Blueport CommerceBlueport.com

Not every e-commerce company can be as financially lucrative or dominant as eBay, Amazon or Zappos. Yet there are great lessons to be learned from the principles that these brands adhere to in order to increase conversion, customer satisfaction, and ultimately, repeat purchases. Blueport Commerce examines the five most important features that these e-commerce industry leaders share, and how furniture retailers can reap the rewards.

1. Anytime, Anywhere Accessibility

“You are not a desktop brand. You are not a mobile brand. You need to be accessible from anywhere,” says Dave Surgan, Manager of Digital Communications at Morpheus Media. Truer words aren’t often spoken: an e-commerce website is no longer viewed just from the comfort of a large desktop monitor – in fact, with furniture showrooming increasing, half of US shoppers rely on phones for in-store research. As a result, testing should be done to ensure that your e-commerce website renders well on all possible browsers and operating systems on desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile devices. Otherwise, you can kiss a stellar conversion rate goodbye.

2. Intuitive Navigation

Simple and useful website navigation is essential for e-commerce sites, as consumers need to browse among different furniture categories and products quickly through a navigation system that’s intuitive. E-commerce giant Amazon, which has an endless assortment of merchandise, favors a left vertical navigation menu, which allows them to include more links than a horizontal navigation menu would permit. This is most typical for e-commerce retailers, which allows for product categories and sub-categories. However, some online furniture retailers may prefer to adopt a horizontal navigation menu, which is more attuned to how people read, and works better for those with less inventory and product categories.

3. Prominent Search Box

Having a very visible search box is mission critical to an e-commerce site. The ability to search is of paramount importance because many online buyers have a specific piece of furniture for which they are actively searching. A search box aids in helping a customer locate a particular item and navigating the entire site. The most successful search boxes in online stores are in very prominent positions, at the top of the page in the layout, enticing the user to search the site for the pieces of furniture they most desire.

4. Responsive Customer Service

Time and time again the value of listening to the voice of the customer has been proven. In fact, of people that received good customer service, 72% of internet users share that experience with friends or family, 40% share it with coworkers in person, 32% share it with the company that provided the service and 30% share it on social media. Email, phone and live chat are all key channels used by e-commerce retailers to communicate with customers, and a timely and polite responsiveness is crucial. Zappos grew into a $1B company by 2009 largely based on their culture of customer satisfaction – nothing to sneeze at!

5. Cohesive Omnichannel Experience

Both consistent messaging and look and feel are critical to all brands. “Brands that are doing it right have a consistent look and feel across all consumer touch points,” says Janine Silvera, a marketing and media strategist. Ensure that your brick and mortar stores’ marketing aligns with your online stores’ e-commerce presence – email promotions can work to drive online revenue, as well as traffic to physical stores, and email capture in store can help grow a furniture retailers’ mailing list. Or you can reward in-store traffic with gift cards that can be redeemed online – as long as you keep the traffic flowing in both directions, you’re setting your furniture business up for success!

By keeping these five critical features of e-commerce sites top of mind, furniture retailers are poised to reap the rewards of the estimated untapped $1B opportunity that exists for selling furniture online.

While many of us avid shoppers can attest to the immense benefits of shopping online, it may be a surprise that shopping online for furniture is just climbing the crest of its opportunity for retail e-commerce. According to Google/Compete [note: link loads PDF], for shoppers, the path to purchase is all about the right method, products, price and selection that will influence how they buy furniture online. Here’s how furniture retailers can take advantage of the furniture shopper path to purchase.

Online Is a Tool for the Entire Furniture Shopping Pipeline

While furniture shopping is averaging just an increase of 5% unique visits year-over-year, shoppers are behaving all over the map. Furniture retailers have a huge opportunity to capture shoppers at all stages of conversion online. For example, only one in four furniture buyers purchase online but those that do purchase online tend to spend more than those who purchase offline – the average price paid by furniture purchasers who shopped online was $657 versus $600 for those who didn’t. Two-thirds of these buyers who purchase in-store access the internet for furniture information. That’s 66% of shoppers who are just trying to learn more to help their ultimate purchase, whether online or in a retail store!

Omnichannel Is Right On

Marketing to shoppers through omnichannel efforts is not just to satisfy e-commerce buzzwords – omnichannel is a true tenant of what makes furniture retailers reap the benefits of selling furniture online. In-store buyers rely heavily on retail sites while shopping – 76% of them on furniture store sites. These buyers also cast a wide net while shopping online, with 63% of purchasers visiting multiple furniture brand sites prior to purchase.

In addition, shoppers have specific requirements for furniture that influences purchase, among them style (82%), material (81%), durability (81%), and size (80%). With all of these considerations being made by shoppers both online and off, it’s critically important for furniture retailers to engage shoppers wherever they are in their purchase cycle and through multiple channels.

Mobile Continues to Catch Waves

Mobile and tablets are still increasingly important sources for online furniture shoppers. 13% use a tablet to access furniture information, while 12% use their mobile. While these numbers don’t yet represent the majority of those studied, trends still suggest that mobile and tablets are poised for growth in the coming years for e-commerce. In addition, Blueport’s brick and mortar retailers can count themselves as sites that furniture shoppers visit:

• Furniture-only retail sites (39%)
• Home furnishing sites (40%)
• Online-only retail websites (41%)
• Department store websites (44%)

Furniture retailers that can take full advantage of online commerce, while integrating with their brick and mortar stores and mobile, are poised to seize the billion dollar opportunity ahead of them. And Blueport Commerce is riding the wave right along with them, by helping furniture retailers implement a full-service solution that meets the unique, localized needs of selling furniture online.

It’s no secret men and women approach many activities in life in varying ways, with an oft-joked-about hobby being shopping. But nowhere are the differences between men and women more pronounced than when it comes to the act of furniture shopping. Furniture retailers take note: how you set up a showroom and display your furniture online makes a huge difference depending on what target audience you’re trying to reach and how it’s going to impact your profit. So stayed tuned for the sequel to Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: Furniture Retail Edition and read on.

Philosophy of Furniture Shopping

According to Social4Retail’s excellent infographic, 74% of women surveyed think about shopping all of the time. Not surprisingly, men prefer to think about beer (25%) and football (25%), while half (50%) think of the expense related to the furniture purchase. Consequently, men have the goal of moving through the purchase cycle as quickly as possible, seeing furniture shopping as a chore and wanting to spend their time on other activities. Of the men surveyed, most view furniture as just a single item and care most about comfort, value and durability. In contrast, women shoppers think of a piece of furniture as a part of the entire room, and value cohesiveness and design the most when selecting the perfect big-ticket item.

