is the very heart and soul of “selling”.

We know that on the web, despite our advances in technology and skills, the two invariable limitations are time and space: the amount of time a customer will dedicate to our site (given the increasing number of calls upon their online attention) and the maximum pixel area of their screen, which limits the number of items we can show at any one time.

We’ve mentioned elsewhere in this issue the notion of the web as a store with ‘elastic walls’. Retailers can now offer hundreds of thousands of SKUs via the web, yet the presentation of these products is akin to letting customers wander directly through an untidy warehouse rather than a flagship store! Online the concepts of ‘visual merchandising’, adjacencies, ranging and category management have some analogies (user experience, site journeys, elementary product grouping, web analytics) but the practices are fragmented.

Thinking of our offline colleagues we could see that the disciplines of category management – product ranging, selection and presentation taken to the level of strategic art-form – and visual merchandising had much to teach us online. We also saw that in some ways we have an embarrassment of riches online: deep and extensive analytics, including insights to behaviour, contexts and of course the in-depth information on products, baskets and profitability. Closing the loop, we could also see information on returns, contacts in call centres and other operational data (either via the web platform or enterprise CRM systems).

The challenge and opportunity therefore were to take the best of offline strategy, online analytics and tools, and to combine these to develop the art and craft of selling online – to present the best combination of products to the customer so as to maximise the retailer’s profits. As Joris pointed out, “online we have a lot more customer interaction data to make Category Management potentially work better than offline where there is less data”.

This was the conversation I had with Joris in 2004 and we enthused about the insights and demands of some of the leaders in etail. Both of us came into contact with other passionate, enthusiastic retailers and during each conversation there was a desire to meet and share ideas with other professionals.

The impetus for finally organising the Forum came as a result of a change in the questions we were hearing. No longer was it enough for retailers to install very capable merchandising systems, nor to learn how to use them well. Rather, retailers were beginning to look to a time when all of their competitors would have equally capable systems and the needs therefore was to develop the insights, approaches and intense customer focus that would distinguish the retailer, irrespective of system.

The Forum

The inaugural meeting was held in Amsterdam. We decided at an early stage that the Forum would be a private exchange for the most senior subject matter experts across Europe. Invites would be personal (and not just “someone from Big Company X or Y”) and we would focus upon companies with complex operations, operating at scale (€70million or more online) and focused upon innovation and excellence. Joris noted how pleased he was that “Over 50 senior online business leaders from across Europe responded to the invitation to work together for a day and attempt to advance the art of online selling in meaningful and practical way”. The Forum is a strictly no-sales, confidential space for peers and this spirit of joint endeavour characterised the day (so much so that Joris didn’t even mention his company when introducing himself!).

The day

We had invited expert speakers from disparate, non-ecommerce disciplines to give us insight into approaches that might inform our work. We took as a theme how research could help us mitigate the challenge of limited ’space’ online.

The first presentation was from Martin Heinsbroek of McKinsey, taking as his theme “From Granular Insights to Targeted Actions”. Martin took as his case study the transformation of Signet Bank into Capital One, and the lessons to be drawn about data-driven insights and the benefits of experimentation (as part of a rigorous and consistent test-analyse-implement business-wide culture). The lessons for retailers were clear, especially given our enviable access to web analytics, trading metrics and the ability to A:B test online.

We then stood back from the data and were treated to an inspiring presentation from Ian Worley, Director at Flow Interactive, on “The power of cross-channel research to uncover granular merchandising insights”. Ian took as a starting point the ethnographic research approach – observing customer behaviour while shopping (covered in Internet Retailing earlier this year). Taking case studies like the Early Learning Centre (and others that we’re unable to quote) Ian showed how significant insights from offline research may have very subtle impacts on the website, yet still be remarkably and demonstrably effective. The learning here was that profit uplift comes from a combination of an holistic view of the customer’s needs, behaviours and preferences; putting the web as part of a cross-channel engagement strategy; robust research and analytics and finally a ruthless focus on delivering the customer’s expectations and needs rather than web design and features in isolation.

In the afternoon we were treated to a tour de force from Ed van de Weerd, VP Merchandising at Albert Heijn Supermartkets. It’s difficult to convey in print the combination of popping eyes, dropping jaws and mental lightbulbs illuminating as Ed took us on an insider’s tour of Category Management within supermarkets. Feedback afterwards was unanimous that the strategic approach to range, stock, pricing and brand positioning was a revelation, and that as a group there was a real enthusiasm to adapt this discipline to etail.

