As director of marketing for Blueport Commerce, Betsy Miller drives crosschannel results for clients by translating complex retail chain marketing into online traffic and conversion campaigns.
This blog will help keep you on top of the latest marketing trends and how they apply to your business as a big-ticket retailer.
The Centre provides interactive marketers with strategic guidance and best practices designed to increase customer engagement and improve results. The goal of the Centre is to translate industry and consumer data into action-oriented marketing strategies that can be applied in e-mail, social media, mobile marketing, e-commerce, and point of sale in order to achieve greater success.
The most recent reports from the Centre include an analysis of mobile e-mail and integrating e-mail and social media. We look forward to gaining more information and insight from e-Dialog and this resource.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
There are only a few big retail chains that offer free and fast Wi-Fi service in their stores. Last week, Sam’s became the latest to join this club of retail leaders, alongside Sears and Best Buy. Beginning in November (just in time for the critical holiday buying season), Sam’s Club shoppers will be able to use a Wi-Fi-ready Internet TV to see video streaming, Facebook, Pandora or other applications on a large-screen TV to get an idea of how they would look at home, becoming the first retailer to offer Internet TV live demos for customers.
But demonstrating Internet-enabled TV isn’t the only benefit of offering in-store Wi-Fi. The introduction of the iPhone certainly raised the profile of mobile commerce and, with the growing popularity of Android-based phones, mobile shopping is about to take flight. Do we believe people will be making purchases on their phones this holiday season? Probably not, especially when it comes to big-ticket items like appliances, furniture and flat-screen TVs. But in-store Wi-Fi access enables shoppers to quickly and easily do research and conduct price comparisons – helping them move along their purchase path. And it’s because of this benefit that we believe we’ll start seeing a lot more big-ticket retailers offering Wi-Fi in the next 6 months.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
A recent DMNews article about the challenges multichannel marketers face in using social media to reach local customers caught my eye. According to research from Harris Interactive, seventy-two percent of brand managers believe social media can be powerful in connecting with customers globally, but not necessarily at a local level.
Almost half (48%) of the brand managers surveyed by Harris find measuring ROI a challenge to connecting with local retail markets, while 45% cited managing and maintaining information as an obstacle. Additionally, 42% pointed to engaging audiences as a challenge for localized social media marketing.
In short, even across social media networks, your customers are still looking for a local message that is relevant to them.
While national or global campaigns are important for elevating a retailers' image, localized content helps consumers to relate to you and your products. Localization is at the heart of our approach at Blueport and it drives the ecommerce strategies for all of our multichannel retail clients.
Social media is a natural extension of any multichannel retailer's online strategy and it's a no brainer that this too needs to have a localized flavor. When used to connect with consumers at a local, regional level, your social media presence will become a true cross-channel sales driver integrated with your overall localized internet retail strategy.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
What women want may be one of the universe’s most complex questions, but what women look for in their ecommerce shopping experiences (and thus how multichannel marketers should woo them) can often be just as challenging to answer. Though fashion and beauty retailers may spend millions on researching the buying habits of their female consumers, those in other categories, like, say, furniture, flooring or appliances, may not always have that same insight. But with women controlling $4.3 trillion, or 73% of U.S. household spending, understanding the elusive female consumer is just as critical for big ticket retail.
Overall, women tend to shop between 15 and 30 minutes a day while at work. Moms, though, tend to shop for longer periods of time at work as they have less downtime at home
Women ages 18-34 conduct about half of their online shopping during work hours, and most do so in order to save time
Need is the main driver for women's online purchases. However, boredom and a compelling call-to-action can inspire younger women to shop
60% of women respond to email offers, making it the most influential driver of purchase - in fact, 3 out of 4 women subscribe to email alerts
The key takeaways here for big-ticket retailers looking to amplify their ecommerce store and reap ecommerce advantages? Provide online shopping experiences that are convenient for your consumers, allowing them to find the products they are looking for quickly and easily. Focus on creating compelling and creative online shopping offers to entice your female consumers and help rein in a pending sale.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
This week, Ashley Furniture HomeStore launched its official Twitter and Facebook pages. The big-ticket home furnishings retailer wants its Facebook page to be a place where visitors can “browse the hottest styles in furniture and stay updated on the company’s latest promotions, exclusive offers, community events, news, store locations, charities and more.”