Crucial E-Commerce Mistakes to Avoid

For e-commerce, furniture retailers need to keep in mind mistakes that are common among both genders. Two overlapping points that are the most detrimental for both men and women shopping for furniture online are a retailer not having a secure website (54% of women, 49% of men) and forms that are complicated to fill out (47% of women, 41% of men). Furniture retailers that don’t allow customers to add to cart without signing up first receive negative feedback (38% of women, 36% of men). Provided furniture retailers solve for security and ease of use, both men and women will be satisfied.

Online Shopping Features to Embrace

The e-commerce features that are most important to women include customer reviews (57%), as well as detailed product information and clear images (54%). In contrast, men feel the most critical online e-commerce features are product recommendation suggestions (such as “customers also bought” at 48%) and speedy checkout (47%). These findings tie in with the earlier survey numbers which suggest women are most concerned with selecting a highly curated piece of furniture that fits into their home as a lifestyle enhancement, while men just want the shopping process to be as expeditious as possible, whether online or in brick and mortar stores.

So What Is an E-Commerce Furniture Retailer to Do?

In order to drive the most revenue online, furniture retailers should focus on easy wins such as detailed product information and clear images that speak to women and quick checkout for men. In terms of bigger implementations, site security is the biggest concern for both genders, along with ensuring that form fields aren’t tedious to fill out. With a carefully curated selection and a website that allows for quick and easy conversion, online furniture retailers can ensure they always win the battle of the sexes, as well as the battle for greater profit.

Going beyond social networking to social influence is critical to success for retailers in 2013. According to Econsultancy, using social media to its full potential influences consumer purchases, and goes beyond just brand promotion: it takes advantage tools to succeed and increase conversion in the social sphere. Follow these tips to move the social needle away from being part of the crowd to being the crowd-source. 

Tip #1: Location, Location, Location

Here at Blueport, we preach a localized e-commerce experience for furniture retail that allows shoppers to get their pieces just that much quicker while maintaining quality and a fair price. Online, shoppers behave similarly when they shop around a brick-and-mortar store. If something doesn’t stand out to them or they just happen to not pass by that area of the show room (in this case, a website’s landing page), there’s a lost conversion opportunity.

For social media influence, location is important. People interact and share information when the opportunity presents itself, so make social media work harder for you and make it easier for people to talk about your brand and merchandise. How? Strategically locate your social media channels all over your website to allow for greater interaction and influence for your brand and merchandise. Victoria’s Secret has been able to garner the highest Facebook presence because its landing page connects to more social media and works with multiple devices.

Tip #2: He Said, She Said Matters

Although the days of lunch room gossip are long over, no one said we still didn’t crave being in the know. Thankfully, today social media can fill the void and stay ahead of what on trend chevron pattern John Stamos has in his dining room. 63% of social media users feel consumer ratings are the number one source of information about e-commerce products,, and consumers discuss specific brands casually 90 times per week. Retailers can tap into this natural communication, but optimize it in the online space.

Tip #3: Give Shoppers What They Want

58% of Facebook users expect exclusive offers, events and promotions when they become fans of a Facebook page. 74% of consumers rely on social networks to guide purchase decisions. As if that weren’t enough, 70% of active social media users shop online and 47% of them are more likely to be heavy spenders on clothing, shoes and accessories. How can furniture retailers take advantage of this influence online? Specific, exclusive offers help, but it’s also about communicating your brand promise, tailoring your merchandise to your fan demographic and using the data captured to provide insight into your merchandise selection.

Social influence for e-commerce is all about spending just the right amount of time with a few other tips and tricks to make the most of what is offered. Oh and by the way, we’d love to hear from you: @blueportdotcom on Twitter, BlueportCommerce on Facebook and also on LinkedIn. #longliveecommerce

Are you the type of person who gets driven insane by incomplete tasks? Did you have to hit 100 percent completeness on your LinkedIn profile? Or collect a retailer’s loyalty points to get rewards? If so, you’ve been gamified. Gamification is the concept of using game design elements in non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging. By 2014, 70 percent of large companies will use the technique for at least one business process, per Gartner’s estimate. And e-commerce is no stranger to gamification – right now the trend is for online promotions to drive consumers to checkout, as well as steer people to social media and email sharing.

Gamification in Action: Checkout

Blueport Commerce has helped implement gamification elements for our furniture retail clients. Last year, Blueport set up an interactive Las Vegas style promo for a superstore client, which allowed users to roll dice online to receive a discount. This tied in to the in-store promotion where casinos were set up in the retailer’s selected brick and mortar locations and people were able to play roulette to get discounts.

Registered users received a link directly to the dice rolling widget via promotional email. For new users, they needed to register before they could roll the dice to get discounts. Each registered user could roll only once, and depending on their number, they would receive a $50, $100 or $200 coupon, valid on orders of $1,200 or more. Codes were then added to the registered user’s shopping cart automatically.

The Results

People found out about the game via website banners and email blasts to opted-in users. Our client banked 2,000 new registered users, and 5,000 people rolled the dice. In just over four days they experienced double digit increases in revenue during the event generated by people rolling the dice and purchasing with discounts.

Gamification is Afoot: Driving to Social & Email

Thanks to Bernie Madoff and their generally suspect nature, Ponzi schemes are generally not thought of in a positive light. However the concept of gamification worked wonders for a Blueport big-ticket e-commerce client who wanted to encourage email sharing. Blueport created a discount app, where a registered user of that retailer’s website received an email giving them a discount for a mattress. Depending on how many people the original recipient forwarded it to, that person could build up discount credits to the point where they were able to get a free mattress. The credits were only applied if the people who received the email signed up on the site. This concept has also been adapted to fit social sharing by other companies.

The principles of gamification state that humans are looking for rewards, loss aversion, status, competition and reputation, and feedback. Good gamification implementation demands that you give users motivation to do something (emotional investment, promise of reward, etc.), the ability to complete the action, and a trigger to complete the action. If e-commerce retailers can successfully create and implement gamification, the financial ROI can bring down the house.  

Buy something online last year? You weren’t alone. According to The State of Retailing Online 2013: Key Metrics and Initiatives by Sucharita Mulpuru of Forrester Research, overall growth for web retailers from 2011 to 2012 was 28%. We at Blueport Commerce are thrilled about the continuing trend of increasing e-commerce activity. Statistics from this report we found particularly salient include:

The Explosion of Mobile

Currently Forrester’s mobile forecast shows less than 5% of e-commerce sales coming from phones. However, of the retailers surveyed, smartphone year-on-year growth hit 129%, and tablet year-on-year growth hit 178%. And while the actual sales may not be there yet, as many consumers use their mobile devices to browse while in stores, mobile has a net positive impact on retailers’ conversion rates, as 36% reported that mobile sales and traffic aided their company’s overall web conversion rate.

