One thing that characterized the Internet Retailer 2008 Conference & Exhibition June 9-12 in Chicago was the quantity of insights, information and data that attendees received. The conference featured nearly 140 session speakers as well as other experts who provided a wealth of valuable ideas for achieving success in the e-retailing industry. Because attendees could not be at all the sessions or meet all the experts at IRCE, Internet Retailer is pleased to present 40 top ideas on a broad range of subjects from a variety of experts so even if you couldnt be there, you can still benefit from the insights that these experts imparted.
1. Web video has become a key tool in e-commerce. About 59% of Internet users view at least one video per week and viewing by women is expected to grow by 55% in the next five years, says Geoff Smith, vice president of ShopNBC.com and Adam Lindquist, director of business development at 2nd Wind Exercise Equipment. When deciding to pursue video, retailers should weigh if the products price point offers a good return on investment, they say.
2. Ive seen DNS outages take web sites down for days, so we use a carrier-class DNS infrastructure, says Nicholas Dibble, IT director for office supplies retailer BuyOnline.com. DNS, or domain name service, technology routes Internet traffic to web site addresses. We need to route customer traffic to data centers with load balancing at the DNS level, and we use the Ultra DNS Traffic Controller from NeuStar.
3. By properly coding Javascript in Ajax applications, marketers can ensure that search engines such as Google and Yahoo will properly crawl their pages, says Jamal Pilger, chief information and technology officer at restaurant equipment distributors GalaSource Companies. GalaSource drove as much as 20% of monthly revenue from natural search by optimizing its Web 2.0 applications.
4. Online merchants can benefit by using personalization techniques that deliver information based on user behavior, product popularity and merchandising strategies, says Cliff Conneighton, senior vice president of e-commerce technology provider ATG. An effective personalization tool is a click-to-call feature which can reduce shopping cart abandonment by 30% and increase conversion rates, he says. The majority of shoppers also notice recommendations and about a third of those purchase products based on recommendations.
5. To achieve the best return on investment on a new e-commerce application, retailers should think bottom up and not top down, says Tom Funk, vice president of e-commerce client services for Timberline Interactive. Merchants should focus on tangible, achievable sales gains based on improving existing metrics. Dart throwing isnt allowed. A good ROI analysis should consider cost savings, shipping costs and different financial models.
1. To engage customers passion for environmental concerns, Dell Inc. has created its own Dell.com-linked social networking site, ReGeneration.org, where it encourages participation by posing questions like What does green mean to you? says Sean McDonald, director, global online. That particular question garnered nearly 8,000 responses and 1 million votes by other site visitors rating the value of answers, he says.
2. Less promotional subject lines may keep you out of the spam folder and increase click-through, says David Dwek, vice president of online marketing and customer relationship management at Trans World Entertainment, which operates media stores and web sites such as FYE.com. The best time to send marketing e-mail to a customer depends on the customer. We did a test and if we sent e-mail at the same time as the last time people sent e-mail to us, we got a 10% higher open rate.
3. Online shopping malls offer merchants an opportunity to increase visitor traffic and boost sales. Getting noticed by a malls search engine requires fine-tuning, says Greg Hintz, general manager, Yahoo Shopping. Product descriptions and titles should be data focused, not marketing focused, he says. Instead of saying stylish winter jacket, set the title to mens brown leather jacket.
4. Last years e-commerce site redesign helped CPA2Biz.com boost traffic by 20%, says Melissa Rothchild, vice president of marketing. One important lesson was: know what you want. Boiling objectives down to a key few was just the beginning of the 18-month project, but necessary because thats the first thing vendors want to know. CPA2Biz.com's twin goals were to improve guided navigation and better define merchandising on each page.
5. Suppliers once dominated what retailers sold and at what price, then retailers became more in control, says Robert Antall, CEO of consultants LakeWest Group. By
2.10, the consumer will become dominant with access to product, pricing and retail location information, and we all need to prepare for that, he says. Rather than focus solely around product promotion, retailers need to connect with consumers on their terms, such as through social networks and interactive videos.
1. When entering the mobile space, retailers and marketers cant assume a users undivided attention, says Norman M. Sadeh, director of the Mobile Commerce Laboratory School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Sadeh, who has tested such mobile services as movie and restaurant recommendations and community applications like virtual flyers on the Carnegie campus, found that users have low tolerance for unintuitive applications. The technology must work and be helpful, he says.
2. In marketing via text messages, Steve Roberts, founder and CEO of ShopText, notes: 92.5.million U.S. consumers sent and received 3.3 billion text messages last year, and 13.6% of U.S. households were listed as mobile-only homes, he says.