All of the presentations elicited detailed questioning and in between each session we allowed plenty of time for discussion – or so we thought! At each break no-one would leave their tables since they were deep in conversation – in October we’ve taken note and will allow even more time for idea and issue sharing…

Next steps

Feedback from delegates was very positive and the agreement is to come together twice a year with members conducting joint experiments throughout the year and feeding back to the group.

We’ve also been working on the next agenda which – although not yet finalised – will continue our quest to learn everything we can from our offline colleagues. We are looking at present at the area of Visual Merchandising. Joris has been considering the ‘convergence of product merchandising and advertising’ and, via the Forum, his hope is to “achieve a point someday where we know as much about selling online as we know today about selling in the real world”.

At Internet Retailing we’ll be bringing the learning from these sessions, along with the debates and issues, to the pages of the magazine and features on our portal. We’re also interested to hear your thoughts on the key issues, challenges and opportunities in online merchandising – do let us know, and help set the agenda for progress in online selling.

——————————————————-

Fact box.

The ECF was jointly founded by Ian Jindal and Joris Beckers, and is supported by Internet Retailing and made possible by the generosity of Fredhopper.com. Invitation of the Forum is strictly by invite only to senior retailers with experience of complex businesses with over €70million in online sales, but we are always keen to find ways to engage peers and disseminate learning. Please address thoughts, along with suggestions for members that we may have missed in error, to forum@fredhopper.com.

Companies

Some of the companies represented in the Forum are:

Otto, Vergelijk, Telegraaf Media Group, GAME Stores Group, Figleaves.com, Thomas Cook, Conrad, Neckermann, Interflora, E-consultancy.com, V&D, Maxeda, Nedis Group, Marks & Spencer, Clarks, Adidas, Ferio, Bijenkorf, KPN, Waitrose, Quelle, arvato systems GmbH, Mexx, Albert Heijn, Woolworths,  Bol.com, Samsonite, Procter & Gamble, Toys R Us, Acuista, Manutan International, Lovefilm.com, Manutan International, House of Fraser, B&Q, Apple, Amazon, Staples, La Redoute, HMV, Sainsburys, Next, Redcats, H&M.

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The paradigm of the web channel being a vast shop with elastic walls has run its course. As Ian Jindal packs his bucket and spade for the summer holidays, he considers a new etailing paradigm: active selling in the network age. Retailers have managed the web for too long – our customers want it back!

The web channel was initially regarded as an infinite warehouse without the costs of shops or space constraints, but customers’ early enthusiasm for clicking through many pages of turgid descriptions soon waned. Dimensional navigation and richer imagery sped filtering and improved product presentation, but where there existed a surfeit of information (electricals, mobile phones and computers spring to mind) the customer runs out of steam after a few clicks and has either reverses or abandons their journey.

“Personalisation” has been the always-just-out-of-reach panacea to these problems for at least a decade: matching the perfect product to the individual customer. Unfortunately, the effort of profiling customers’ requirements requires ESP and clairvoyance as much as raw data and we now see that customers’ behaviour is modal, inconsistent and based upon needs and attitudes as much as upon past activity.

We are in a complex world, with an increased overhead of analytics, data and profiles – yet no increase in conversion rates! While the arms race to improve and tweak algorithms, heuristics and approaches, there is a natural limit to the web’s selling capabilities at present, based upon pixels and time. I’ve been reliably informed that one cannot walk to the back of a supermarket and out again without seeing 300 products (the average family buys some 250 different products in a year). On the web it’s entirely possible to get in and out of a site seeing only half a dozen items. The average supermarket shopping visit is about 25 minutes’ duration yet if a web session hits 2 minutes we worry that customers are lost or have had a narcoleptic episode.

Just as the stretching of elastic walls has given reducing returns on-site, retailers have sought to stretch them via other means: the growth of search the rise of affiliates (based, broadly, on either discounting, search cunning or niche expertise) and site syndication have pushed the retailers’ messages further afield, while also creating a ‘blast radius’ of new sites – whether signal or noise is a matter of opinion and context.

Hitherto it is the retailer who’s been notionally in charge: setting a sales and acquisition agenda – attracting, engaging and monetising customers.