Blueport’s takeaway: Retailers should be prepared to optimize for mobile and tablet traffic in order to improve conversion rates, both on the web and on mobile. 

The Need for Speed: Optimization

Retailers mentioned their top priorities in 2013 are improving their site’s conversion rates and redesigning their site experience, optimizing their site’s performance. The three top investment areas cited by retailers for long-term growth are site optimization (e.g. website redesign), mobile optimization and international growth (27%), with products and fulfillment to international markets, as well as localization and translation. Under the large category of site optimization, checkout and a responsive design framework were two sub-areas cited as needing improvement in 2013.

Blueport’s takeaway: Optimization boils down to a simple concept: what levers you can pull to make it as easy as possible for browsers to pull the trigger to become buyers. The need to reach consumers where they want and how they want is critical, and retailers should focus on ensuring all consumers’ browsing and buying needs are met with optimized site and mobile experiences.

The Exorbitant Cost of Marketing

Forrester previously found that web marketing usually consumes about 10% of a web retailer’s expenses. However, that figure is only increasing due to greater competition as email marketing continues to become harder to differentiate, SEO and SEM costs are skyrocketing, social media sites are now experimenting with paid models and there are additional costs associated with mobile marketing. Investment in the effort of organic SEO optimization is worthwhile given the ROI – it isn’t as exorbitantly expensive as Pay Per Click (PPC), and, done right, it can increase conversions. Additionally, the benefits of organic SEO last longer than PPC, whose impact goes away the second you cut off the funding.  

Retailers surveyed also noted that IT investments were the most critical for continued revenue in 2013. Adding to their IT resources and improving core site performance were listed as top priorities, at the expense of social media, whose monetization effects haven’t yet been proven.

Blueport’s takeaway: Focus on the levers that will truly push your margin. Since SEO can account for up to 40% of traffic, maximizing low-cost alternatives like organic search are high impact/low cost.

Shipping as an Opportunity, Not a Pain Point

Same-day delivery and broad reach of fulfillment like Amazon’s was all the hype of in 2012, but other than the big players, few retailers are focused on their fulfillment or post-transaction experiences. Forrester recommends retailers follow the path of companies who focus on fulfillment as a differentiator: tactics such as shopper loyalty programs, expedited delivery programs, shipping clubs and store fulfillment.  

Blueport’s takeaway: The key here for furniture retailers is not just focusing on the front end but also on the back end operations. In essence, while many retailers are focused on website redesign and optimization, the back end operational part of the site is virtually ignored. Furniture retailers have the opportunity to offer not only varying delivery options, but also the chance to rethink shipping pricing models overall. By implementing a truly localized omnichannel experience, furniture retailers who allow customers to choose between various delivery options are better set for success.

What Is BGP?
Ever wonder how traffic flow on the internet is routed so efficiently? Blueport Commerce is proud to announce that as of March 2013 we will be live with Border Gateway Protocol. BGP is a protocol that makes core routing decisions on the internet. With a table of IP networks, or "prefixes", which designate network reach-ability among autonomous systems (AS), BGP essentially regulates traffic flow on the internet based on real-time information. This makes it similar to a GPS in a car which will route the driver to the roads with the least traffic. For businesses, the benefit is that they can now optimize bandwidth and maximize redundancy – it leverages the full power of BGP while keeping a company like Blueport vendor-agnostic. For big-ticket e-commerce retailers like Blueport’s clients, it ensures that their website traffic is routed most effectively so that customers can browse and buy from anywhere, on any device, at any time.

What Is “Peering”?
As a protocol, BGP is similar to how http in URLs is a protocol, where the http tells your browser where to point to load a certain website. It defines the best syntaxes to navigate. BGP allows for “peering” – or letting a company like Blueport Commerce partner with an ISP such as Cogent or Lightower. Blueport gives out our AS numbers and the IPs we own to our peering partners, which tells customers how to reach us. In return, our peering partners Cogent and Lightower tell us their data and the IPs accessing us from each way. Other peering partners can be added at any time, maximizing the efficiency of internet traffic on our clients’ e-commerce websites.

What Are the Benefits of BGP?
The benefits of moving to Border Gateway Protocol are redundancy and staying ahead of the curve. With BGP, Blueport is connecting our clients to the internet in the most efficient way possible. Think of it as having two cell phones in case one loses battery power or is misplaced. Or the equivalent of having regular electricity in your home, but also a generator in case a downed tree crashes a power line near your house. You’ll stay connected, even if disaster strikes. For big-ticket e-commerce retailers, it ensures that their customers are always able to reach their website, even during high-traffic periods such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday.

What’s the Current Process?
ARIN, the American Registry for Internet Numbers, gives out IP addresses (which can be thought of as “internet zip codes”), as well as AS numbers. In order to become live with BGP, Blueport submitted the paperwork necessary to get our AS number and public IPs. This allows us to partner with ISPs such as Cogent, Lightower, RCN, AT&T and Comcast.

The older system of IP addresses used by most companies now is called IPV4. These are traditional IP addresses (such as 10.3.45.34). The new form is IPV6, which consists of 4 letters and number combinations and colons (such as A4B4:A3B3:A2B2:A1B1). Blueport is currently migrating from IPV4 to IPV6 and the process should be completed by the end of Q3.

What Are Other Forward-Thinking Companies Doing?
Forward-thinking companies like Akamai, GoDaddy, Facebook and Google have started supporting both IPV4 and IPV6 IP addresses. This allows them to stay ahead of the curve – the reason for the distribution of IPV6’s is that eventually IPV4’s will run out. By taking this step, Blueport Commerce is proving we are ready now for the eventual transition from IPV4 to IPV6.

At the end of the day, the success of an e-commerce website is rooted in the idea of 24x7 availability. By moving to Border Gateway Protocol, Blueport ensures that all of our clients and their customers will be able to transact from any location, at any time, in the most optimal way possible.

Recently, eight members of the Blueport Commerce team attended the MITX: What’s Next E-Commerce Summit (Twitter hashtag #MITXECS) to learn about the latest trends and technology in Boston-based e-commerce. Below are seven highlights we took away from this high-energy, informative and inspiring e-commerce experience.

1. Biggest Recurring Theme: Big Data
   The phrase of the day was definitely “big data”. This was a key focus of Wayfair’s panel to kick off the event. Ben Clark, Director of Software Engineering at Wayfair, spoke to the need to structure the data post-capture and being able to create a tailored experience via tactics like clickstream tracking. By creating a record of how people interact with an e-commerce website, such as their products and interests, retailers can create a truly customized experience that is better than any canned solution. We appreciated the focus on consumer behavior pre- and post-purchase and optimized your e-commerce site for maximum revenue generation.
    
