Everyone wants to be involved with the newest technology, right? Retailers and consumers alike want to play on the newest playground with the newest equipment, along with the coolest, most influential kids, whether that means Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr today, Google+ tomorrow and who knows what next week. But before an e-commerce company jumps on the latest technology bandwagon, people need to stop and think about the website’s strategy and what is right for the overall business. That’s just what David Rogers, author of The Network Is Your Customer: 5 Strategies to Thrive in a Digital Age, wrote in a BNET blog post.
It’s almost as if the technology itself becomes bigger than its function. Brands tend to jump in so quickly that Google was compelled to post a YouTube video asking businesses to hold off on creating Google+ profiles until the business version is released.
While we at Blueport understand that brands do need to get out there and dip their feet in new technologies, strategy should come into play first. We work with our clients to help them determine their objectives before taking action. We don’t just help them administer Facebook contests, but we ask them why they want to have a Facebook contest – what is the real goal for the company? Then, based on our clients’ objectives, we offer suggestions that make the most sense for their brands and that will deliver the best return on investment.
New technology presents a new frontier, even for companies that already have an e-commerce presence. It helps to create a digital strategy to guide you in this unmarked territory.
Related posts:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
When It Comes to the Newest Technology, Set Objectives First
Friday, July 15, 2011 by
Betsy Miller
Consistency Is Key in This Multichannel Retail World
Friday, July 1, 2011 by
Betsy Miller
We’ve all read the news – most likely on a tablet or e-reader of choice – that brick-and-mortar bookstores are closing left and right as their electronic counterparts comparably flourish. But recently, I needed a book.
As do many shoppers, I began with online research. I went straight to a major book retailers’ website and located the title. I was disappointed that I could no longer order the book online for in-store pickup or even find out if my local store had the book in stock. But I could locate the closest store, which took some doing in light of the above-mentioned closings.
In-store, the item was priced 30% more than on the retailer’s website. The manager explained it was for the convenience of coming into the store, and no, it’s not confusing, because the company gets the money either way. I left unlikely to buy from the store or the e-commerce site again.
A Seamless Experience Between Online and In-Store
Of all the retail categories to know the right way to sell in a multichannel retail environment, you would expect books to have it mastered. After all, e-commerce began with bookselling.
Seeing where the book retailer got it wrong, while we here at Blueport are able to get it right as we help our retailers sell big-ticket items online, reminded me of just how new e-commerce and getting different retail channels to work together is.
But consumers are ready, and delivering a consistent experience between all of your retail channels is a must, particularly for considered purchases like furniture and appliances. This is why we tie into our retailers’ existing systems to show their customers consistent local pricing, real-time availability and a way to see the items in a store or to order online. We allow our retailers to give their customers control, so they can get the information they need, whenever and however they want it.
Related posts:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
As do many shoppers, I began with online research. I went straight to a major book retailers’ website and located the title. I was disappointed that I could no longer order the book online for in-store pickup or even find out if my local store had the book in stock. But I could locate the closest store, which took some doing in light of the above-mentioned closings.
In-store, the item was priced 30% more than on the retailer’s website. The manager explained it was for the convenience of coming into the store, and no, it’s not confusing, because the company gets the money either way. I left unlikely to buy from the store or the e-commerce site again.
A Seamless Experience Between Online and In-Store
Of all the retail categories to know the right way to sell in a multichannel retail environment, you would expect books to have it mastered. After all, e-commerce began with bookselling.
Seeing where the book retailer got it wrong, while we here at Blueport are able to get it right as we help our retailers sell big-ticket items online, reminded me of just how new e-commerce and getting different retail channels to work together is.
But consumers are ready, and delivering a consistent experience between all of your retail channels is a must, particularly for considered purchases like furniture and appliances. This is why we tie into our retailers’ existing systems to show their customers consistent local pricing, real-time availability and a way to see the items in a store or to order online. We allow our retailers to give their customers control, so they can get the information they need, whenever and however they want it.
Related posts:
- 5 Ideas to Help Multichannel Retailers Beat Big Internet Discount Sites
- Cross Channel Commerce: How The Home Depot Gets It
- E-Commerce CRM Becomes More Meaningful in a Multichannel, Social World
- Multichannel Communication: A Marketer's Dream or Nightmare?
- E-Commerce Marketing: Multichannel Analysis Is a Must!
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Get Your E-Commerce Website Ready for Daily Deals
Friday, June 17, 2011 by
Betsy Miller
Groupon has more than 83 million subscribers; LivingSocial more than 28 million. According to Bloomberg, 480 companies are competing in the daily deals space – including everyone from Google and Facebook, which have recently tossed their hats in the ring, to niche sites like the socially conscious Roozt.com or the kosher-inclined Jewpon.com.
With the potential traffic that could come from offering a daily deal, retailers that are considering teaming up with one of these sites need to be sure their own e-commerce websites can handle the load.
A Daily Deal Case Study
Our client The RoomPlace offered a daily deal through LivingSocial: $150 worth of furniture at 50% off. The site activity the day the deal ran was considerable:
Our operations team closely monitored live site usage throughout the day the deal went out – just in case. Thanks to the precautions taken, the additional traffic had no effect on site speed, nor was there any downtime.
“Planning ahead, both from a technical and a business perspective was essential,” says Kathryn Kerrigan, e-commerce manager for The RoomPlace. “Thanks to forethought and site stability, we were able to accommodate and convert numerous new customers.”
No matter what kind of business you run, a daily deal offer will drive a lot of new customers to your website. These new customers want to know what their getting whether or not they plan to use the deal online. Beyond the window dressing, be sure your website is technically ready so new customers will get a great first impression and come back for more.
Related posts:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
With the potential traffic that could come from offering a daily deal, retailers that are considering teaming up with one of these sites need to be sure their own e-commerce websites can handle the load.
A Daily Deal Case Study
Our client The RoomPlace offered a daily deal through LivingSocial: $150 worth of furniture at 50% off. The site activity the day the deal ran was considerable:
- 67% increase in website traffic
- 65% increase in bandwidth used
- 75% increase in calls for content.
Our operations team closely monitored live site usage throughout the day the deal went out – just in case. Thanks to the precautions taken, the additional traffic had no effect on site speed, nor was there any downtime.
“Planning ahead, both from a technical and a business perspective was essential,” says Kathryn Kerrigan, e-commerce manager for The RoomPlace. “Thanks to forethought and site stability, we were able to accommodate and convert numerous new customers.”
No matter what kind of business you run, a daily deal offer will drive a lot of new customers to your website. These new customers want to know what their getting whether or not they plan to use the deal online. Beyond the window dressing, be sure your website is technically ready so new customers will get a great first impression and come back for more.
Related posts:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Could Branded Social Games Increase Your E-Commerce Conversions?
Friday, June 10, 2011 by
Betsy Miller
Social gamers are a very attractive audience for e-commerce merchants. An eMarketer report projects that 68.7 million Internet users will play at least one social game per month by 2012. And according to GigaOM, 55% of social gamers in the US are women with an average age of 48 years old; 38% of those women play social games multiple times a day. Retailers selling big-ticket, highly considered products know that this profile aligns with the consumers who possess the income and decision-making power to buy.
Social Games and E-Commerce Conversion Today
As with many aspects of social media marketing, social gaming’s e-commerce conversions are not necessarily as high as merchants would hope. The accepted approach is to cast a very wide net to compensate for the low conversion rate. Often, consumers are much more interested in playing Bejeweled for free, and the advertising is just secondary noise on the screen.
Could Branded Games Perform Better for E-Commerce?
Some companies are looking to use branded social games to cash in on the medium. HSN, or Home Shopping Network, has added social games to its e-commerce site, allowing players to post and share scores on Facebook. Two of the games have direct product tie-ins, including a jigsaw puzzle of an item that’s only on sale for 24 hours. All HSN's games will show a steady stream of featured products playing alongside them.
Other companies have created their own games to create brand awareness, like Purina’s Purina Pet Resort on Facebook or VinTank’s multiplatform VinPass, which aims to help wineries connect with consumers. Marriott has gotten in the game with its own version of FarmVille – My Marriott Hotel – for recruiting purposes.
Is Social Gaming Marketing Is Right for You?
A recent iMedia Connection article suggests you ask 3 questions before marketing your brand in the social gaming space:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Social Games and E-Commerce Conversion Today
As with many aspects of social media marketing, social gaming’s e-commerce conversions are not necessarily as high as merchants would hope. The accepted approach is to cast a very wide net to compensate for the low conversion rate. Often, consumers are much more interested in playing Bejeweled for free, and the advertising is just secondary noise on the screen.