3. You have to keep in mind the limitations of the mobile device, says Jon Paisner, analyst, Yankee Group Research. You have the smaller screen size, and with conventional phones you have triple-tap data entry. As a result, retailers have to develop a very compelling user experience in m-commerce.
4. Mobile is a perfect channel to establish new and unique touch-points with customers, says Gary Wohlfeill, executive vice president of marketing, Moosejaw Mountaineering. Today customers are mobile, and they expect us to be there.
5. M-commerce is a channel to watch because mobile phones are becoming less phones and more multi-purpose computers, says Bryan Biniak, managing director and founder, m-commerce investment company Provenance Ventures LLC. People are using them in completely different ways than just traditional voice communication devices. Mobile phones are becoming more and more a very personal home computer.
1. Retailers who get complaints about items missing from shipments should take digital photos of the contents of each box before shipping, says Doug Eckrote, senior vice president of operations at CDW. The computer products retailer takes pictures of the items in each box and makes them available to customers and to its own customer service staff. The system paid for itself in a week, Eckrote says.
2. When considering a web-hosting firm, be wary of low-cost offers, says Nicholas Percoco, vice president of consulting at security firm Trustwave. He cites an example of a company hosting 1.,000 sites that housed servers in an unlocked farm shed with no air conditioning and more than 20 cats roaming in and out. Ask to see SAS 70 or PCI security certifications, he says.
3. Retailers should use the latest anti-fraud tools because once a security technique has been adopted by 60% or more of web sites, criminals likely have figured out ways around it, says Tom Donlea, executive director of the Merchant Risk Council. Merchants often find security technologies developed in-house especially effective because they are unique to that merchant, he says.
4. When an e-retailer is researching vendors, they must not forget to consider personal compatibility - theyll want to work with friendly people, says Udayan Bose, founder and CEO of search marketing firm NetElixir. Have teleconferences with a number of people at the vendor, talk with all of the vendors staff at an exhibit at a conference. An e-retailer should be building a consultative relationship, not one built on cheap sales stuff.
5. When it comes to shipping and fulfillment contracts, e-retailers should bargain, compare carriers and scrutinize every charge, says Jeff Carter, vice president of fulfillment for Backcountry.com. Other tips include renegotiating a contract every year and demanding a sales representative who answers questions fast and is willing to work to get a better deal. Merchants should also closely monitor reports, looking for extra charges such as fuel surcharges, rural delivery charges and address correction fees.
1. Channel integration is becoming more business centric and customer centric, says Mike Boylson, chief marketing officer of J.C. Penney Co. Inc. and conference Keynote Speaker. He adds that cross-channel retailing is becoming better supported by digital media that pulls customers to a retailer rather than pushing content to customers. And with the convergence of media, search is king, he says.
2. Buy.com is doing well in a difficult retailing environment by understanding who its customers are and taking the mystery out of buying online. Thats a lesson other retailers can learn from, says Buy.com CEO Neel Grover and Keynote Speaker June
1.. In the end you differentiate yourself by concentrating on your niche and becoming transparent to the customer, he says.
3. HP Home & Home Office overhauled its mature, smoothly-running and largely automated comparison shopping engine marketing program and drove a
2.% increase in sales and ROI within three months as a result, says director of marketing Catherine Paschkewitz. It underscores the value of regularly reviewing even whats working in online marketing, lest opportunities be missed, she says. Its a technology-driven program, but you dont want to over-rely on automation.
4. Large multi-channel retailers should dedicate a chief customer advocate to ensure they leverage the web environment to engage customers across all channels, says Fiona Dias, a former senior executive of Circuit City Stores Inc. and now executive vice president of e-commerce technology provider GSI Commerce Inc. While letting the web management team continue to strengthen the online channel, retailers should designate someone with influence over store operations to drive cross-channel strategies, she says.
5. To keep up with major brands in a highly competitive environment, its important to regularly benchmark a retailers products and services against them, says Laura Christine, vice president of direct marketing and e-commerce at Skechers, the footwear manufacturer, retailer and wholesaler. We also do surveys to ask our customers whats most important to them, she says.
1. RockBottomGolf.com CEO Tom Rath offers this advice to other entrepreneurs looking to leverage his experience about selling on eBay: Take advantage of eBay to start out, but look to the day when eBay generates some, but not the majority of online sales. EBay is an ideal approach to launch a new business because its a pay-as-you-go-model and you can quickly test new products, he says. But the fee increases also never seem to cease and customer service costs are also more expensive.