Now, however, there is the start of a shift in power from the retailer to ‘the network’. This is not a redressed “web2.0″ pitch to implement geegaws and widgets on our sites, but rather a qualitative shift – where the data, the discrimination, the added value all reside in the aggregated activity of customers.

The first move comes from portable data – microformats and XML – that allow customers to take and use standardised data off-site. Next, a customer may record their computer usage in a portable, machine-readable format: Attention Profiling Markup Language (APML). Customers may offer to share this with retailers (thereby improving site suggestions and conversion) – in return for incentives.

Another move from the individual retailer to the network comes from review and ratings systems, like Bazaarvoice and Reevoo. Each of these suppliers works for retailers and enrich their sites. However, their reach is greater than an individual brand or site and the insight and value shifts from being retailer-centric and controlled to one based on the network.

Similarly, product recommendations (once the preserve of the on-site retailer systems) are now driven by external and, soon, network intelligence. ChoiceStream, Aggregate Knowledge and others can suggest cross- and up-sell options to customers. If they connect their insight across retailers then their systems would have more insight than any of their individual clients. Phorm, via its arrangements with so many ISPs, can see the aggregated browsing, ad-clicking and product-viewing behaviour of more customers than any one retailer or individual ad network. Finally, let us not forget that Google Checkout can ’see’ every product purchased, at what price and thereby get a better view of ultimate conversion and effectiveness than any retailer – all the while retaining the closest relationship with the customer. In time this insight could power new forms of performance advertising, pricing models and as-yet-unformed commercial opportunities. For Google!

Unlocked data, information exchange, the network effect and new access to hitherto-private stages of the sales cycle mean that customers (and new service providers) have more power than ever. The implication for retailers is that they need to consider ever more carefully the uniqueness and value of their proposition and how they can work within this networked, amorphous world. As we unwind on the beach this summer we should keep a small part of our brains mulling over our approaches: contributive, expert, open and distinctive – hopefully in time to engage in the Christmas season! This is a topic to which we’ll return, but in the meantime “Happy holidays”.

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Just off to the Mediafutures Conference in Ally Pally (reaches for A-Z) and wondering whether there’ll be great broadband/mobile reception there ‘cos we’re under a mast?

Interesting day lined up but here’s a quick heads up that there’s a twitter channel at (predictably):
Twitter / mediafutures

I’m not going to promise an update since Nico’s notes are generally quicker and better than any notes I’ve taken at his events

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The European bloc is the third most attractive global market – after the US and China – and, despite the differences in culture, language and infrastructure, this agglomeration of consumers is at least held together by the twin factors of relative affluence and a consistent legal system – the pre-requisites for trade.

The UK is well-positioned to be at the heart of international moves into Europe: the relatively well-advanced broadband and computing infrastructure, the credit card penetration levels, the enjoyment of shopping (online and off) and the ready acceptance of brand imports from across the pond makes the UK a natural ‘beach-head’ for US aspirations in Europe (or “rest of world” as our cousins so often term it).

The well-developed markets in France and German also hold attractions but outside the big three markets – each with its own idiosyncrasies – any hope of an homogeneous, easily-addressable marketplace evaporates.

Leaving aside language and culture (which of course one can’t) the plain sailing of the ecommerce front-end so often comes to grief on the jagged rocks of logistics and distribution. While it’s easy to present an ecommerce front-end to any market (indeed, we often scour the websites of US-only retailers and ponder the costs of delivery and import duty) it’s a totally different matter to get the goods to the customers. Legacy national carrier networks, cross-border delivery issues, the siting of warehousing, management of credit cards and returns… Ah – all of the problems of real ecommerce, but with a combinatorial level of complexity. Software alone cannot solve this, nor can marketing. Hence we see GSI’s European team investing in local logistics companies and partnerships, and the growth of ‘end to end’ commerce offerings that can provide a complete ‘click to doorstep’ service in-country.

What is the cause of this sudden interest? At a high level there’s a combination of a search for new growth outside the US and UK, a feeling that the technology allows a foray into Europe, and the growth of the indigenous etail markets growing to a critical, attractive mass.

Within this there are five main categories of activity (based unscientifically on my conversations last month):

1. existing master of the large-scale play who look to extend their efficient supply chain and volume retailing to other territories
2. niche or specialist etailers for whom a global market might exist and who now look to replace lost domestic volumes
3. Global manufacturer, facing demand for their products in many territories, and juggling global marketing/brand ownership with a variable quality of local distributorships
4. a domestic power-house looking for “near-shore” opportunities to support growth.
5. companies who form the local part of a global group coming under pressure to operate in a unified, global fashion.