Could Branded Games Perform Better for E-Commerce?
Some companies are looking to use branded social games to cash in on the medium. HSN, or Home Shopping Network, has added social games to its e-commerce site, allowing players to post and share scores on Facebook. Two of the games have direct product tie-ins, including a jigsaw puzzle of an item that’s only on sale for 24 hours. All HSN's games will show a steady stream of featured products playing alongside them.
Other companies have created their own games to create brand awareness, like Purina’s Purina Pet Resort on Facebook or VinTank’s multiplatform VinPass, which aims to help wineries connect with consumers. Marriott has gotten in the game with its own version of FarmVille – My Marriott Hotel – for recruiting purposes.
Is Social Gaming Marketing Is Right for You?
A recent iMedia Connection article suggests you ask 3 questions before marketing your brand in the social gaming space:
- Does your target audience already play social games?
- Will your brand be able to be relevant and integrated into the game, creating a good user experience for the gamer?
- Will you be able to entertain and reward players to create deeper engagement with your brand?
- Will You Make Back Your Online Advertising Spend in Store Sales? Yes!
- 4 Tips to Boost E-Commerce Site Traffic from Rapper Lil B
- 3 Reasons Why Quality Content Could Be Your Key to E-Commerce Success
- There’s a Lot to Like About Facebook and Ecommerce Marketing
- Facebook's Role in Social Shopping
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Will You Make Back Your Online Advertising Spend in Store Sales? Yes!
Friday, June 3, 2011 by
Carl Prindle
All retailers want to know that the money they spend online is coming back to them some way, somehow. It's become a mantra that the majority of consumers who buy in stores research online first, but in truth, it can be hard to follow customers from their keyboards to retailers’ registers.
We at Blueport see the value that local e-commerce and online marketing bring to our brick-and-mortar clients every day. But, it certainly helps when a company like Google offers Online to Store research that quantifies cross-channel results.
Google set out to prove that online advertising leads to in-store sales. For one national retailer, testing keyword advertising specific to one product category not only lifted in-store sales for that category by 3.6%, but the online advertising had a halo effect, lifting sales in all other categories by 1%. And, the bigger the ticket, the better the results were.
HP Case Study Shows ROI Is Higher with Bigger-Ticket Items
The Google Retail Advertising Blog post about Hewlett-Packard and the study discusses the following findings:
In an interview, analytics evangelist Avinash Kaushik offers some ideas for getting quantitative information on how your online efforts contribute to in-store sales.
Some ideas you might be able to implement for your retail business:
Related posts:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
We at Blueport see the value that local e-commerce and online marketing bring to our brick-and-mortar clients every day. But, it certainly helps when a company like Google offers Online to Store research that quantifies cross-channel results.
Google set out to prove that online advertising leads to in-store sales. For one national retailer, testing keyword advertising specific to one product category not only lifted in-store sales for that category by 3.6%, but the online advertising had a halo effect, lifting sales in all other categories by 1%. And, the bigger the ticket, the better the results were.
HP Case Study Shows ROI Is Higher with Bigger-Ticket Items
The Google Retail Advertising Blog post about Hewlett-Packard and the study discusses the following findings:
- Overall, HP’s online to store campaign had a 530% overall return on ad spend
- The top 25% of markets in the test had a 1,090% return on ad spend
- Higher-end models correlated with a higher increase in store sales.
In an interview, analytics evangelist Avinash Kaushik offers some ideas for getting quantitative information on how your online efforts contribute to in-store sales.
Some ideas you might be able to implement for your retail business:
- Offer an online survey as consumers exit your website, asking where they plan to buy and how likely they are to buy based on the experience they’ve had online.
- In-stores, include a call-to-action to take an online survey for a chance to be entered into a sweepstakes and ask questions about where their interactions with your brand began.
- Use a store card program, where you have a number attached to customers when they interact with and buy from you online and in-store.
- Allow customers to order online and pickup in-store, and then track additional in-store purchases as a result of the pickup.
Related posts:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Should Your E-Commerce Site Offer Live Chat?
Wednesday, May 25, 2011 by
Betsy Miller
There’s been a lot of chatter about live chat lately. This month, LiveChat announced new features for triggering prospects and measuring conversions from its software, and Bold Software and The E-Tailing Group released the results of a study on the effectiveness of live chat for e-commerce websites. Does your e-commerce platform need to incorporate live chat functionality?
Live Chat Allows Customers to Contact You in the Way They Want To
E-commerce is about convenience. It’s about consumers being able to purchase from your retail business the way they want, when they want. And this convenience should extend to how customers can communicate with your company. Today’s consumers want to be able to choose the options that work for them, and well-thought-out live chat is an option the consumers you want to reach are interested in.
The Bold Software/E-Tailing Group research finds that 20% of shoppers prefer live chat. And this 20% of consumers tends to include those age 31 to 50 with above average income and who are more likely to be college educated and spend more online on an annual basis than other shoppers. Can you afford not to appease this audience?
The Right Way to Execute Live Chat
If you’ve decided live chat is the right option for your e-commerce business, you need to be sure to implement it correctly. Customers who engage in live chat say its success completely lies with the chatting customer representative. They found the chat software’s features to be far less important.
The E-Commerce Edge Is Customer Service
At Blueport, when we work with clients that are implementing live chat, we instruct them to really think about who they are assigning this task. We find the ideal chatters to be web-savvy and have a good mix of customer service and sales skills. Deep knowledge of the product catalog is essential.
Your retail chatters need to be clear on their goals, which should most likely be customer satisfaction and closing the sale. Chatters should also keep in mind that the customer decided to reach out to them via chat, so they should tread carefully about sending users to alternate medium, like the phone or in-store, for resolution. Your chatters need to be empowered to quickly answer questions and resolve issues all within online chat or in the follow-up method each customer prefers.
Are You Going to, or Have You Already Implemented, Online Chat for E-Commerce?
If you’re thinking of incorporating live chat, remember that the software is just a piece of the puzzle. Go to sites that offer online chat and see what does and does not work for you as a consumer. How long of a wait for the retailer rep to begin the chat is too long? Could the chatter answer your catalog questions, or could you learn more from the product page? If an item was out of stock or not what you wanted, were you offered alternatives? When you said you’d come back later or go to the store, were you given an incentive to buy today. Note what your frustrations and what you liked so you can incorporate best practices into your own implementation.
If your website already has live chat, how do you know if you’re maximizing this opportunity? Regularly review the transcripts to see what opportunities may have been lost and to see if you have given your chatters the information and tools they need to make the customer interactions successful. And be sure to engage in live chat on your website as a customer every now and then to see that the experience is what it should be.
Related posts:
Live Chat Allows Customers to Contact You in the Way They Want To
E-commerce is about convenience. It’s about consumers being able to purchase from your retail business the way they want, when they want. And this convenience should extend to how customers can communicate with your company. Today’s consumers want to be able to choose the options that work for them, and well-thought-out live chat is an option the consumers you want to reach are interested in.
The Bold Software/E-Tailing Group research finds that 20% of shoppers prefer live chat. And this 20% of consumers tends to include those age 31 to 50 with above average income and who are more likely to be college educated and spend more online on an annual basis than other shoppers. Can you afford not to appease this audience?
The Right Way to Execute Live Chat
If you’ve decided live chat is the right option for your e-commerce business, you need to be sure to implement it correctly. Customers who engage in live chat say its success completely lies with the chatting customer representative. They found the chat software’s features to be far less important.
The E-Commerce Edge Is Customer Service
At Blueport, when we work with clients that are implementing live chat, we instruct them to really think about who they are assigning this task. We find the ideal chatters to be web-savvy and have a good mix of customer service and sales skills. Deep knowledge of the product catalog is essential.
Your retail chatters need to be clear on their goals, which should most likely be customer satisfaction and closing the sale. Chatters should also keep in mind that the customer decided to reach out to them via chat, so they should tread carefully about sending users to alternate medium, like the phone or in-store, for resolution. Your chatters need to be empowered to quickly answer questions and resolve issues all within online chat or in the follow-up method each customer prefers.
Are You Going to, or Have You Already Implemented, Online Chat for E-Commerce?