2. Most Fascinating Technology Application: Mobile App Segmentation
   One of Blueport’s favorite quotes of the day came from SapientNitro’s Mark Berinato, Associate Creative Director, Experience Design, who said “Your customers aren’t monolithic,” referring to the need for retailers to meet their customers where they are. During the “Building the Next Wave of Great Mobile User Experiences” breakout session, various mobile experts discussed the need to create different levels of apps for different fan bases. For example, designing a full mobile app with each device getting its own platform works for a client like NASCAR, who has some of the most passionate fans on the planet. In contrast, for the casual Indianapolis 500 fan, NASCAR also commissioned a hybrid mobile app which used a combination of an app plus HTML to engaged mobile users who didn’t require the full functionality of a full mobile app. At the end of the session, the panel concluded that designing a mobile app was all about “choreographing the customer journey,” a phrase we at Blueport really loved as it speaks to the heart of the true customer e-commerce experience, not just purchase.
    
3. Best Example of Customization in E-Commerce: Boston Fashion
   One of the most “tailored” presentations was “Boston Fashion Gets Personal with Gemvara, Blank Label, CustomMade, Bow & Drape”. All four companies cater to a more affluent and unique type of customer that wants the highest level of personalization possible in jewelry, furniture, and fashion (men’s and women’s), respectively. Blueport Commerce really enjoyed this panel for its focus on extreme personalization, loyalty tactics and high-end service. For example, Bow & Drape has photorealistic technology which allows a woman shopping for a custom-made dress to virtually “try on” the clothes on a body that mimics her measurements. Bow & Drape also has an at-home-try-on program, where muslins in up to three different sizes will be sent to potential customers, complete with seamstresses’ marks, in order to ensure the best fit possible. These “fit kits” lead to a whopping 60% conversion rate. Also impressive was Bow & Drape’s surprise post-purchase gifts to their loyal customers. We at Blueport Commerce loved the concept of learning to emotionally connect with highly selective consumers pre-purchase to establish trust, something essential for selling big-ticket items such as furniture online.
    
4. Most Interesting Presentation: Karmaloop
   A crowd-favorite presentation was the always-entertaining Greg Selkoe, the founder of Karmaloop, a Boston-based streetwear company. In this fireside chat, Greg touched on multiple topics including the fact he hires passionate people who wear his products as his customer service representatives, knowing that it adds credibility to have people that truly care about the brand representing it. Greg also says he doesn't hire experts anymore regarding his site content because they don't know his audience the way his team does. Greg also spoke passionately against rigid Boston laws that he feels prevent Boston start-ups and businesses from thriving, and encouraged people to check out his project, Future Boston Alliance, which advocates for collective action to improve Boston laws and businesses. 
    
5. Best Vendor Station: STaples
   Thanks to their adorable mini-cupcakes and enormous pastry spread, Staples absolutely killed it in the vendor display department. And who doesn’t love a little conference carbo-loading? Oh, and their panel in the morning on creating an omnichannel experience was delicious as well, touching upon the need for automated metrics around page speed and page performance before even thinking of rolling out new capabilities.
    
6. Most Controversial Statement: Omnichannel
   Speaking of omnichannel, the most controversial statement of the day belonged to Steve Davis, President of Rue La La, who boldly stated his disdain for the phrase “omnichannel”, insisting that it’s overrated and what really matters is the customer experience. Steve also views traditional customer service as reactionary, while by contrast, a great concierge anticipates your needs. Rue La La is extremely focused on NPS (Net Promoter Score) as a mission-critical metric and feels strongly that customer loyalty must be earned. While we at Blueport don’t necessarily agree the need to be omnichannel is overrated, Rue La La is a great example of a truly customer-centric company that prides itself on and strives for great customer service.
    
7. Most Engaged Tweeters
   No surprise, but MITX was full of very active social media enthusiasts. Some of our favorite tweets came from the following companies, speakers and audience members:
   @MITX
   @Selkoe
   @drkleiman
   @trishofthetrade
   @bowanddrape
   @karmaloop
   @UsefulArts
   @ScottKirsner
   @sapientnitro
   @compete
   @aubriepagano
   @gemvara
   @blanklabel
   @custommade
   @SteveHaase

Overall, the #MITXECS was a very informative, fun and engaging day that made Blueport Commerce proud to be a part of the fabric of the Boston e-commerce scene. Our hope is that big-ticket retail is an even bigger focus at the next e-commerce event.

Want to read more? Read the MITX Event Recap: Top Tweets from the 2013 "What's Next" e-Commerce Summit (#MITXECS) and listen to Greg Selkoe’s Fireside Chat on Boston.com [may require Boston.com registration].

Did you enjoy your New Year’s Eve holiday by spending time with your family? Our big-ticket retail clients did, because they weren’t worried about whether their websites would be live during their blowout New Year’s inventory clearance sales. One of the most critical decisions you’ll ever make as a big-ticket retailer looking to transition to e-commerce is whether to host your own website, or to use a managed solution. Blueport Commerce examines the pros and cons of hosting your e-commerce website yourself, or outsourcing it to a managed solution provider.

In-House Hosting Gives You Total Control – And Sole Responsibility

The benefits of an on-premise e-commerce hardware solution include increased control, budget flexibility, owning the source code and being able to make changes at any pace you desire. Because you are hosting the e-commerce hardware yourself, you are able to exert more control over your e-commerce website, and iterate at any time. And at first glance, hosting yourself will allow for lower initial costs.

That said the drawbacks of an on premise e-commerce solution are that as your business grows, the complexities and hidden costs start to multiply. Hosting your own e-commerce hardware means you need a fully trained technical staff to maintain it, servers to keep the website up and running, licenses for all of the hardware and software associated with the website, a budget to stay compliant with federal rules and regulations, and money to stay current with threat assessments. Inevitably, the maintenance, constant availability and security needs of hosting a first-class e-commerce site become something few companies can afford to handle internally, from a resource, bandwidth and cost perspective. You will spend more time, money and effort trying to manage all the disparate puzzle pieces than you would by working with a managed solution provider.

Managed Solution Means Manageable Cost

Blueport Commerce, the only e-commerce technology and services company that localizes big-ticket retail online, embodies the benefits of a managed e-commerce solution. With a managed e-commerce hardware solution, you’re free to focus on what you do best: selling big-ticket items, instead of worrying about keeping a website running at optimal performance. And because you’re not staffing up when you use a managed solution, your overall costs are actually lower – and those savings can be used to grow the business. Additionally, managed solutions like Blueport Commerce have key partnerships and alliances with vendors that allow for enterprise-grade equipment to be purchased at a cost-savings that is then passed on to the client. Blueport’s business partnerships with established best-in-class technology partners like Cisco, Microsoft, Akamai, Dell and F5 include Tier 1/Priority Support, with dedicated local reps and faster response times when needed.

