Whilst preparing for a recent presentation I was giving, I found myself questioning whether innovation in ecommerce had ground to a halt. Now I’m not talking about innovations in technology here, there’s a lot of that going on. I’m talking about retailers embracing these innovations and applying them to commercial ecommerce websites.
According to a study by my favourite research hub Marketing Sherpa, shopping carts abandonment rates are at around 59% (at the time of the study). This doesn’t come as a surprise to us in the business of Ecommerce but it is staggering how high the numbers are. Even a small decrease in this number could mean a huge increase in revenues.
Ok, so it’s a bit of a dull subject, so i’ll keep it brief, but it’s a very serious one for anyone that’s transacting online:
For those not aware, PCI DSS stands for the ‘Payment Card Industry Security Standard’. It was set up by Visa and Mastercard and compliance ensures the security and protection of sensitive customer information (like credit cards).
Following on from my previous, less than enthusiastic post about outfit builders and their viability in online ecommerce, I came across this video which really got me excited:
Yes it’s clunky, and the production quality is poor, but if the guys behind this have managed to get a prototype working, others will surely not be far behind. This is the kind of exciting development that would be a game changer in fashion ecommerce.
There’s recently been a flurry of activity at Pod1 h.q. meeting with various developers of online outfit builders. The principle behind all of these is pretty straightforward: allowing customers to virtually try something on and mix and match with other items is that one step closer to the real experience and will therefore lead to an increase in conversions…that’s the theory anyway.
Some of the better ones I came across were:
..to see how etailers are still ignoring the lowest hanging fruit that could generate them the most revenue: their beloved existing customers.
It’s madness. These guys have purchased from you before. They love your brand. They recommend it to friends and even buy their Christmas gifts from you. They cost you a third of the amount to market to and they typically spend at least 30% more with you. So why oh why do you still treat them like everyone else?
There’s a new digital model emerging in New York and I think it’s something we could learn from here in the UK. Our NY office recently designed and built a website for luxury fashion designer Catherine Malandrino. Nothing unusual about that I hear you say, but more than that, we’re taking hold of the stock, storing it, dispatching it directly to the consumer and answering customer service queries. We’re effectively running an online shop on behalf of the designer.
I’ve been wanting to write something about ‘Social Shopping’ for a while but never had any specific examples I could share with you until now.
Firstly, what do I mean when I say ‘Social Shopping’.
Just back from a trip stateside (bimonthly visit to our New York office) and while crunched up in my economy seat I began to ponder over the transfer of skills between the US and UK, which has always been a hot topic for me. While reflecting on the debate about whether the two markets were ready to benefit from each other’s styles, particularly within e-commerce I concluded that the big difference is that Americans generally think differently and expect a different type of advertising and marketing to Europeans and this is apparent in their respective approaches to digital. The most obvious driver for this is the sheer size and disparate nature of America, which goes some way to explaining the brash nature – at least by European standards – of their marketing style.
This difference in styles – the real difference in terms of skills, is that the US suffers from a shortage of what I believe is good creative talent whereas the UK has fewer outstanding digital strategists, marketers, optimisers, researchers or analysts. It is common knowledge that the US is at least a year or so ahead in these areas and much more advanced in techniques such as multi-variant testing, data analytics, information mining and ECRM – all things your average ecommerce marketing director barely implements in the UK.
On top of this, Americans in general have a much more “online” mentality, they are far more plugged in to technology and proud of it, and this tends to be reflected in the fact that their technical development skill sets are much more advanced than ours. Many of the cutting-edge concepts like Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 were born in the US. Indeed the current thought is that the future of the web will be about apps living online, and the US is way ahead in this area. Their skills base (in terms of creating user interfaces that cross from desktop to online and working in environments such as Adobe Air & Flex) are beyond anything we are producing in Europe.
I think it’s time to admit that we can learn a lot from our cousins Stateside (and vice versa), specifically within the ecommerce arena, and start pooling our resources. Now’s not the time for being coy.
So Net-a-Porter’s discount brand, TheOutnet, launched last week and of course I was all over it. My agency has been involved in the launch activity but this e-commerce site is the work of their in-house team.
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