If you’re thinking of incorporating live chat, remember that the software is just a piece of the puzzle. Go to sites that offer online chat and see what does and does not work for you as a consumer. How long of a wait for the retailer rep to begin the chat is too long? Could the chatter answer your catalog questions, or could you learn more from the product page? If an item was out of stock or not what you wanted, were you offered alternatives? When you said you’d come back later or go to the store, were you given an incentive to buy today. Note what your frustrations and what you liked so you can incorporate best practices into your own implementation.
If your website already has live chat, how do you know if you’re maximizing this opportunity? Regularly review the transcripts to see what opportunities may have been lost and to see if you have given your chatters the information and tools they need to make the customer interactions successful. And be sure to engage in live chat on your website as a customer every now and then to see that the experience is what it should be.
Related posts:
- A Fluid Online Shopping Experience Trumps Deals and Offers
- Marketing to the Smarter Consumer
- E-commerce 2.0 – the Next Wave
3 Reasons Why Quality Content Could Be Your Key to E-Commerce Success
Wednesday, May 11, 2011 by
Betsy Miller
Back in the early days of the web, when many of us pioneered this business, there was the notion of sticky content. Sticky content was all about putting content on your website to encourage visitors to linger and come back to your site. This was back when business plans were thin, eyeballs were all the rage and no one talked about conversions. But then the dotcom bubble burst, and content creation was deemed an unnecessary task as website teams trimmed down and struggled to keep their Internet businesses afloat.
Fast-forward to now: Content has made a comeback. Google, blogs and social sharing have made offering unique, quality content in some form to your customers a must for any website and a competitive advantage for e-commerce sites. Here are 3 of the top reasons why.
#1 Your Customers
Remember: E-commerce site content takes the place of welcoming sales associates at a brick-and-mortar store. From calls to action to your About Us page, what is the impression you want to make? Also, e-commerce retailers ask their customers to buy items with limited senses. Well-crafted product descriptions can fill the void for customers who wonder what an item really feels like in person. Buying guides and other advice can lead customers through the process of purchasing online and specifically via your website.
Tip: As an e-commerce website, you are a content publisher. Define your target audience and who you are as a retailer. Be sure your content’s voice and tone live up to and reinforce the promises you want to make. Style guides are not just for logos and fonts.
#2 Your Brand
The content you publish on your e-commerce site is an extension of your business. It allows you to give your company a voice and to set yourself up as an advocate, trendsetter, thought leader, or whatever best sets your specific e-commerce business apart. And thanks to social sites, if the web content you create is engaging, sharing it is easier than ever. Good, interesting content can spread like wildfire – are you creating any? If you deliver content that is truly helpful and unique, your customers will blog about it, share it on Facebook, Tweet it and more. Quality content allows others to be your brand ambassadors.
Tip: You can start getting the word out yourself! Share your site’s content via a corporate blog, Twitter account, StumbleUpon, etc.
#3 Search Engine Optimization
Anyone who knows their SEO stuff will tell you: When it comes to search engine optimization, nothing beats fresh, original content. While link baiting and creating directory pages on your own site will help with your organic search rankings, it should supplement your real content offering. Just look at how well blog posts rank on Google. By nature, well-written content is full of keywords, whether on a product page or in an article related to the types of product you sell online. A fresh content offering gives spiders something new to crawl, and nothing beats a quality offering to encourage people to read and link to what you’ve written. And with Google Panda, being sure your product descriptions are truly unique will only benefit your e-commerce store.
Tip: A corporate blog is a great way for an e-commerce site to get into the content arena. You don’t have to worry about integrating a content management system into your platform, and you can use a blog to introduce new products, offer tips and share relevant news about your online retail business.
Related posts:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Fast-forward to now: Content has made a comeback. Google, blogs and social sharing have made offering unique, quality content in some form to your customers a must for any website and a competitive advantage for e-commerce sites. Here are 3 of the top reasons why.
#1 Your Customers
Remember: E-commerce site content takes the place of welcoming sales associates at a brick-and-mortar store. From calls to action to your About Us page, what is the impression you want to make? Also, e-commerce retailers ask their customers to buy items with limited senses. Well-crafted product descriptions can fill the void for customers who wonder what an item really feels like in person. Buying guides and other advice can lead customers through the process of purchasing online and specifically via your website.
Tip: As an e-commerce website, you are a content publisher. Define your target audience and who you are as a retailer. Be sure your content’s voice and tone live up to and reinforce the promises you want to make. Style guides are not just for logos and fonts.
#2 Your Brand
The content you publish on your e-commerce site is an extension of your business. It allows you to give your company a voice and to set yourself up as an advocate, trendsetter, thought leader, or whatever best sets your specific e-commerce business apart. And thanks to social sites, if the web content you create is engaging, sharing it is easier than ever. Good, interesting content can spread like wildfire – are you creating any? If you deliver content that is truly helpful and unique, your customers will blog about it, share it on Facebook, Tweet it and more. Quality content allows others to be your brand ambassadors.
Tip: You can start getting the word out yourself! Share your site’s content via a corporate blog, Twitter account, StumbleUpon, etc.
#3 Search Engine Optimization
Anyone who knows their SEO stuff will tell you: When it comes to search engine optimization, nothing beats fresh, original content. While link baiting and creating directory pages on your own site will help with your organic search rankings, it should supplement your real content offering. Just look at how well blog posts rank on Google. By nature, well-written content is full of keywords, whether on a product page or in an article related to the types of product you sell online. A fresh content offering gives spiders something new to crawl, and nothing beats a quality offering to encourage people to read and link to what you’ve written. And with Google Panda, being sure your product descriptions are truly unique will only benefit your e-commerce store.
Tip: A corporate blog is a great way for an e-commerce site to get into the content arena. You don’t have to worry about integrating a content management system into your platform, and you can use a blog to introduce new products, offer tips and share relevant news about your online retail business.
Related posts:
- J.C. Penney and Google: A Cautionary Tale of Ecommerce and SEO
- Best Buy Brings Online Content to Brick-and-Mortar Stores
- The Power of Online Product Videos
- Content Tips for Big-Ticket Email Marketing, Part 1
- Content Tips for Big-Ticket Email Marketing, Part 2
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Could Google Buzz Privacy Settlement Be a Bust for B2C E-Commerce?
Wednesday, April 27, 2011 by
Betsy Miller
Google got in a heap of trouble last year when it launched its Buzz social-networking product, prepopulating it with personal information from users’ Gmail accounts without consent. The Federal Trade Commission has proposed a settlement that could become the new privacy standard for the Web.
According to a recent ComputerWorld article, the settlement “requires Google to get ‘express affirmative consent’ from its users for ‘any new or additional sharing’ of personal information with third parties if the new sharing is a change in Google's practices.” It also requires Google to implement a comprehensive privacy program and independent privacy audits for the next 20 years.
What the Google Settlement Could Mean for B2C E-Commerce
Consumer e-commerce sites share some customer information in order to create targeted, personalized experiences for their audiences. In many cases, this can be as benign as a ZIP code so advertisements display merchandise locally available to customers.
Since the proposed settlement includes any customer information -- not just personally identifiable -- functional changes in why an Internet company shares ZIP codes and other data points could potentially require a user’s permission.
According to FTC attorneys, the part of the settlement the FTC would like to extend to be an industry norm is the requirement for a comprehensive privacy policy.
If your e-commerce company has a strong, comprehensive privacy policy that outlines the ways in which your company uses and shares personal information, then additional customer opt-ins should not be a problem. Even if you change vendors, as long as the type of information you use and the reason you use it stays the same, you would not need to notify customers. What you wouldn’t be able to do is retroactively change your privacy policy without users’ knowledge.
Additionally, if you have a global audience -- or hope to one day -- EU data privacy laws require you to disclose what data you keep on your site visitors and how you use it. And you have to give consumers a chance to object to the use of their information. So buttoning up your privacy policy makes good business sense in our global economy.
So what do you think: Is being more transparent with users about how e-commerce sites use their information an industry norm that’s been a long time coming, or has Google’s missteps ruined it for the rest of us?
Related posts:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
According to a recent ComputerWorld article, the settlement “requires Google to get ‘express affirmative consent’ from its users for ‘any new or additional sharing’ of personal information with third parties if the new sharing is a change in Google's practices.” It also requires Google to implement a comprehensive privacy program and independent privacy audits for the next 20 years.
What the Google Settlement Could Mean for B2C E-Commerce
Consumer e-commerce sites share some customer information in order to create targeted, personalized experiences for their audiences. In many cases, this can be as benign as a ZIP code so advertisements display merchandise locally available to customers.