Because Blueport Commerce is an all-in-one managed e-commerce solution, our clients have all of the formerly disparate puzzle pieces already assembled for them – allowing Blueport and our clients to collaboratively focus on customizing their website for optimal return on investment. By figuring out the best way for each particular client to do business online, Blueport Commerce’s managed e-commerce solution sets each client up for success and allows for the one item you can’t really put a price on: peace of mind.

Blueport Commerce’s Bob Howland shares his retail e-commerce experience and why he thinks big-ticket retail is the next big thing.

What sparked your interest in e-commerce?

I think e-commerce is all about being customer-centric. In many ways, I felt pre-wired to e-commerce even before I was specifically engaged in e-commerce roles. All of my experiences in the past – whether driving customer segmentation at AMEX, competitive differentiation at GE, or brand management at J&J – were about engaging customers how they want, where they want, and when they want. The focus on end-to-end customer experience was the same across these roles and translated well to e-commerce. 

What led you to GSI?

At Vanguard in the late ‘90s, I led a charge to move the mutual fund giant from being an inbound call center to embracing the internet as a way to educate and engage retail investors. Vanguard became one of the first investment firms to enable transactions online, which was transformational for the business and the industry.  

I was enamored by how the internet transformed customer-centricity, as well as the huge branding implications for businesses. I wanted to find a company that was completely focused on the digital space with a branding and commerce focus. GSI Commerce was a natural fit as a high growth company that served as an end-to-end e-commerce provider for leading retailers. 

How did you help GSI grow to a $1B+ company? 

My expertise is centered on optimizing businesses and the customer experience. At GSI, I saw a significant opportunity to grow our current clients’ businesses as well as expand our offerings to become a more valuable partner to our clients. 

The initial successes were two-fold: 

1. First, we developed our digital marketing services capabilities. Our retail partners were already strong in offline marketing, such as weekly flyers to drive in-store traffic. So, GSI focused on the areas they needed help – online marketing – to drive dramatic increases in site traffic and overall sales.
    
2. Second, we focused on the omnichannel experience. A company’s website is often the hub for their brand. It’s always accessible and available whenever the consumer wants to touch the brand, and gets far more visibility than any other marketing vehicle (often more than ALL other marketing vehicles combined). Helping retailers fully maximize the web, not simply as their online store, but more broadly as an omnichannel tool brought huge dividends to our clients. 

Ultimately, companies such as GSI and Blueport live and breathe e-commerce every day, just as retailers do with their core store businesses. The value that we provide to our clients is the ability to bring the omnichannel opportunity to life and develop a roadmap for maximizing the opportunity. I’ve seen this approach succeed time and time again whether it is apparel, home décor, electronics, or food. Big-ticket retail has a huge opportunity to replicate this success.

Why Blueport and big-ticket?

I was looking for the right opportunity to engage with an organization, but had specific criteria for the business model fit and long-term vision. Furniture is the last $1B+ e-commerce opportunity left. And, for good reason. It’s hard to sell furniture online and drive the type of customer experience that has become standard to online retail shopping. Why? The biggest difference is the end-to-end experience and the many challenges around delivery of big-ticket items, such as sofas into homes. I think Blueport has the will, experience, and technology platform to work with our clients to create a positive and remarkable end-to-end customer experience for furniture, as Zappos did for shoes. This is the vision that Blueport and its client base share, and why I ultimately came on board.

What is it going to take for big-ticket to achieve success in e-commerce?

Consumer demand and technology proliferation leave no choice but for furniture retailers to adopt an omnichannel presence. But, that’s not all – we need to understand the need to provide an exceptional end-to-end customer experience. At Blueport, our mission is to help big-ticket retailers drive exceptional omnichannel experiences in order to optimize both online and offline sales. We want retail partners who believe in delivering these “wow” experiences and the incredible untapped growth opportunity embedded within them. 

Fun fact: 61% of customers read online reviews before making a purchase decision according to Econsultancy, making them essential for e-commerce websites. Benefits include optimized SEO, increased conversion rates, improved customer trust, an uplift in sales and more engaged customers. Blueport Commerce, the only e-commerce technology and services company that localizes big-ticket retail online, always encourages our clients to implement reviews on their websites in order to ultimately increase revenue. Here's a look at the benefits of customer reviews, and the numbers behind them.

1. UGC is Good for SEO

User generated content such as product reviews can act as a magnet to crawling search engines like Google and Bing. Because consumers are regularly writing reviews on their purchases, the content is fresh, relevant and updated – just what search engines love. Additionally, consumers often search for the name of the product plus the word "review" or "ratings", which helps with long tail keyword searches. When properly formatted reviews get pulled into search results –for example, with the star ratings or headlines, these rich snippets can produce a 10-20% increase in click-through rates.

2. Trust!

Not surprisingly, consumer reviews are trusted nearly 12 times more than descriptions that come from manufacturers, according to a survey of US internet users by online video review site EXPO. In a Reevoo study, 30% of potential consumers actually suspect censorship or faked reviews when they don’t see any negative reviews on a retailer's website. Additionally, consumers who go out of their way to read bad reviews convert 67% more than the average consumer. So just by having reviews, even with a mixed amount of positive and negative, a big-ticket retail e-commerce website can cause consumers to place more trust in their products and customer service.

3. Sales!

Every big-ticket retailer's ultimate goal is to drive revenue. And reviews produce an average 18% uplift in sales according to Reevoo. Site visitors who interact with both reviews and customer questions and answers are 105% more likely to purchase while visiting, and spend 11% more than visitors who don’t interact with user-generated content, per Bazaarvoice. So by keeping your browsing shoppers engaged with the reviews on your site, you can increase your likelihood of getting them to convert to paying customers.

Blueport encourages all of our clients to implement product reviews on their e-commerce websites and to also actively encourage consumers to leave product reviews, both via emails sent a certain amount of time post-purchase, as well as on product pages. In the end, it can be the difference between a lost opportunity and a closed sale.

Last week, we examined the record-breaking success of e-commerce over US Thanksgiving and Black Friday 2012, and their worldwide impact. This week we examine the numbers and impact of Cyber Monday 2012. As the only e-commerce platform, technology, and services company that localizes big-ticket retail online, Blueport Commerce breaks down the Cyber Monday 2012 holiday numbers to uncover trends and insights relevant to big-ticket retailers.

Numbers are courtesy of MultiChannel Merchant/IBM's Cyber Monday Report; ITProPortal’s Black Friday 2012 Results: $1bn Milestone Hit as Online Spending Soars, But Cyber Monday Nets Even More; Internet Retailer’s A Robust Weekend for E-Retail; The Retail Email Blog’s Alert: Record-Setting Cyber Monday Propels 5-Day Weekend Email Volume to All-Time High and MarketWatch’s Bari Furniture Reports 62% Increase for Black Friday/Cyber Monday.

