eCommerce… small e, big C! Its about Sales!!!

July 4, 2012 · Posted in Business Guides, eCommerce, events, online retail, user experience  · Posted by Blog Administrator

Posted by Joan Mulvihill, IIA CEO

Fresh from the standing-room only IIA Ecommerce Breakfast Briefing at Irish Times Training, I’m still reeling from the number of subscribers, the cool and insightful presentation stylings of Graham Merriman and Vinny O’Brien and the smart interrogations from the audience Q&A.

So where do I start?  In 1995.  I know that’s a while ago but it’s when I started my working life in Woolworths in London and when I discovered that my passion for retail extended to both sides of the counter!  It’s a passion that’s stayed with me.   Retail, etail, potAtoe, potatoe!  I’m three years in the Irish Internet Association and its all still so much about digital marketing and not so much about online sales.   Marketers, my apologies!  The role of the digital marketing professional is critical but the stalwart 4Ps are as important now as ever.  All very retro but as Graham Merriman of Carrickane Consulting asked the WWDDD question (What Would Don Draper Do?), I reckon I have earned some latitude.

Both of the speakers are retailers.  Yes, actual retailers.  They are people who sell stuff.  People who pack stuff, put them in boxes and deliver them to customers.   One of this morning’s messages was a clear shout out to lose the jargon, its retail not rocket science.  Is it about SEO or is it simply about how to get the most from your website.   Is it about UX or is it simply about the customer journey?  Maybe that’s just semantics if you’re in the know but there’s a world difference if you are the provider of services to an offline retailer who’s trying to grow their online sales. Vinny O’Brien from Arnotts was clear on this point.  Keeping the lights on in your ecommerce business is half the battle as you sink costs at the start to achieve your long term strategy.  You’ve got to keep the business leader with you.

So what about the customer?  I love a good debate but it’s equally reassuring to see two speakers in synch.  Graham recommends knowing them.  You need to know them, know why they are coming into your store and equally know why they are coming onto your website.  You need to know what they need, want and expect from you and you need to know how to manage their perception of that. Then it’s easy.  Just find a way of giving it to them.  Profitably.  Vinny may have said this more than once but in case you missed it, here it is again.  You can’t beat research and statistics! “Retail is detail” is the old adage and whether it’s online or offline, it still holds true.

So keeping it kitsch, let’s talk Eurovision!  Graham made the point best with the Jedward case study.  Everyone in Europe knew who they were.  Big tick in the digital marketing ‘awareness’ box.  But did they convert?  Alas no.  Our Eurovision hopes dashed for another year.   Conversion is the name of the game.   A great digital marketing campaign will acquire followers and fans but it needs to acquire sales by converting fans to customers.  This is retail and retail is about competing for sales not competing for popularity.

And it seems that the key is to become popular AND sell your products.   The guys were unanimous in citing pricing and service as the big drivers.  When is a price promise not a price promise?  When it excludes website pricing!  42% of people going into stores are using their smart phones to compare prices so be careful about making promises that you’re only ‘kind of’ keeping.   And just when you’d gotten your head around your pricing strategy across online and offline, Graham dived right into the challenges and opportunities for cross-border selling.  Online is the first real ‘common market’.  It’s the first time we’ve experienced real price transparency and product fulfilment across borders – even if only 8.5% of European consumers are actually doing it.

Service is the big online -offline differentiator.  In the offline world, the service element is more or less over when the customer has taken the product to the counter, paid for it and has gone home, happy.   Online, the outbound customer journey becomes a much bigger part of the game.   How quickly can you deliver?  How cost effectively? How do you deal with returns?  They’ve left your online store but they haven’t ‘gotten’ anything yet.  The service journey is a long way from over and the onus of the experience is heavily on the retailer.

And speaking of service, the last word goes to Vinny, the aforementioned research and stats advocate, who is just as adamant about embracing customer feedback.  “We’re in a constant process of refinement in an environment that’s changing constantly”.  Two virtuous circles of iteration in perfect synchronicity?  Feedback from customers should not be seen as not an opportunity to test the crisis management capability of your PR agency or the ‘diffusion-in-140- characters-or- less’ capability of your in-house tweeter.  It is rather, an opportunity to refine your product and service offering to ensure repeat customer conversion – sales.   Did I mention that it’s all about sales!

The presentations from Graham Merriman of Carrickane Consulting and Vinny O’Brien of www.Arnotts.ie are free for download from the IIA website www.iia.ie/resources and of course feel free to join the Irish Internet Association by going too www.iia.ie/join-now to benefit from the IIA member discount for our Diploma in eCommerce Management.

 

 

Tags: no tags

Comments

Leave a Reply