Since the proposed settlement includes any customer information -- not just personally identifiable -- functional changes in why an Internet company shares ZIP codes and other data points could potentially require a user’s permission.
According to FTC attorneys, the part of the settlement the FTC would like to extend to be an industry norm is the requirement for a comprehensive privacy policy.
If your e-commerce company has a strong, comprehensive privacy policy that outlines the ways in which your company uses and shares personal information, then additional customer opt-ins should not be a problem. Even if you change vendors, as long as the type of information you use and the reason you use it stays the same, you would not need to notify customers. What you wouldn’t be able to do is retroactively change your privacy policy without users’ knowledge.
Additionally, if you have a global audience -- or hope to one day -- EU data privacy laws require you to disclose what data you keep on your site visitors and how you use it. And you have to give consumers a chance to object to the use of their information. So buttoning up your privacy policy makes good business sense in our global economy.
So what do you think: Is being more transparent with users about how e-commerce sites use their information an industry norm that’s been a long time coming, or has Google’s missteps ruined it for the rest of us?
Related posts:
- J.C. Penny and Google: A Cautionary Tale of Ecommerce and SEO
- Understanding the Google-Groupon Rumors
- Google Shopping Goes Local
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Is CSN Stores the Amazon of Home?
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 by
Morgan Woodruff
I just read a great article on our friends at CSN Stores and their plans to continue to dominate the home goods segment of B2C e-commerce.
While they aspire to be the Amazon of home, co-founder Niraj Shah is 'careful to point out the differences between the companies—a key one being CSN’s focus on home products and its “specialized supply chain” for items like furniture. By shipping directly from manufacturers, CSN has managed to offer a large selection without having to stock its own warehouses (at least up to now).'
From our perspective as fellow big-ticket retailers, CSN is doing a few more things right that should help them leapfrog over Amazon in this space.
First, CSN recognizes that buying items for your home, especially large pieces of furniture, can be quite different then buying a book. So in additional to providing more detailed product information, they have customer support available via chat and phone to assist potential customers .
Second, they also know that because they aren't always putting a package into the hands of UPS but rather with various freight companies, their centralized support is there during and after the delivery process to make sure every customer is happy.
We welcome companies like CSN Stores that continue to help break down the ecommerce barriers and show that there's more than one way to become one of the world's biggest retailers.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
While they aspire to be the Amazon of home, co-founder Niraj Shah is 'careful to point out the differences between the companies—a key one being CSN’s focus on home products and its “specialized supply chain” for items like furniture. By shipping directly from manufacturers, CSN has managed to offer a large selection without having to stock its own warehouses (at least up to now).'
From our perspective as fellow big-ticket retailers, CSN is doing a few more things right that should help them leapfrog over Amazon in this space.
First, CSN recognizes that buying items for your home, especially large pieces of furniture, can be quite different then buying a book. So in additional to providing more detailed product information, they have customer support available via chat and phone to assist potential customers .
Second, they also know that because they aren't always putting a package into the hands of UPS but rather with various freight companies, their centralized support is there during and after the delivery process to make sure every customer is happy.
We welcome companies like CSN Stores that continue to help break down the ecommerce barriers and show that there's more than one way to become one of the world's biggest retailers.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Why eBay's Acquisition of GSI Commerce Is Good for All of Us
Friday, April 1, 2011 by
Morgan Woodruff
Consolidation seems to be the word of the day.
This week’s news of eBay’s purchase of GSI Commerce was the latest in a steady stream of consolidation and acquisitions in the e-commerce retail industry that I am very excited to see. No doubt, the result of this trend has been a tremendous validation across all sectors of retail and e-commerce technology and a boon to all players in this space.
For example, we are seeing a growth amongst enterprise class retail POS solutions such as those run by Oracle, stemming largely from this summer’s ATG purchase. We are also seeing a growing focus on big-ticket retail workforce-warehouse solutions such as those designed by RedPrairie. Their acquisition by Escalate Retail recently only strengthened this trend. Last year’s IBM/Sterling Commerce buyout was also a pivotal turn for the industry, strengthening Big Blue’s position and helping them close the gap on multi channel SaaS offerings. The effects on other platform players like Blueport Commerce, as well as on tertiary vendors and tech providers (the likes of Akamai Technologies) that serve these companies has also been extremely positive from a growth standpoint.
I think the most important thing to note is that the consumer was not left out of these recent shopping sprees from billion dollar publicly traded companies. In fact, this week’s eBay’s acquisition of GSI Commerce proves even a tried and true marketplace leader does not know all and needs to redefine its strategy to meet changing consumer needs. The result of many of these acquisitions is actually a better offering for clients and a better way for them to manage their business.
The next twelve months in our industry will be interesting to say the least.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
This week’s news of eBay’s purchase of GSI Commerce was the latest in a steady stream of consolidation and acquisitions in the e-commerce retail industry that I am very excited to see. No doubt, the result of this trend has been a tremendous validation across all sectors of retail and e-commerce technology and a boon to all players in this space.
For example, we are seeing a growth amongst enterprise class retail POS solutions such as those run by Oracle, stemming largely from this summer’s ATG purchase. We are also seeing a growing focus on big-ticket retail workforce-warehouse solutions such as those designed by RedPrairie. Their acquisition by Escalate Retail recently only strengthened this trend. Last year’s IBM/Sterling Commerce buyout was also a pivotal turn for the industry, strengthening Big Blue’s position and helping them close the gap on multi channel SaaS offerings. The effects on other platform players like Blueport Commerce, as well as on tertiary vendors and tech providers (the likes of Akamai Technologies) that serve these companies has also been extremely positive from a growth standpoint.
I think the most important thing to note is that the consumer was not left out of these recent shopping sprees from billion dollar publicly traded companies. In fact, this week’s eBay’s acquisition of GSI Commerce proves even a tried and true marketplace leader does not know all and needs to redefine its strategy to meet changing consumer needs. The result of many of these acquisitions is actually a better offering for clients and a better way for them to manage their business.
The next twelve months in our industry will be interesting to say the least.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
eBay to Acquire GSI Commerce
Monday, March 28, 2011 by
Carl Prindle
The week started this morning with some blockbuster e-commerce news: eBay announced it is acquiring GSI Commerce for approximately $2.4 billion. The acquisition is expected to close in Q3 2011.
The deal is great news for eBay, which has been steadily trying to transform itself from an auctions-oriented company to an e-commerce platform. This is also great news for GSI Commerce, which has been trying to expand its businesses by investing in new categories, though the impact on GSI customers remains to be seen.
As part of the sale, eBay will divest 100 percent of GSI's licensed sports merchandise business and 70 percent of GSI-owned ShopRunner and Rue La La. These assets will be sold to a newly formed holding company, which will be led by GSI founder and Chief Executive Officer Michael Rubin.
We will be monitoring the fallout and commentary from today’s news closely and will keep you posted on the broader e-commerce industry implications.
The deal is great news for eBay, which has been steadily trying to transform itself from an auctions-oriented company to an e-commerce platform. This is also great news for GSI Commerce, which has been trying to expand its businesses by investing in new categories, though the impact on GSI customers remains to be seen.
As part of the sale, eBay will divest 100 percent of GSI's licensed sports merchandise business and 70 percent of GSI-owned ShopRunner and Rue La La. These assets will be sold to a newly formed holding company, which will be led by GSI founder and Chief Executive Officer Michael Rubin.
We will be monitoring the fallout and commentary from today’s news closely and will keep you posted on the broader e-commerce industry implications.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
E-commerce 2.0 – The Next Wave
Tuesday, March 22, 2011 by
Morgan Woodruff
Excerpts from Lazard Capital Markets Tech and Media Conference
March, 13, 2011; Boston, MA
Blueport Commerce executives recently participated in a panel presentation titled “E-Commerce 2.0: The Next Wave” at Lazard Capital Markets Annual Technology & Media Conference. Held in Boston, on March 14 and 15. This conference brought together industry executives in a fireside chat format, with presentations from more than 50 leading technology, media and Internet companies.
Drawing on his deep expertise developing online strategies for leading big-ticket retailers, President and Chief Executive Officer Carl Prindle, discussed the next e-commerce frontier and what brands need to do to capitalize on its growth. Below are some key excerpts from his presentation:
Colin Sebastian – Lazard Capital Markets: Carl, please take a minute to introduce Blueport.
Blueport is the only managed e-commerce provider focused on localized, big ticket commerce.