Cyber Monday

Sure, the term "Cyber Monday" may feel antiquated, but the concept is current enough to be embraced by the millions of people who didn't feel like hitting the local malls or stores to wait in line for hours. Let's face it: shopping from the comfort of your desk, whether at work or at home in your pajamas, is a lot less stressful than braving the crowds and hitting local stores. And online shoppers in the United States agreed, to the tune of $1.465 billion spent on Cyber Monday, making the day the most lucrative ever for e-retailers per comScore Inc. (Internet Retailer). Some more intriguing overall statistics include:

Cyber Monday 2012 Vs. Cyber Monday 2011

• Shopping Peaks at 11:25 am EST: Consumers flocked online, with shopping momentum hitting its highest peak at 11:25 am EST (IBM).
• Mobile Shopping and Mobile Traffic Increase: On Cyber Monday more than 18 percent of consumers used a mobile device to visit a retailer's site, an increase of more than 70 percent over 2011. Mobile sales reached close to 13 percent, an increase of more than 96 percent over 2011 (IBM).
• The iPad Factor: The iPad continued to generate more traffic than any other tablet or smartphone, driving more than 7 percent of online shopping. The iPad also continued to dominate tablet traffic reaching a holiday high of 90.5 percent (IBM).
• Multiscreen Shopping: Consumers shopped in store, online and on mobile devices simultaneously to get the best bargains. Overall 58.1 percent of consumers who were in a store used smartphones compared to 41.9 percent who used tablets to surf for bargains on Cyber Monday (IBM).
• Social Sales: Shoppers referred from Social Networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube generated 0.41 percent of all online sales on Cyber Monday, a decrease of more than 26 percent from 2011 (IBM).

Blueport Cyber Monday tip: Save the best for last. Black Friday traffic was high for all websites across the world, with traffic from people scoping out deals. However, a big-ticket retailer’s best deals should be saved for Cyber Monday, which had the highest conversions, with people buying online at more than double the rate of Black Friday.

“Despite some news reports suggesting that Cyber Monday might be declining in importance, the day has once again set an online spending record at nearly $1.5 billion,” says comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. “However, it is also clear that the holiday promotional period has begun even earlier this year, with strong online sales occurring on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday. Now, we shall see the extent to which continuing and attractive retailer promotions are able to boost sales for the remainder of the week.”

Now what about furniture? In a trend that foreshadows the ROI potential of taking your big-ticket retail items online with e-commerce, home goods continued to grow, reporting a 26.8 percent increase in sales from Cyber Monday 2011 (IBM). Additionally, Bari Furniture, an online and brick and mortar retailer specializing in Leather Furniture, said that Black Friday and Cyber Monday produced record sales, with Black Friday sales up 59% over 2011 and Cyber Monday sales hitting an all-time record with a 64% increase (MarketWatch).

"As our selection broadens, reviews from our customers tell us that year over year growth will continue to expand for niche sites like ours that focus so closely on service, selection and value," President Tom Tilaro said.

Blueport experienced this phenomenon firsthand. One of our clients, TheRoomPlace, had their best-ever online sales day on Cyber Monday, lifting their revenue 14% from 2011. Another one of Blueport's clients, Leon's Furniture of Canada, experienced a 380% increase in revenue on Cyber Monday compared to their daily average sales. The best part of this? Leon's is actually a long-time Canadian retailer, where Thanksgiving is celebrated the month prior, meaning that Cyber Monday is truly becoming a worldwide phenomenon.

Between the success of big-ticket retail's predecessor of home goods and furniture over the holiday weekend, as well as the increased overall spending by consumers via e-commerce, Blueport Commerce remains committed to furniture as the next big category to go online.

As the 2012 Thanksgiving-Black Friday-Cyber Monday e-tailing season is behind us and we look to the December holiday season, big-ticket e-commerce retailers who sent early emails (early in both time of day sent and in advance of the Thanksgiving holiday) reaped the best rewards. Knowing that December is often the splashiest and most profitable holiday season, it’s a best practice to promote sales early and often to your loyal email subscribers and social media followers, as well as offer pre-holiday deals to your VIP customers.

Miss our Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday 2012 breakdown? Check it out here.

Even if the Grinch was an e-commerce retailer, he'd be forced to smile after the close of a landmark 2012 Thanksgiving holiday weekend. By all accounts, from Thanksgiving Thursday to Black Friday to Cyber Monday and everything in between, 2012 was a wildly successful holiday e-retailing period. And retailers have a lot for which to be thankful.

As the only e-commerce platform, technology and services company that localizes big-ticket retail online, Blueport Commerce breaks down the Thanksgiving 2012 holiday numbers to uncover trends and insights relevant to big-ticket retailers in a two-part series. Part one looks at Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday; Cyber Monday will be covered in part two.

Numbers are courtesy of IBM's Black Friday Report 2012; comScore’s Black Friday Billion: Kick-Off to Brick-and-Mortar Shopping Season Surges Past $1 Billion in E-Commerce Spending for the First Time; ITProPortal’s Black Friday 2012 Results: $1bn Milestone Hit as Online Spending Soars, But Cyber Monday Nets Even More; Internet Retailer’s E-Commerce Sales Rise 17.4% on Thanksgiving Day; SearchEngineWatch’s Black Friday E-Commerce Sales Set $1 Billion Record, 2012 Holiday Online Sales Strong; and The Retail Email Blog’s More Retailers Sent Email on Thanksgiving Than Black Friday.

Thanksgiving Day

• Strong Gains Overall: Thanksgiving Day saw strong gains on the e-commerce front, with a 32 percent year-over-year increase in online spending bringing the total for that holiday to $633 million (SearchEngineWatch).
• Promotional Email Frenzy: On Thanksgiving, more than 83% of major online retailers sent their subscribers at least one promotional email, setting an all-time record for the day. In 2011, 75% of retailers sent their subscribers email on Thanksgiving; in 2010, 60% did; and in 2009, just 45% did (Retail Email Blog).
• Record-Shattering Web Traffic: Visits to retail web sites broke records, with Akamai Technologies Inc. reporting a peak of 7.63 million page views per minute from North American consumers to the websites of its retail clients at 8:55 p.m. Eastern Time on Thanksgiving Day (Internet Retailer).

Blueport's tip: It's never too early to start promoting discounts or special offers. Don't feel limited to just Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions. And don’t think furniture has no place in these sales – it’s about more than just gifts. Even if people are buying for themselves, early awareness of deep discounts is critical to drive big-ticket online purchases. And US Thanksgiving has started to be recognized (at least for e-commerce) in Canada, with Blueport client Leon’s of Canada experiencing a traffic surge, with a visitor increase of 360% from US Thanksgiving Day 2011.This proves that Thanksgiving is now recognized outside of the US as a major e-commerce event.