I visited the official Facebook page today and was impressed with all the helpful information available to page visitors. But that was the second Ashley Furniture HomeStore Facebook page that I came across after typing the retailer’s name into the search box in Facebook. The other “community” page has more than double the “fans” and, rather than offering helpful tips and tricks, the page features a Wall full of comments. Within the first few posts, I found a disgruntled ex-employee and an unhappy customer. It made me think about our customers and whether they are proactively monitoring social networks in order to protect their brand.
Ashley Furniture has a great opportunity to interact with the Facebook users who posted these comments and convert them to real fans of their “official” organization page. Proactively monitoring unofficially branded Facebook pages (especially when you have franchisees who may have set up their own localized accounts) allows others within that community to see how you actively alleviate issues and concerns as they happen. In this case, Ashley Furniture has the opportunity to demonstrate that the company is dedicated to providing excellent customer service.
Bottom Line: It’s good for business to portray your brand as one that not only cares about happy customers and employees, but the unhappy ones too.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
This week Google announced the latest partnership aimed at making ecommerce store reviews and ratings show up more prominently in its online search results, a deal with PowerReviews Inc, Blueport's preferred partner for product reviews.
It means that consumers looking for a product within Google’s online shopping tab will now be able to see ratings and reviews for products from many of the 3,500 commerce sites operated by PowerReviews’ 1000 retail clients. This comes on the heels of a similar deal announced between Google and Bazaarvoice this past April, and it points to a bigger development in the ecommerce industry whereby consumers are gaining quicker and greater access to product information without having to dig through individual retailer’s e-commerce stores.
For the consumer, this makes online shopping price and product comparisons that much quicker and easier.
For participating e-commerce retailers, it means greater visibility of their products. It also underscores the importance of optimizing and managing consumer reviews (a proven sales driver already) to ensure that consumers are seeing the most relevant information from your e-commerce stores as soon as they begin their product search.
Shop.org and Forrester released the latest installment of their joint “The State of Online Retailing” research series (a survey of 109 retailers).
Let’s take a look at the major findings:
Mobile on the Mind:
Nearly three-quarters (74%) of online retailers either already have or are developing a mobile strategy
One in five boasts having a fully implemented mobile strategy in place already
Paid Search Still Dominates Marketing Budgets:
Retailers are spending nearly 40% of their marketing budget on paid search
Experimenting with Social Media:
Listening to customers is the most significant objective for social tools, with 80% of retailers reporting that they are pursuing social strategies to experiment and learn
While 28% noted that social marketing has helped grow their business, direct sales from social tactics are not widely measured
How does this align with your priorities?
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Wondering if email is on the way out? Not so fast, says the latest study from ExactTarget. Part 1 of their new research study looks at the Digital Morning - what do consumers interact with at the beginning of the day and more importantly WHY. According to the study, those 58% who check email first are the ones looking for promotions, new products and coupons from their preferred brands.
At the very least, we think this underscores the importance of making sure you're sending your emails at the best time of day for your customers.
What will you do with these new insights?
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
In case you missed it, earlier this week our friends at e-Dialog issued a new report titled “Manifesto for E-Mail Marketers: Consumers Demand Relevance.” The report is based on a survey of 2000 consumers in the US and UK conducted by Forrester Consulting.
The report reveals that marketers need to know their customers’ preferences before hitting the ‘send’ button if they want them to open and respond to the e-mail. Specifically, consumers want marketers to know:
The types of products or services they like (64%)
The types of offers they like (61%)
Whether they are a new or returning customer (54%)
Their communications preferences (47%)
Their shopping habits such as online searching, in-store visits & catalog purchases (36%)
It’s no surprise that consumers expect marketers to know all this information. As more consumers become comfortable shopping online and brand experiences become increasingly more immersive, expectations will continue to rise.
So the real question is, how well do you know your customers?
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Still on the fence about mobile commerce? You're not alone according to eMarketer according to a recent article "Multichannel Retailers Upgrade, but Not to Mobile." I was glad I clicked through this one as it was more interesting than the title implied. Because not only are retailers being cautious, consumers are too! Currently 79% of retailers aren't doing m-commerce, and 73% of internet users have never researched products on a mobile device and 87% have never purchased an item on a mobile device.
Whether it's cause and effect (no retailer sites means no shopping), or just the reality of shopping on a 3 1/2 inch screen , I think it's OK for retailers to wait and see on m-commerce. Perhaps we'll just skip it altogether for p-commerce (iPad)?
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Last week e-Dialog, a division of GSI Commerce and a Blueport partner, announced the acquisition of database marketing firm MBS for approximately $22.5 million cash. This announcement follows closely on the heels of last month’s acquisition of mobile services company M3. What does this mean for e-Dialog?