Think of us as GSI Commerce (GSIC) for players that need to involve local stores in their online efforts and whose products don’t fit in a UPS box.
Our clients range from a $250M furniture chain in Chicago, a $1B appliance, electronics and furniture superstore chain in Canada, a $4B flooring retailer with 1,100 independent dealers, to Sears (SHLD).
We provide each with a managed e-commerce solution – a localized, cross-channel commerce platform and the managed services to make their unique businesses work online.
CS: The pace of innovation in e-commerce is accelerating. This is also driving another step forward in the shift of commerce and advertising from offline to online channels. Given this overall trend, in your own businesses and markets, can you specify what are the 2 or 3 most important drivers of growth today?
Well, this session is definitely aptly named. We’re at an inflection point – the start of a second wave of e-commerce.
The first wave of ecommerce was characterized by the Amazon model – online shopping for relatively simple, understood products shipped via UPS.
There’s very little local store involvement in this model. Customers buy things on their lunch break, and a guy in a brown shirt delivers it.
A massive eco-system has grown supporting this model in last 15 years – advertising, merchandising, technology and so on. And, it works great – we see 45% penetration in some categories like PCs.
But, the e-com 1.0 model is bounded in a couple of ways. One boundary is size – this model probably only works for less than half of all retail, less if you include services.
The other boundary is profitability – e-com 1.0 was first because it’s easier. Because it’s easy, it’s prone to commoditization, price pressure…it’s an efficient market, with all of the margin pressure that it entails.
What we’re seeing now is a second wave that pushes past these boundaries, engages the rest of the retail economy, and can be more profitable.
What’s driving it? Consumers looking to apply the habits learned via the Amazon model to new areas. Companies that that have for a long time been on the sidelines because they DIDN’T fit that model – are now heading to the internet to meet them.
The energy, the growth, is in the technology connecting the two – whether it is mobile, social, coupon sites, etc. – new technologies are giving new players access to new customers.
And Blueport is providing the multi-channel solutions for these new players to do something meaningful with that traffic.
CS: You mention mobile. How big a factor is mobile becoming, for example as a percentage of your own transactions or volume, or as a lead generation tool?
Mobile is a huge factor, but different depending on whether you are an e-com 1 or e-com 2 player.
For e-com 1 players, mobile’s increased convenience is arguably driving new volume. It’s also increasing price transparency, which accelerates the commoditization of some of these categories.
For an e-com 2 player, it’s a huge factor in a different way: local. Where e-com 1 was national, e-com 2 is local – local businesses, local services, huge retail chains were their offering is fundamentally local.
Take appliances as an example – I don’t think we’ll see refrigerators transacted via phone any time soon, but mobile can drive customers to local stores, critical for retailers trying to gain a slice of precious weekend “in-store” shopping minutes.
The game changer that starts to blend the two is the tablet…increased use of big screen browsing plus local is intriguing.
CS: There is a fairly rapid increase in merchant and enterprise use of Facebook, not only as a tool to reach out and communicate with consumers, but also to drive transactions. Similar to the mobile question, how quickly is social becoming a meaningful part of real lead generation and driving online sales?
Well, Facebook, at its most powerful, is a personal network of friends. A company interrupting that conversation can be pretty cringe worthy. A company trying to be your friend doesn’t really work.
At the same time, along with apps, Facebook has become the “other” Internet, and retailers have to be there.
We’ve seen it work in three ways:
It’s a phenomenal time to be where we are. As we’ve talked about, there’s a seismic change from e-com 1 to e-com 2, and we’re in the middle of it.
You asked about the multi-channel environment. The term multi-channel has been around a while, but its meaning is changing.
In e-com 1, multichannel meant exactly/only that – more than one channel. Retailers in categories that work well via direct ship built drop ship e-com systems, often entirely separate from their store business.
In e-com 2 today, we see true multi-channel, or cross-channel commerce (or just “commerce”). Retailers are using the internet to drive their core business, not build a separate one.
Companies that were on the sidelines are now investing in solutions that reflect their businesses. They look to online to drive customers to local stores, sell their local inventory and services, reflect their local pricing and local deals – to drive their core business.
A client, CarpetOne, is one of my favorite examples of this. They are a $4B flooring retailer in 1,100 local markets. They didn’t want to be Lumber Liquidators and drop-ship cheap boxes of hardwood. They wanted to drive their core business – local installation of quality flooring. We enable that – their site reflects each market’s local product, pricing – pictures of owner’s dog, whatever makes that local market work. It’s a seamless online experience that connects online to local store.
Sears (SHLD) – is a company taking another innovative approach. They are reentering the furniture category via a unique cross-channel strategy. They’re putting small footprint galleries in their stores, that drives traffic to a dedicated furniture website that we run for them, http://sears.furniture.com. The site taps into local inventory, and Sears customers can get a sofa delivered tomorrow for $79. Blueport powers the whole thing.
So, we’re seeing massive change in these categories, the evolution of true cross-channel categories, and it has accelerated dramatically in last 18 month.
CS: What are the key attributes that a bricks-and-mortar retailer or supplier of goods look for in an e-commerce vendor?
When looking at vendors, look at what experience they have in YOUR vertical. Are you looking for an e-com 1 solution, or e-com 2? Do you want a direct ship, separate enterprise, or do you want your local markets involved?
Make sure the vendor has experience in your markets and your vision of what you want ecommerce to do for your core business.
You can make some disastrous mistakes trying to sell appliances or furniture like you do shoes & apparel.
CS: What would it cost a retailer or brand to build and maintain a state of the art e-commerce site from scratch, versus using a service provider such as Blueport?
Here again, it depends on what you’re selling.
If you’re looking for an e-com 1 solution – you can put up a Yahoo! store up for next to nothing. My 10 year old has one.
For e-com 2 – it’s more complex, requiring far more integration with your local stores’ existing systems and operations. There’s no Yahoo! store or ready-made platform for that (but Blueport is close).
If you try to build an e-com 2 solution yourself, you have to look at three costs: the cost to build it, the cost to run it, and the opportunity cost of screwing it up.
We have a current client who first tried to build it themselves. They spent $3M, and it never got off the ground. It was two years of lost opportunity.
With Blueport, they pay a monthly platform fee and a revenue share. We’ve done major redesigns of their sites three times in the last two years, and added countless new features. And they pay only their share of the overall platform and hosting costs.
We also help run the business for them from a marketing, merchandising and services perspective. This is paid through the revenue share, so they get a turnkey, expert staff on a pay for performance basis.
This story has repeated itself a number of times – people trying it themselves, then deciding to work with us. At the other end of our contracts, we’ve never lost a renewal, so people see the value of what we do (and would prefer not to have to do it themselves).
Part of the story is that the categories we’re in are a good fit for outsourcing. They are challenging, don’t match the internal expertise of the players in them, and ultimately, they’re not like PC’s or software, where online is 45%-65% or more of volume. Stores are still key, so our clients get to focus on that part of their business, while we port and drive that business online.
CS: Can you talk about the competitive nature of your business, who do you see as the most successful competitors and what are trends in pricing for these e-commerce services?
Sure, we segment the market on two dimensions.
One dimension is e-com 1 versus e-com 2. Is the customer in a market that will be a simple drop ship model, or do they need a cross-channel solution involving local stores?
The other dimension is platform versus managed solution. Does the customer just want a technology solution, or are they looking for a partner to help them manage their online business?
On the e-com 1 side of the market, e-com 1 platforms are increasingly commoditized and under a lot of price pressure. It’s a pure customer acquisition game. Yahoo stores again.
For e-com 1 managed solutions, GSI Commerce (GSIC) is dominant with a huge lead in infrastructure and increasingly in services, where they’ve made some great strategic acquisitions. While Amazon (AMZN) keeps looking at this space, GSI is the clear leader.
On the e-com 2 side of the market, e-com 2 platforms are mainly custom builds from players like IBM, and ATG (ORCL). These are big dollar projects with two commas in the total cost, and they leave the customer to manage the solution - there’s no marketing, management, etc. And, they don’t have a ton of experience in these e-com 2 categories.
For e-com 2 managed solutions, where Blueport plays, we’ve yet to run up against a true competitor.
I guess we really have two competitors: a customer doing nothing, which is less and less of a factor, and a customer trying to do it themselves, which with our case studies, is an easier and easier argument to overcome. In a lot of cases, people are coming to us now who tried themselves, and now want out.