Black Friday

While Black Friday traditionally conjures up images of overly caffeinated shoppers bundled up in multiple layers of clothes, camping out overnight at their favorite retail stores the night before stores open, an increasing number of consumers prefer to do all of their Black Friday shopping online. According to comScore, Black Friday saw over $1 billion in e-commerce sales for the first time ever, and a 26 percent increase versus Black Friday 2011.

“Despite the frenzy of media coverage surrounding the importance of Black Friday in the brick-and-mortar world, we continue to see this shopping day become more and more prominent in the e-commerce channel – particularly among those who prefer to avoid crowds at the stores,” said comScore chairman, Gian Fulgoni. “With Black Friday online sales up 26 percent and surpassing $1 billion for the first time, coupled with early reports indicating that Black Friday sales in retail stores were down 1.8 percent, we can now confidently call it a multi-channel marketing phenomenon.”

• Social Sales: Shoppers referred from Social Networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube generated .34 percent of all online sales on Black Friday, a decrease of more than 35 percent from 2011 (IBM).
• Mobile & Tablet Shopping: Mobile purchases (including tablet) soared with 24 percent of consumers using a mobile device to visit a retailer's site, up from 14.3 percent in 2011. Mobile sales exceeded 16 percent, up from 9.8 percent in 2011. The iPad not only dominated the tablet shoppers with 88.3% of share, it reached nearly 10 percent of all online shopping (IBM).
• Multiscreen Shopping: Consumers shopped in store, online and on mobile devices simultaneously to get the best bargains. Of the people already in a physical store, 58 percent of these consumers used smartphones compared to 41 percent who used tablets to surf for bargains while in-store on Black Friday (IBM).
• Brick-and-Mortar Sales Down: As the internet rises, in-store sales were down 1.8 per cent despite slightly improved year-on-year foot traffic amounting to 308 million visits to bricks-and-mortar retail outlets (ShopperTrak via ITProPortal).

Blueport Black Friday tip: The lack of influence of social media is surprising; particularly that it was down from 2011. While we encourage our retailers to keep an active social media presence, it's important to always link to either appropriate sale items or the homepage, allowing viewers to see upcoming promotions. And Black Friday certainly proves the importance of having a mobile-optimized website, if not a mobile app in addition, to encourage active shoppers to engage with your brand and, most importantly, transact.

Blueport client TheRoomPlace had its highest traffic of the year on Black Friday, doubling their traffic from four weeks prior. And Black Friday even hit Canada, with Leon’s increasing their visitors 33% from Black Friday 2011, proving that Black Friday is now recognized outside of the US.  

Blueport Commerce and our clients are thrilled with the increase in e-commerce purchases of the 2012 Thanksgiving holiday season. While Thanksgiving and Black Friday have traditionally been thought of as in-store retail events, this year’s online spending numbers prove that more and more consumers are moving to an e-commerce model for the convenience, discounts, and promotions.

Let us know – did you see improvements – or disappointments – during these two days?

Part two of this series next week will examine Cyber Monday 2012’s numbers and trends.

It is inevitable that any retailer in the e-commerce space will aspire to be the success story that is Amazon, no matter how unrealistic that dream may be. As an e-commerce site that was born in 1994 as a seller of used books, Amazon has morphed into a Goliath in the industry, becoming the dominant retailing marketplace for products ranging from books to electronics to food. With its low prices, rapid delivery and huge inventory, Amazon poses a threat to retailers in all industries.

“It is coming down to convenience, assortment and price,” said the operator of a Los Angeles area consumer electronics retailer to HFN. “And Amazon is beating us on all three fronts.”

However, there are steps furniture retailers can take to counteract Amazon.com before they find themselves floundering like former retail giant Best Buy. We at Blueport Commerce, the only e-commerce technology and services company that localizes furniture online, have our retailers place an emphasis on service, product knowledge and convenience to ensure customer loyalty and retention.

1. Service

While Amazon is known for their accommodating customer service, our clients can actually benefit from showrooming, which extends a personalized touch that Amazon itself can't offer. Shoppers in a brick-and-mortar store may be tempted to see, touch and feel a piece of furniture they like, and then immediately try to find it for less online on their mobile device. With the help of experienced, knowledgeable salespeople in the brick-and-mortar store, as well as an e-commerce website optimized for mobile, plus a mobile app, furniture retailers can turn showrooming from a lost opportunity into a closed sale by keeping the buyer on their brand's site. Additionally, offering iPad and touch tablets loaded with inventory information as well as allowing store consumers to experience online checkout while in their store, can reach more connected consumers. 

Kathee Tesija, Target’s executive vice president of merchandising and supply chain, said it best when she said, “Do we love being a showroom? Yes, when we can book the sale.”

And we at Blueport Commerce are confident that in this case, our clients can book the sale.

2. Product Knowledge

Currently, Bed, Bath & Beyond is one retailer most at risk of losing out to Amazon. “Our work suggests there is 89 percent direct product overlap with Amazon in kitchen electrics, 83 percent in cookware and 83 percent in cutlery, all key traffic-driving categories,” said Matt Nemer, retail analyst with Wells Fargo.

Bed, Bath & Beyond is responding by changing its merchandise mix toward more exclusive products, mirroring that of Williams-Sonoma, Crate & Barrel and Pier 1 Imports, who are less vulnerable to Amazon due to name cachet and exclusive products. Bed, Bath & Beyond now has its own specialty food, as well as home textiles. In a similar vein, by offering a strong range of one-of-a-kind, name-brand products, as well as having a plethora of information about each product available both online and in-store, furniture retailers can benefit from consumers who aren't just price shopping, but are looking for durable and stylish furniture and appliances that last. 

3. Convenience

Bed, Bath & Beyond, which currently receives only 3 percent of their total sales from e-commerce, has invested heavily in improving their website and opening an 800,000-square-foot e-commerce fulfillment center in Georgia. Convenience-based improvements they are exploring include in-store pickups and returns on e-commerce purchases, identical pricing on merchandise between stores and online, more exclusives and increased private label. Like Bed, Bath & Beyond, furniture retailers who can most successfully merge the in-store and online e-commerce experiences to result in the most seamless, customer-centric experience possible will succeed. 

“Having a unique product mix, backed by a strong knowledge of the products and consumer needs, will definitely help smaller brick and mortar retailers hold off Amazon,” said Alan Mendelson, a business reporter based in Los Angeles.

Our retailers who offer quality service, a deep product knowledge and convenient ways for customers to shift between digital and physical channels are the stores who will survive as Amazon continues its rapid growth. 