These acquisitions are all about the data. e-Dialog not only gains a wealth of data acquisition and integration technology, it also leverages interesting consumer behavioral insights and patterns. This technology will help the company to better collect, analyze and act on customer data across channels. We believe this will only strengthen e-Dialog’s already great targetingimpressive data segmentation capabilities. What does this mean for the industry?
John Rizzi, CEO of e-Dialog noted that the average multichannel retailer does about 7% of revenue online and 93% in stores – yet most retailers do not tie those customer activities together or create strategies that are truly cross-channel. The missed opportunities resulting from this lack of integration are glaring.
As consumers’ shopping behavior (be it for mass products or high-ticket items) becomes increasingly cross-channel, retailers must be ready to meet them where they shop – be it in the store, online or through mobile – or risk losing the sale. That means that it’s increasingly essential for companies to be able to integrate their databases across channels to create a ‘single view’ of each customer.
e-Dialog’s ability to integrate email, point of sale, mobile, social media and online databases will prove to be a competitive differentiator which will push others in the industry to further innovate to keep up.
We look forward to continuing working with e-Dialog to provide our clients with the very best in multi channel marketing services.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
From the desk of who can believe it's April already, Shop.org's blog has the first look at Q1 sales with their flash survey results - and the news is encouraging!
According to their survey (conducted in partnership with Forrester Research),
Over half of retailers surveyed reported YOY sales increases of 10% and higher;
Along with the majority of large and mid-size retailers, almost two-thirds of small retailers experienced salse growth.
Hopefully this will be the beginning of another year of online retail growth and that it's stronger than 2009!
Many retailers believe that in order to implement successful online commerce solutions, they need to build them from the ground up, which can be a logistical nightmare. That’s not necessarily the case, as some solutions have the ability to easily integrate into your existing infrastructure, simplifying the entire process.
Blueport Commerce knows big-ticket businesses are, by definition, complex and unique. We strive to match our technology platform and services to your particular business model, rather than trying to fit it into a commodity-focused, inflexible platform that doesn't meet your needs. At Blueport, we aim to simplify ecommerce logistics and integrate your e-commerce with a complete multi-channel strategy.
Our platform is the beginning, not the end, of bringing your unique business online. As a comprehensive solution, it allows us to focus on what we do best — tailoring it to your unique needs, processes and peculiarities. Each of our integrations is a structured process, designed to marry our online technology and expertise with your understanding of your market and your business.
Whenever I speak with a big-ticket B2C retailer about expanding their store online, a recurrent question inevitably arises: "Why not handle e-commerce development in-house?"
Many of these retailers have been considering the online marketplace for some time and are wondering how they can participate without overburdening their current staff and technology. Their big-ticket businesses are complex and a standard platform won't accomodate them, and the addition burden of taking on B2C e-commerce development in-house is a daunting and resource-intensive task that many retailers just can't handle. In developing their multi-channel strategy, using a hosted ecommerce software solution starts to look like the best option.
At Blueport Commerce we have one focus — helping customers exactly like these retailers. We focus on what makes their business unique, so they can focus on what matters most — growing their new ecommerce online store.
Whether they have products that are unbranded, have a higher price point or are highly customizable, Blueport Commerce helps retailers connect with buyers worldwide. Complex delivery requirements a problem? We can help and ensure that a retailer's customers receive the white glove treatment they deserve, and more importantly, expect.
We match e-commerce development and services to address every retailer's unique business needs, not squeeze them into a commodity-focused, inflexible platform that doesn't address the intricacies of their business.
At Blueport Commerce, we're a turnkey solution specialized for big ticket that ensures the transition to e-commerce is easy, worry-free and profitable. By combining the industry's most advanced technology platform for localized, big-ticket retail, dedicated integration services and personalized B2C e-commerece development, Blueport Commerce can port every retailer's unique business to a ready and willing online marketplace
Continuing with our ecommerce email marketing efforts, as we move the consumer from inspiration to purchase, here are a few ideas for content that will keep them on this path.
Localize: The importance of localized content in your email marketing cannot be underestimated for ‘big ticket' purchases. Give your ecommerce customers an option to get more information about the product, drive traffic into stores, and provide reassurance that their order will be handled by a local store team available for assistance if needed.
Cost: Product cost comparison invariably plays a critical role in the decision making process for big ticket items, so don't forget to highlight any promotions or offers in your email marketing that may be available for customers at this point.