We will be tracking these developments with interest in these pages in the coming months.

The challenge of Europe is not just one of plugs, pipes and trucks: there’s a ’selling’ challenge too. While it’s trite to note that customer behaviour may differ in regions and markets, what can we learn from this? Furthermore how can etail professionals move beyond obvious promotional mechanisms and enhance profitability? These questions will be occupying Europe’s leading multichannel retailers in Amsterdam this month for the inaugural European eCommerce Forum (ECF).

The Forum is an invite-only, expert peer group for etailers with €70million+ in etail sales, and will provide a confidential space for discussion, experimentation, benchmarking and networking. A joint initiative of Internet Retailing and Joris Beckers (CEO of FredHopper), we aspire to improve in-country selling capabilities as well as a broader European view.

A fortnight later our colleagues at ACSEL, the French association for eCommerce, will be launching their book – “Europe – an Opportunity for eCommerce ” by Jean-Christophe Defline – at a conference in Paris where I’ll be expanding on the European view from the ECF and the UK perspective on eCommerce.

Most etailers will not welcome further complexity when the focus is upon the likely consumer downturn in the UK, so “Europe” may appear an untimely distraction. However, this syzygy of interest in Europe highlights topics of interest to us all: improved brand and customer communications; dealing flexibly with multiple partners and carriers; learning responsiveness to smaller, niche markets and, of course, driving for growth in a tough economic climate.

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Thanks to client engagements your Editor in Chief has had the opportunity to pound the malls, boutiques and ateliers of Hong Kong, London, New York and Manchester – all in the space of high carbon-footprint month. During my travels I’ve been both demonstrating best practice rich internet applications and spending times in some truly extraordinary retail venues – from the highest end of luxury outlets and malls in Hong Kong through discount and scale retailers in NYC, where luxury and mass-markets collide, and niche, one-outlet custom retailers in the UK. As a backdrop to this till-gazing my newsfeeds have kept me in touch with the statistics: ongoing fears of a consumer recession; growth in online sales over the Christmas season that show the channel taking an ever-greater proportion of retail sales and a mix of retail results, with some winners and a few losers whose sales have declined.

In my conversations with retailers there’s a general agreement that the “consumer situation” is going to be difficult through 2008 and that spring trading won’t help fashion retailers enough (after all, Spring/Summer goods have a lower cash value that the big winter coats and back to school outfits) and the electronics retailers lack a compelling product – no Xbox/Wii launch, no new operating system, no radical shift in computer power or screen technology. Even the DVD format war has fizzled to a conclusion.

In all, retailers are looking to proceed with caution, eye promotional activity and keen pricing as their lodestone in the difficult currents ahead – looking to steady sales or have a ‘managed decline’ while protecting margins. In a word – incrementalism.

I fear, though, that such stoicism and incrementalism will not serve retailers well: there’s no such thing as an average decline.

Customer behaviour is binary: they either buy or they do not. It’s not as if – faced by a reduced amount of free cash – a customer simply decides to spend £97 instead of £100. Clearly, retailer discounting may give that appearance (ie if we reduce prices) but the more worrying situation is that customers simply do not buy at all from us: a 100% discount!

This was obvious to me as I eavesdropped on the faithful in four different Apple stores fondling the new MacBook Air. Even early adopters acknowledge that the machine is underpowered but its impact is clear: it makes other options look undesirable and customers will wait for the ‘version 2′ rather than spend now or on an alternative. The message for rival products is “we don’t want it” not “we can’t afford it”.

Likewise, for clothing. Recent reports show that customer aspirations remain high even when cash is tight. The observed behaviour is that they’ll continue to buy high-end goods, but in lower quantities, and would fund the purchases by eschewing other non-essential purchases (ie reduced overall sales for the high end, zero sales at the lower end: no ‘average’ in sight!).

Luxury etailers, however, should not take this custom for granted. A quantitative survey by Conchango this month (covered on our portal) shows a catalogue of basic errors and shoddy customer experience. 30% of ordered goods did not arrive, and from a total score of 190 Estee Lauder (the best) only managed 109 and Dior held up the bottom with a lowly 56 (goods didn’t arrive).