We expect competition to evolve, but we have a technology platform and service staff with a lot of specific functionality and experience in these markets, which makes it easy to talk to prospective clients, most of whom have been on the sidelines waiting for a provider that understands their business.
CS: That’s time – thanks to everyone for their participation.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
March, 13, 2011; Boston, MA
Blueport Commerce executives recently participated in a panel presentation titled “E-Commerce 2.0: The Next Wave” at Lazard Capital Markets Annual Technology & Media Conference. Held in Boston, on March 14 and 15. This conference brought together industry executives in a fireside chat format, with presentations from more than 50 leading technology, media and Internet companies.
Drawing on his deep expertise developing online strategies for leading big-ticket retailers, President and Chief Executive Officer Carl Prindle, discussed the next e-commerce frontier and what brands need to do to capitalize on its growth. Below are some key excerpts from his presentation:
Colin Sebastian – Lazard Capital Markets: Carl, please take a minute to introduce Blueport.
Blueport is the only managed e-commerce provider focused on localized, big ticket commerce.
Think of us as GSI Commerce (GSIC) for players that need to involve local stores in their online efforts and whose products don’t fit in a UPS box.
Our clients range from a $250M furniture chain in Chicago, a $1B appliance, electronics and furniture superstore chain in Canada, a $4B flooring retailer with 1,100 independent dealers, to Sears (SHLD).
We provide each with a managed e-commerce solution – a localized, cross-channel commerce platform and the managed services to make their unique businesses work online.
CS: The pace of innovation in e-commerce is accelerating. This is also driving another step forward in the shift of commerce and advertising from offline to online channels. Given this overall trend, in your own businesses and markets, can you specify what are the 2 or 3 most important drivers of growth today?
Well, this session is definitely aptly named. We’re at an inflection point – the start of a second wave of e-commerce.
The first wave of ecommerce was characterized by the Amazon model – online shopping for relatively simple, understood products shipped via UPS.
There’s very little local store involvement in this model. Customers buy things on their lunch break, and a guy in a brown shirt delivers it.
A massive eco-system has grown supporting this model in last 15 years – advertising, merchandising, technology and so on. And, it works great – we see 45% penetration in some categories like PCs.
But, the e-com 1.0 model is bounded in a couple of ways. One boundary is size – this model probably only works for less than half of all retail, less if you include services.
The other boundary is profitability – e-com 1.0 was first because it’s easier. Because it’s easy, it’s prone to commoditization, price pressure…it’s an efficient market, with all of the margin pressure that it entails.
What we’re seeing now is a second wave that pushes past these boundaries, engages the rest of the retail economy, and can be more profitable.
What’s driving it? Consumers looking to apply the habits learned via the Amazon model to new areas. Companies that that have for a long time been on the sidelines because they DIDN’T fit that model – are now heading to the internet to meet them.
The energy, the growth, is in the technology connecting the two – whether it is mobile, social, coupon sites, etc. – new technologies are giving new players access to new customers.
And Blueport is providing the multi-channel solutions for these new players to do something meaningful with that traffic.
CS: You mention mobile. How big a factor is mobile becoming, for example as a percentage of your own transactions or volume, or as a lead generation tool?
Mobile is a huge factor, but different depending on whether you are an e-com 1 or e-com 2 player.
For e-com 1 players, mobile’s increased convenience is arguably driving new volume. It’s also increasing price transparency, which accelerates the commoditization of some of these categories.
For an e-com 2 player, it’s a huge factor in a different way: local. Where e-com 1 was national, e-com 2 is local – local businesses, local services, huge retail chains were their offering is fundamentally local.
Take appliances as an example – I don’t think we’ll see refrigerators transacted via phone any time soon, but mobile can drive customers to local stores, critical for retailers trying to gain a slice of precious weekend “in-store” shopping minutes.
The game changer that starts to blend the two is the tablet…increased use of big screen browsing plus local is intriguing.
CS: There is a fairly rapid increase in merchant and enterprise use of Facebook, not only as a tool to reach out and communicate with consumers, but also to drive transactions. Similar to the mobile question, how quickly is social becoming a meaningful part of real lead generation and driving online sales?
Well, Facebook, at its most powerful, is a personal network of friends. A company interrupting that conversation can be pretty cringe worthy. A company trying to be your friend doesn’t really work.
At the same time, along with apps, Facebook has become the “other” Internet, and retailers have to be there.
We’ve seen it work in three ways:
- Brand Building: in high engagement categories, brands can interact with their customers on topics they are passionate about.
- Deals: Facebook can replace email as a way to distribute deals.
- As a Platform: we look at Facebook as an emerging platform/operating system that can host online stores with built in traffic.
It’s a phenomenal time to be where we are. As we’ve talked about, there’s a seismic change from e-com 1 to e-com 2, and we’re in the middle of it.
You asked about the multi-channel environment. The term multi-channel has been around a while, but its meaning is changing.
In e-com 1, multichannel meant exactly/only that – more than one channel. Retailers in categories that work well via direct ship built drop ship e-com systems, often entirely separate from their store business.
In e-com 2 today, we see true multi-channel, or cross-channel commerce (or just “commerce”). Retailers are using the internet to drive their core business, not build a separate one.
Companies that were on the sidelines are now investing in solutions that reflect their businesses. They look to online to drive customers to local stores, sell their local inventory and services, reflect their local pricing and local deals – to drive their core business.
A client, CarpetOne, is one of my favorite examples of this. They are a $4B flooring retailer in 1,100 local markets. They didn’t want to be Lumber Liquidators and drop-ship cheap boxes of hardwood. They wanted to drive their core business – local installation of quality flooring. We enable that – their site reflects each market’s local product, pricing – pictures of owner’s dog, whatever makes that local market work. It’s a seamless online experience that connects online to local store.
Sears (SHLD) – is a company taking another innovative approach. They are reentering the furniture category via a unique cross-channel strategy. They’re putting small footprint galleries in their stores, that drives traffic to a dedicated furniture website that we run for them, http://sears.furniture.com. The site taps into local inventory, and Sears customers can get a sofa delivered tomorrow for $79. Blueport powers the whole thing.
So, we’re seeing massive change in these categories, the evolution of true cross-channel categories, and it has accelerated dramatically in last 18 month.
CS: What are the key attributes that a bricks-and-mortar retailer or supplier of goods look for in an e-commerce vendor?
When looking at vendors, look at what experience they have in YOUR vertical. Are you looking for an e-com 1 solution, or e-com 2? Do you want a direct ship, separate enterprise, or do you want your local markets involved?
Make sure the vendor has experience in your markets and your vision of what you want ecommerce to do for your core business.
You can make some disastrous mistakes trying to sell appliances or furniture like you do shoes & apparel.
CS: What would it cost a retailer or brand to build and maintain a state of the art e-commerce site from scratch, versus using a service provider such as Blueport?
Here again, it depends on what you’re selling.
If you’re looking for an e-com 1 solution – you can put up a Yahoo! store up for next to nothing. My 10 year old has one.
For e-com 2 – it’s more complex, requiring far more integration with your local stores’ existing systems and operations. There’s no Yahoo! store or ready-made platform for that (but Blueport is close).
If you try to build an e-com 2 solution yourself, you have to look at three costs: the cost to build it, the cost to run it, and the opportunity cost of screwing it up.
We have a current client who first tried to build it themselves. They spent $3M, and it never got off the ground. It was two years of lost opportunity.
With Blueport, they pay a monthly platform fee and a revenue share. We’ve done major redesigns of their sites three times in the last two years, and added countless new features. And they pay only their share of the overall platform and hosting costs.
We also help run the business for them from a marketing, merchandising and services perspective. This is paid through the revenue share, so they get a turnkey, expert staff on a pay for performance basis.
This story has repeated itself a number of times – people trying it themselves, then deciding to work with us. At the other end of our contracts, we’ve never lost a renewal, so people see the value of what we do (and would prefer not to have to do it themselves).
Part of the story is that the categories we’re in are a good fit for outsourcing. They are challenging, don’t match the internal expertise of the players in them, and ultimately, they’re not like PC’s or software, where online is 45%-65% or more of volume. Stores are still key, so our clients get to focus on that part of their business, while we port and drive that business online.
CS: Can you talk about the competitive nature of your business, who do you see as the most successful competitors and what are trends in pricing for these e-commerce services?
Sure, we segment the market on two dimensions.
One dimension is e-com 1 versus e-com 2. Is the customer in a market that will be a simple drop ship model, or do they need a cross-channel solution involving local stores?