Purchase: Finally, use your ecommerce email marketing to entice the customer in the final steps of the buying cycle by offering a discount, coupon or incentive to bring the sale in.
Beyond relevance, giving customers a wide variety of meaningful and interesting email content can be key to guiding them through the sale and establishing a deeper relationship. With this approach, email marketing quickly becomes an integral component of a holistic sales cycle and not just the closer.
Big-ticket retailers face a whole different set of ecommerce challenges than do their mass merchant counterparts. That's because big-ticket ecommerce is fundamentally different than traditional ecommerce, long typified by consumers purchasing inexpensive, simple products online and receiving shipment via parcel service.
Big-ticket retail presents unique ecommerce barriers. It involves more expensive, less well-understood products — furniture, appliances, TVs, flooring, construction materials. Prices are higher and consumer confidence is lower. Inventory is bulky, expensive to move around the country and more expensive to return.
Because of this, big-ticket commerce is fundamentally local. Stores play a critical role. Ecommerce becomes a powerful tool to help stores compete in their local markets rather than a national channel that bypasses them. Online efforts serve to drive store traffic, generate leads and consummate online transactions, cost effectively and measurably.
For these reasons and more, big-ticket retailers often find their foray into the ecommerce space a daunting challenge. How do they successfully overcome these ecommerce barriers to manage the numerous components - merchandise, operations, and IT? Often, big-ticket retailers find that standard ecommerce platforms do not offer the tailored solutions that are required to successfully bring their products online.
At Blueport, our technology is specifically designed to help big-ticket retailers overcome these ecommerce barriers and develop success full online storefront that drive their sales.
We match our technology platform and services to address the unique business needs of big-ticket retailers, not squeeze them into a commodity-focused, inflexible platform that doesn't address the intricacies of your business. We focus on what makes these retailers' business unique, so they can focus on what matters most — growing their business online.
Email marketing can be a big-ticket retailer's best friend. In the first few weeks of the buying cycle, email content that inspires and educates is key. Creating an email marketing sequence that guides a potental customer through the decision-making process, whether they ultimately complete the transaction online or offline, is a valuable ecommerce marketing strategy.
Inspiration: Similar to the way a customer might visit a bricks and mortar store to check out new or seasonal merchandise, use ‘what's new' content in your email marketing to emphasize new products, top sellers or trends that will inspire the customer to make a purchase.
Research: Particularly in the case of ‘big ticket' items, once inspired, customers typically set out to do more research before making the purchase. Use ecommerce email marketing to highlight why your product is better and why the customer should purchase it from you. The email content here should not be saturated with marketing language, but rather be clever, surprising and creative.
Advice: In using email marketing to make the sale, I often see big-ticket retailers forgetting to use this opportunity to educate the customer and establish a deeper relationship. Sending an email offering customers ‘how to' tips might not necessarily translate in to an immediate ecommerce purchase, but it will build a longer term relationship that will no doubt contribute to conversion down the road.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
As ecommerce evolves from a commodity marketplace to one where consumers make considered, "big ticket" retail purchases online, there are unique challenges that must be addressed. Big ticket ecommerce involves more expensive, less well-understood products - furniture, appliances, TVs, flooring, construction materials, etc. Prices are higher and consumer confidence is lower. Inventory is bulky, expensive to move around the country and more expensive to return.
For these reasons, big ticket commerce is fundamentally local. Stores play a critical role. Ecommerce becomes a powerful tool to help stores compete in their local markets rather than a national channel that bypasses them. Online efforts serve to drive store traffic, generate leads and consummate online transactions, cost effectively and measurably.
Blueport Commerce has developed a business ecommerce solution that is architected around this need for multi-channel localization. Its services drive results through a deep understanding of how consumers research and complete big ticket purchases online and in stores.
If you're running a B2B ecommerce site, you should think about localizing your content. Why? Because just like consumers shopping for clothing or home goods online, your business customer expects the content and promotions displayed online to be consistent with the brick and mortar store near where they are located.
Running this kind of multi channel business is becoming more and more crucial to ecommerce success. The ability to understand and accommodate the complexities of each business and deliver a localized solution that meets a retailer’s needs is at the core of a successful B2B ecommerce solution.
For B2B ecommerce solution providers, the impact of localization likely means displaying local sales contacts, showing local inventory levels, delivery times, availability and pricing based on the customer's location.
Not just for B2C anymore, localization is an important point for B2B ecommerce that should not be overlooked.
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