The lessons from this are clear, obvious – and generally ignored. Back your products and marketing with great logistics.

The more difficult lesson though is to look through the aggregate behaviour of 100 customers and consider the unique experience of each of them: if we fail to communicate, inspire and delight then the customers’ wallets will stay firmly in their pockets. Aggregate percentage shifts in the market will disguise the fact that some retailers will take lots of money and others will see sales fall off a cliff.

A gynaecologist friend once remarked, one cannot be “99% pregnant” – you either are or you’re not. Likewise with retail in 2008: there’s no ‘99% successful’ – you’ll either make the sale or you won’t. In 2008 etail sales will need to be personal, and etailers must act accordingly.

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Google has recently added a “UK Retail” resource to its iGoogle offering. This is more than a collection of retail-specific feeds from the existing Google database. Google has worked directly with key information providers to ensure that the feeds provided are relevant, correctly formatted, useful for retail ‘watchers’ and provide a good mass of information. From a publisher’s perspective the new zone offers improved branding (over and above a reader just adding the RSS feed to their own iGoogle account).

Follow the link above (click on the image) to get to a page that shows the widgets I’m running on my iGoogle page. Clearly, I’m promoting the Internet Retailing one (ahem), but there are some very useful other ones – the Comscore live “Top 15″ table, and the Hitwise Top10s.

This is a useful ‘radar’ for retail and etail activities, I reckon, but I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts.

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“Walking the talk: increasing innovation in the media sector” is the title and the event has a challenge to media industry folk:

Is the media industry innovative, and how can we increase innovation in media? While innovation is extensively discussed in the media, media innovation today increasingly comes from outside the industry.

Come to the event and participate in the debate.

This is the latest in the Innovation Forum series, programmed by Nico Macdonald (with whom I’m working on the Future Media Summit activities).

Registration is open.

More information on the Innovation Forum programme at the website.

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A couple of weeks ago I ran a workshop for the leaders of The British Council’s East and West Africa teams. It was a really interesting morning looking at engagement with audiences in Africa via the web. There were too many of my preconceptions shattered during the research and our discussions to detail here, but in brief the web is forming an increasingly important component in the lives of (predominantly urban) young people across a number of countries.

I was impressed at the pragmatic, open-minded and cost-effective approach and this group exemplifies the work. WAPI (Words and Pictures) is a group for hip hop, graffiti and underground collaboration and expression:

WAPI events, piloted in Nairobi and recently extended to Dar Es Salaam, are a platform that makes it possible for visual and verbal artists in the underground to showcase their art (in words and/or pictures). We take the underground to mean the upcoming, the undiscovered, those who, by design or default, are not part of the mainstream. WAPI brings undiscovered talent to the fore for the discerning public through a regular (monthly) WAPI programme. WAPI also aspires to become a talent-spotting platform – the place where tomorrows best acts and today’s best-kept secrets are identified and enjoyed.

Rather than spending money creating a monolithic site and thereafter spending money on marketing, the BC have used free software (Facebook) to create a group. They moderate rather than control (which is of course appropriate to a self-defining community) and focus their efforts on supporting, celebrating and developing the ‘real world’ events. This is a refreshing approach.

One interesting point I learned was the prevalence of blogs within the WAPI participant community. It’s clear that once young people have access to the web and computers that there’s a rapid adoption of all relevant technologies – from mixing music, creating and publishing CDs, digital downloads and blogging.

One further benefit of FB is the access it provides to an international, supportive community of like-minded people.

It’s difficult to leave aside the pressing social and economic issues that the continent faces, but there’s a great deal of energy and hope here for a future for young people beyond the very real privations and less real preconceptions. I’m pleased to have come across this initiative – it’s certainly rounded my view of the web, communication and engagement.

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I was pleased to be asked to write a column for InCirculation Magazine on the “monetisation model” that I’d developed with Craig Hanna of e-consultancy. We’d been engaged by one of the UK’s leading publishers to work with their senior teams to incorporate digital revenue streams into their daily activities. This model was the result – a workshop-based approach that takes a structured approach together with brainstorming, forming and evaluative techniques.

Here’s the pdf archive of the article.

If you’re interested in hearing more about the Model, or the workshop/training programme it supports, please either contact me or Craig Hanna (Training Director) at e-consultancy.com.

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