The other dimension is platform versus managed solution. Does the customer just want a technology solution, or are they looking for a partner to help them manage their online business?
On the e-com 1 side of the market, e-com 1 platforms are increasingly commoditized and under a lot of price pressure. It’s a pure customer acquisition game. Yahoo stores again.
For e-com 1 managed solutions, GSI Commerce (GSIC) is dominant with a huge lead in infrastructure and increasingly in services, where they’ve made some great strategic acquisitions. While Amazon (AMZN) keeps looking at this space, GSI is the clear leader.
On the e-com 2 side of the market, e-com 2 platforms are mainly custom builds from players like IBM, and ATG (ORCL). These are big dollar projects with two commas in the total cost, and they leave the customer to manage the solution - there’s no marketing, management, etc. And, they don’t have a ton of experience in these e-com 2 categories.
For e-com 2 managed solutions, where Blueport plays, we’ve yet to run up against a true competitor.
I guess we really have two competitors: a customer doing nothing, which is less and less of a factor, and a customer trying to do it themselves, which with our case studies, is an easier and easier argument to overcome. In a lot of cases, people are coming to us now who tried themselves, and now want out.
We expect competition to evolve, but we have a technology platform and service staff with a lot of specific functionality and experience in these markets, which makes it easy to talk to prospective clients, most of whom have been on the sidelines waiting for a provider that understands their business.
CS: That’s time – thanks to everyone for their participation.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Marketing to the Smarter Consumer
Friday, March 11, 2011 by
Betsy Miller
This week I read about an interesting report from IBM, titled “Capitalizing on the Smarter Consumer.” It contains the results of the company's recent survey of 30,000 consumers about how they shop and why. This is the latest report to underscore just how much technology is driving e-commerce growth and affecting consumers' shopping habits. According to IBM, consumers are more comfortable than ever using the Internet, mobile technologies, in-store tools and other innovations to research and buy products.
Most interesting was IBM’s identification of the “instrumental customer”: a consumer who uses two or more technologies to shop. According to IBM, this constitutes a growing number of shoppers, with 49 percent of survey respondents falling into this category (up 36 percent from last year).
Other findings of note:
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Most interesting was IBM’s identification of the “instrumental customer”: a consumer who uses two or more technologies to shop. According to IBM, this constitutes a growing number of shoppers, with 49 percent of survey respondents falling into this category (up 36 percent from last year).
Other findings of note:
- 75 percent of consumers would shop on a retailer's e-commerce store
- 39 percent would use in-store kiosks, a 10 percent increase over last year
- 25 percent want to shop via the mobile channel, up from 13 percent
- 78 to 84 percent of consumers now rely on their social networks when researching new products
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Blueport Partner e-Dialog Honored by Econsultancy Innovator Award
Thursday, February 10, 2011 by
Betsy Miller
Congratulations to our email marketing partner e-Dialog for being honored for Innovation in Email Marketing in this year’s Econsultancy Innovation Awards for the company’s work with British Airways. The email marketing campaign promoted the airline’s new mobile application for its loyalty club, and achieved more than 70,000 clicks and doubled download targets over the course of the marketing campaign. Way to go, e-Dialog!
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
The (Unexpected) Ecommerce Advantage
Friday, December 3, 2010 by
Morgan Woodruff
Oftentimes, the big-ticket retailers we speak with think their business is too complex to go online. Those readers familiar with Blueport know that we specialize in meeting the unique, localized needs of these types of companies. Doesn’t fit in a UPS box? Perfect! That’s our specialty.
And that’s why we thought the findings of a recent study from ShopVisible and JC Williams Group was worth sharing. The study discusses the challenges that retailers are currently facing to provide excellent online customer experiences. After conducting interviews with executives at leading retailers and consumer product manufacturers who had undergone an e-commerce platform change or were currently in the midst of an enterprise-wide system change, the report found that those companies who are just getting started in ecommerce have an advantage over those who have had an ecommerce site for years.
Why? The answer is simple. While retail executives are aware of current trends such as social and mobile commerce, they are having trouble innovating based on old legacy systems. The report concluded that “brands that perhaps have not previously had direct-to-consumer interactions with customers have an advantage of coming into ecommerce with a clean slate.”
Ecommerce is no longer a luxury – it is a necessity and key initiative for many brands today. So if you think you’re late to the ecommerce game, think again. You may be just in time to deliver the right kind of experience that your customer is looking for!
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
And that’s why we thought the findings of a recent study from ShopVisible and JC Williams Group was worth sharing. The study discusses the challenges that retailers are currently facing to provide excellent online customer experiences. After conducting interviews with executives at leading retailers and consumer product manufacturers who had undergone an e-commerce platform change or were currently in the midst of an enterprise-wide system change, the report found that those companies who are just getting started in ecommerce have an advantage over those who have had an ecommerce site for years.
Why? The answer is simple. While retail executives are aware of current trends such as social and mobile commerce, they are having trouble innovating based on old legacy systems. The report concluded that “brands that perhaps have not previously had direct-to-consumer interactions with customers have an advantage of coming into ecommerce with a clean slate.”
Ecommerce is no longer a luxury – it is a necessity and key initiative for many brands today. So if you think you’re late to the ecommerce game, think again. You may be just in time to deliver the right kind of experience that your customer is looking for!
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
The Power of Online Product Videos
Friday, November 5, 2010 by
Betsy Miller
The November issue of Internet Retailer has a terrific article about the benefits of online video at not only telling a better story about your products, but boosting conversion rates and natural search engine results as well. There is no doubt online video is booming. According to the piece, people watch 2 billion videos each day on YouTube, and 35% of the e-retailers in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide include online video in their e-commerce stores.
What's the Key to an Effective Online Video Strategy?
Unsurprisingly, an effective online video strategy starts with creating compelling content that your customers actually want to watch, and continue watching. This could be anything from behind-the-scenes footage of product development, a visual explanation of your product or even interviews with product designers or staff.
Understanding the technology required to deploy and maintain video is the next step. Quick and seamless streaming of video is essential. Slow loading videos quickly lose their appeal and lead to frustrated and dissatisfied customers.
Finally, by refining video content, retailers can quickly boost natural search engine results. Internet Retailer notes that search engines give more weight to pages with video, because they see video as an indicator of website quality. Forrester Research estimates a company is 50 times more likely to show up on the first page of search engine results if a page has video that is embedded in a search engine-friendly way.
I think online videos can prove to be an especially powerful force in the big-ticket category, where the product decision process is longer and more in-depth. When merchandising these products in your ecommerce catalogs, being able to offer your customer as much information as possible to help them feel comfortable with their purchase is essential. For example, a quick product video (similar to the ones you may see when purchasing a pair of shoes on Zappos.com) can very quickly achieve a level of comfort for the customer that no amount of written product descriptions or images could to help drive a sale. Conversely, a behind-the-scenes look at how a sofa was made can help to create a deeper relationship with that customer, promoting brand loyalty.
I’m curious to hear what role online videos are or will be playing in your Internet retail strategy?
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
What's the Key to an Effective Online Video Strategy?
Unsurprisingly, an effective online video strategy starts with creating compelling content that your customers actually want to watch, and continue watching. This could be anything from behind-the-scenes footage of product development, a visual explanation of your product or even interviews with product designers or staff.
Understanding the technology required to deploy and maintain video is the next step. Quick and seamless streaming of video is essential. Slow loading videos quickly lose their appeal and lead to frustrated and dissatisfied customers.
Finally, by refining video content, retailers can quickly boost natural search engine results. Internet Retailer notes that search engines give more weight to pages with video, because they see video as an indicator of website quality. Forrester Research estimates a company is 50 times more likely to show up on the first page of search engine results if a page has video that is embedded in a search engine-friendly way.
I think online videos can prove to be an especially powerful force in the big-ticket category, where the product decision process is longer and more in-depth. When merchandising these products in your ecommerce catalogs, being able to offer your customer as much information as possible to help them feel comfortable with their purchase is essential. For example, a quick product video (similar to the ones you may see when purchasing a pair of shoes on Zappos.com) can very quickly achieve a level of comfort for the customer that no amount of written product descriptions or images could to help drive a sale. Conversely, a behind-the-scenes look at how a sofa was made can help to create a deeper relationship with that customer, promoting brand loyalty.
I’m curious to hear what role online videos are or will be playing in your Internet retail strategy?