2. Third-party platforms such as Yahoo Merchant Solutions are an affordable way to power an e-commerce site, but retailers also have to weigh options carefully about going outside vs. building their own, says eHobbies.com CEO Ken Kikkawa Custom work allows for best-of-breed functionality, but requires managing many developers, while the largest third-party platforms have similar default looking stores, he says. Merchants should decide what features they want and relate them to their vision for the business.
3. When launching an e-commerce business, have a concrete plan, with numbers attached for what happens next if you succeed, says Shirley Tan, CEO of American Bridal. Launched in
1.96, Tans business expanded so quickly that she was forced to move her operation four times in four years, absorbing all the attendant cost. If Id actually written down a growth plan, including goals and forecasts, I could have saved all of that, she says.
4. One Way Furniture Inc. CEO Mitch Lieberman recommends thoroughly researching options before making a decision to use a third-party platform for an online store. Make a list of the most reliable and scalable platforms, do research and ask for the best pricenever feel intimidated, he says. OneWayFurniture.com is on the Yahoo Merchant Solutions e-commerce platform and has grown to $20.1 million in revenue with a 17% growth in 2007.
5. Every business experiences growing pains. Vintage Tub & Bath chief marketing officer Allan Dick shares five things that he learned from challenges he faced growing his e-commerce business with other entrepreneurs at a workshop, First You Crawl: The Evolution of a Web Site: Network, watch cash flow carefully, hire the best key people, watch expenses and, when hiring vendors, negotiate stringently with specific terms, scope and delivery times.
1. 78% of respondents to a survey say word-of-mouth is the top source of information in their product decisions, says Dave Friedman, president, central region, for design and digital marketing firm Avenue A/Razorfish. 84% of consumers with annual incomes of more than $150,000 use product reviews when making purchases and 91% of mothers say other moms recommendations are key factors in buying decisions.
2. Before implementing videos, Flash or other sophisticated technology, web merchants should test them. Sites can look different across Internet browsers such as Mozillas Firefox, Apple Inc.s Safari, and the multiple versions of Internet Explorer, says Imad Mouline, chief technology officer for web site performance company Gomez Inc.
3. Dont water down an online forum by deleting controversial posts, says Kristen Onasch, coordinator of the Ferret Forum, which has 1871 registered users and 20,000 posts on 2,000 topics, for pet supplies retailer Drs. Foster & Smith. She also recommends e-retailers use as moderators their own employees, who know their products. Merchants should promote forums in standard e-mails such as order confirmations as well as dedicated messages about the new community, she adds.
4. As retailers look to engage customers, online video can help, says Laura Evans, executive studio director, Resource Interactive. Use video for a specific goal like enhancing a brand, supporting purchases and experimental merchandising. But let customers be in control of turning the video on and off, she adds.
5. Virtual worlds like Second Life can be helpful in engaging consumers with a brand, says Dell Ross, vice president of distribution marketing for the Americas, Intercontinental Hotels. By participating in a virtual conference in Second Life with participants from companies including Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods and Microsoft, Intercontinentals Crowne Plaza hotel exposed its meetings-oriented hotel brand, Ross says.
1. Study terms customers use when writing product reviews and employ those terms on product landing pages, says Rahmon Coupe, CEO of search engine optimization firm YourAmigo. That approach improved the click-through rate on optimized landing pages by 56.8% for one YourAmigo client.
2. When considering an international presence online, you have to ask yourself the question, Am I prepared to converse with people in their own language? If not, then you may want to use your English-language site to determine countries where you already have some strength and begin to develop a language strategy from there, says Kris Green, senior vice president of product, E4X Inc.
3. The Internet has evolved to make it easier for businesses to expand web content through wholesale suppliers, says Marc Joseph, president of Dollar Days International. Many suppliers and wide assortments of goods can be found at such wholesale portals as WholesaleCentral.com, CloseoutCentral.com, GoWholesale.com, Wholesale411.com, GetThatWholesale.com, WholesaleHub.com and WholesaleGopher.com.
4. Web merchants should take extra caution when using outside vendors that may be adding content to their sites, says Imad Mouline, chief technology officer for web site performance company Gomez Inc. Javascripts can collide, he says, and make images, links and other important site features appear incorrectly or disappear entirely. Staying abreast with vendor updates and making sure IT teams are in sync can save a lot of headaches in the long run, he adds.
5. One of the trends I see is the ability to better use more of the data already on retail web sites, says Eric Tobias, founder and CEO of iGoDigital and a former principal of retailer Batteries.com. Theres a shift to how technology affects the online customer experience rather than how it just affects the web site. For example, with social navigation, let shoppers search for specific product attributes within customer reviews.
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