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Forrester's Brian Walker Outlines the Fundamental Shifts Taking Place in E-Commerce Technology
Friday, September 10, 2010 by
Morgan Woodruff
Forrester’s Brian Walker recently coined the term Splinternet to describe how consumers are beginning to interact with e-commerce companies in numerous ways, including mobile phones, social networks and in-store displays. This e-commerce transformation naturally requires significant new technology investments and fundamental changes in how retailers approach e-commerce. Internet Retailer covered Walker’s new report, "What every exec needs to know about the future of e-commerce technology," which addresses the shifts taking place in the e-commerce space.
Some key takeaways from the report:
How is your e-commerce strategy changing in light of this shift?
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Some key takeaways from the report:
- As the influence of the online retail channel on consumers continues to grow, retailers will need to shift spending to this channel -- or risk losing sales.
- Consumers' interactions with retailers will move beyond just the website to include mobile phones, iPads and other innovations. According to Walker, many of these innovations will be built on proprietary technology requiring that retailers "develop systems that can easily integrate and support these existingm -- and emerging -- customer experiences in order to compete and capitalize on changing customer expectations."
- Consistency of information, policies and fulfillment across channels will be a must for retailers as they expand their touchpoints with consumers
How is your e-commerce strategy changing in light of this shift?
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Arhaus Furniture's Custom iPad App Aims to Drive Cross Channel Sales
Thursday, August 19, 2010 by
Morgan Woodruff
Arhaus Furniture, a high-end furniture multi channel retailer with stores in 13 states in addition to a print catalog and an e-commerce site at Arhaus.com, will soon arm their entire delivery team with an iPad application aimed at not only enhancing the product delivery experience, but also driving repeat and incremental purchases from their customer base.
The application is designed primarily for customer use: customers will be handed the iPad at the start of the delivery, which will include a welcome and thank you message from the retailer, will be able to look at different furniture setup options and even browse the entire Arhaus ecommerce catalog. Customers will also sign off on deliveries using their fingers on the touch screen and will also be able to fill out a post delivery survey on site.
While the iPad application will certainly result in efficiencies in the retailer’s fulfillment and delivery systems, what is interesting here is how the company is adding another level to their customer service experience through a true cross channel retail strategy. For example, while a customer is having a sofa delivered that they purchased at their local store, they will be able to browse the Arhaus.com ecommerce catalog through the iPad app for the matching chair they recall seeing during their shopping trip.
No doubt that we will continue to see more and more retailers integrate these type of mobile and tablet products into their multi channel strategy to enhance their customers' retail shopping experience, be it in-store or on the go. And as retail channels become increasingly blurred and intertwined, the importance of having consistent content and product information for your customer no matter where they are shopping will be imperative and essential to driving sales.
How are your stores or franchises integrating technologies such as the iPad into their sales or customer service process?
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
The application is designed primarily for customer use: customers will be handed the iPad at the start of the delivery, which will include a welcome and thank you message from the retailer, will be able to look at different furniture setup options and even browse the entire Arhaus ecommerce catalog. Customers will also sign off on deliveries using their fingers on the touch screen and will also be able to fill out a post delivery survey on site.
While the iPad application will certainly result in efficiencies in the retailer’s fulfillment and delivery systems, what is interesting here is how the company is adding another level to their customer service experience through a true cross channel retail strategy. For example, while a customer is having a sofa delivered that they purchased at their local store, they will be able to browse the Arhaus.com ecommerce catalog through the iPad app for the matching chair they recall seeing during their shopping trip.
No doubt that we will continue to see more and more retailers integrate these type of mobile and tablet products into their multi channel strategy to enhance their customers' retail shopping experience, be it in-store or on the go. And as retail channels become increasingly blurred and intertwined, the importance of having consistent content and product information for your customer no matter where they are shopping will be imperative and essential to driving sales.
How are your stores or franchises integrating technologies such as the iPad into their sales or customer service process?
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Local E-Commerce:
The GSI Commerce Perspective
Friday, August 6, 2010 by
Morgan Woodruff
Forrester’s e-commerce analyst Brian Walker recently featured a great interview with GSI Commerce founder and CEO Michael Rubin on his blog. Rubin discussed how GSI is evolving and what some of the main areas of focus will be for the company in the near future.
One of the most interesting things that stood out for me from their conversation was Rubin’s identification of localization as one of the next key e-commerce trends to watch in the near future. Consumers are increasingly demanding more personal, relevant and local products and services from their online shopping experience. Consequently, retailers will need to invest in technologies that cater to these local preferences to capitalize on the consumer need.
Part and parcel to a localized e-commerce experience is the expectation of rapid and lower cost delivery and return of products. In order to deliver on this promise, Rubin points out that multichannel retailers will need to leverage their stores and distribution centers to get consumers the products they want as quickly and cheaply as possible. This is an area where GSI is investing a great deal of time to provide innovation.
We have been focusing on e-commerce localization at Blueport Commerce for the last decade. Like GSI, we believe this is at the heart of the next generation of e-commerce, or rather, the next generation of cross-channel retailing. Whether they are shopping for a new piece of clothing or a new piece of furniture for their home, consumers want their retail experience to be local. They want the comfort of knowing they can connect with retailers in their area, who can answer questions about the product, or handle exchanges or returns quickly and easily.
In order to deliver this kind of experience, retailers need to stop thinking of e-commerce as an isolated ‘island’ within their operations and begin to construct a truly coordinated, cross-channel strategy. E-commerce teams need to be aligned with bricks-and-mortar stores as well as fulfillment and warehouse facilities. When all of these components are working as one holistic retailing effort, localization is inherent and e-commerce becomes a driver of multi-channel retail sales.
This approach is at the heart of Blueport’s e-commerce package and I am intrigued to see the innovations from GSI in this area as well.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
One of the most interesting things that stood out for me from their conversation was Rubin’s identification of localization as one of the next key e-commerce trends to watch in the near future. Consumers are increasingly demanding more personal, relevant and local products and services from their online shopping experience. Consequently, retailers will need to invest in technologies that cater to these local preferences to capitalize on the consumer need.
Part and parcel to a localized e-commerce experience is the expectation of rapid and lower cost delivery and return of products. In order to deliver on this promise, Rubin points out that multichannel retailers will need to leverage their stores and distribution centers to get consumers the products they want as quickly and cheaply as possible. This is an area where GSI is investing a great deal of time to provide innovation.
We have been focusing on e-commerce localization at Blueport Commerce for the last decade. Like GSI, we believe this is at the heart of the next generation of e-commerce, or rather, the next generation of cross-channel retailing. Whether they are shopping for a new piece of clothing or a new piece of furniture for their home, consumers want their retail experience to be local. They want the comfort of knowing they can connect with retailers in their area, who can answer questions about the product, or handle exchanges or returns quickly and easily.
In order to deliver this kind of experience, retailers need to stop thinking of e-commerce as an isolated ‘island’ within their operations and begin to construct a truly coordinated, cross-channel strategy. E-commerce teams need to be aligned with bricks-and-mortar stores as well as fulfillment and warehouse facilities. When all of these components are working as one holistic retailing effort, localization is inherent and e-commerce becomes a driver of multi-channel retail sales.
This approach is at the heart of Blueport’s e-commerce package and I am intrigued to see the innovations from GSI in this area as well.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
Welcome to the Splinternet Age
Friday, July 2, 2010 by
Morgan Woodruff
Forrester analysts recently coined the term “Splinternet” to describe what is happening to the unified Web. Consumers are not just accessing information from the Internet these days, but from smartphones, tablets, e-readers and even Web-connected TVs. And, as you know, each one of these devices has their own platform and standards. This creates a new set of challenges for retailers, as your site might not work correctly on these devices. Gone are the days when you simply have to optimize your site for different browsers. Welcome to the Splinternet Age.
According to a recent presentation by Forrester’s Brian Walker, an added complexity is the need to target consumers by context, not just channel. This complexity, he says, is driving a lot of the replatforming that is taking place at large, multichannel retail chains.
Brian advises that organizations “start to break down silos that stop us from serving customers overall.”
How is your company addressing these issues? I'd love to hear from you.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
According to a recent presentation by Forrester’s Brian Walker, an added complexity is the need to target consumers by context, not just channel. This complexity, he says, is driving a lot of the replatforming that is taking place at large, multichannel retail chains.
Brian advises that organizations “start to break down silos that stop us from serving customers overall.”
How is your company addressing these issues? I'd love to hear from you.
Copyright 2010, Official Blog of Blueport Commerce
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