In the mid-1990s, it was inconceivable that people would want to buy shoes online. Yet in 1999, Zappos was born, became a giant in the e-commerce industry and now brings in a cool $1 billion in revenue just 13 years later. Blueport Commerce saw a similar opportunity in 2001 around selling big-ticket items online such as furniture and appliances, and launched the industry's only e-commerce technology and services company that localizes big-ticket retail online. With higher price points and slower buying cycles, big-ticket retail can take longer to reap rewards. However when a world-renowned company like BMW decides to sell cars online, it makes us feel like we're onto something big.

On June 13 in London, Ian Robertson, head of global sales at BMW, spoke with Bloomberg about online retailing and sales strategy for the new BMW i electric car. Two topics Robertson touched on are particularly relevant to big-ticket retail: pricing for big-ticket items and channel optimization.

Pricing for Big-Ticket Retail

Ian Robertson revealed that BMW will be selling the new electric icars over the internet, in addition to their traditional physical dealerships around the world. "It's clear in my mind that the actual experience that a customer has with a dealer, with a point of sale, is still the backbone of what we're going to do."

When asked if the price of the cars would be discounted online, Robertson responded, "Absolutely not. We have a very clear policy – our dealers ultimately will do the deals for vehicles. What we are not going to do is have different channels offering different price points. Our dealers are responsible for this around the world - this is not new, this is our normal business."

Although deep discounting has come to be associated with e-commerce, for example in the world of online marketplaces such as Amazon, BMW recognizes that price-slashing is not an effective technique for big-ticket retail. Or, in the words of Robertson, "This is not something that people are likely to just look on the internet...and say 'yes, that's for me....this is expensive product, and in many cases, is the most expensive product people buy. And that experience of the product, both in the physical sense and the driving sense, is a fundamental part of that actual decision."

With this insight, it is clear BMW agrees with Blueport's assessment that having two disparate buying channels, with physical stores and a branded e-commerce website competing with each other on price, is not a model for success. Blueport firmly believes that BMW is on the right track by keeping the dealers in control of setting the prices of the cars and the website being a connected and cohesive channel for optimized buying. Blueport frequently advises our big-ticket retail clients to think of their e-commerce website as a branded hub, while also being a tool to help their showrooms compete in local markets. By keeping prices consistent, bi-directional web and physical traffic allows for greater lead generation, as well as increased sales.

From Channel Conflict to Omnichannel Optimization

On the topic of potential channel conflict, between traditional dealers and online stores, Robertson stated, "It's no secret today that a very large percentage of all the customers that buy BMW have done research on the internet so when they arrive at a dealership they've almost made their decision. And we want to actually make sure that the customers have the option to do whatever they so desire."

"The worldwide dealer body remains the backbone of what we're doing with all the products for BMW....the actual availability to experience the car, to sit behind the wheel, to drive it, is a very important part. But we will have multichannel approaches which will be useable for the i products and, in time, other products as well."

Robertson mentioned the dealers in this equation as the equivalent of local heroes, with higher knowledge than any website could provide, able to interface in real time with the customer as needed and close the deal with their rapport and experience. This sets up the online and physical stores to combine for greater total sales, appealing to consumers who do internet research before arriving at a dealership, as well as those willing to pull the trigger without setting foot in a physical showroom.

Like BMW, Blueport recognizes the need for brick-and-mortar stores to work in harmony with an e-commerce presence. Blueport long ago realized that physical stores were the heart and soul of the big-ticket retail experience, with the online stores acting as an additional channel that allowed for both research, comparison shopping and added purchasing convenience. By coordinating both prices and discounting online and offline, the stores benefit from increased foot traffic of people who have researched online, but want to touch and feel the furniture or appliances in store. The web benefits from being available as a channel for people who are confident in their internet research and are ready to buy immediately, without needing to travel to a physical location or talk to a salesperson. And while it may be awhile before all cars are available online for immediate purchase, it's nice to see a world leader in the automotive industry like BMW taking that step into big-ticket e-commerce retail. 

Related posts:

• Omni-Channel Retailing 2012: Marrying the Best of the Digital and Physical Channels
• E-Commerce Leads to Smarter Brick and Mortar Retail
• With E-Commerce, How Many Physical Stores Do Retailers Really Need?
• Demandware: A Cloud E-Commerce Solution for a Category That ‘Will Never Go Online’ -- Sound Familiar?

A common problem for potential consumers of big-ticket retail items such as furniture and appliances is that it's almost impossible to know how a certain piece will look once it is in their home or office. Measurements can be taken, and photographs can be scrutinized, but it's more often than not a guessing game as to how everything will fit together on delivery day. In fact, one of the biggest e-commerce challenges is that the consumer is often uncomfortable pulling the trigger on big-ticket retail items that cannot be visualized in their own personal space.

At Blueport Commerce we combine the industry's only big-ticket retail e-commerce solution with dedicated e-commerce integration services and personalized service packages to build the right solution for your business. Part of providing all of the components required for a successful e-commerce site is ensuring retailers have the technology necessary to help consumers solve the age-old dilemma of how furniture or appliances will look in their rooms. Here are two hot new furniture retail technologies currently on the market that attempt to do just that.

1. 3D Room Designer by Crate & Barrel

Crate & Barrel has introduced 3D Room Designer, an in-store tool which allows a customer to drop a digital photo of a room in their home or office into a 3D room model – without recreating a floor plan. The customer makes an appointment online and either emails or brings a photo on a USB stick to a nearby Crate & Barrel location. The height of the room is the only measurement the customer needs to know. From there, the customer can work with a store associate to transform their space with 3D models of Crate & Barrel merchandise, swapping out products, materials and colors. More than 2,000 Crate & Barrel products are incorporated into the 3D Room Designer, with all combinations of materials and fabrics together. Store associates are then able to print and email photos of the redesigned rooms to the customer, along with a list of all the items chosen.

While this technology certainly aims to solve the issue of visualization, the problem is that the final image can often look cartoonish and not realistic enough for the consumer to want to purchase. And while the goal of this 3D Room Designer is to drive traffic to brick-and-mortar stores, some customers will not want to make an in-store appointment and then go to the physical store. Additionally, by having the product only available in stores, it turns away those customers who may be in the research stage and want to simply “play around” with the tool online, and make a purchase decision weeks or months down the road.

By ignoring the needs of customers who live in rural areas, far from a store, as well as those who simply prefer to do all of their research and shopping online, Crate & Barrel is losing potential customers. In the spirit of true omnichannel retailing, Blueport Commerce recommends that Crate & Barrel creates a web version of 3D Room Designer that allows customers to do the manipulations themselves, as well as purchase the items online, rather than only going to the physical store.

2. Mydeco 3D

Mydeco.com, a UK-based online home store that sells furniture and home accessories from multiple retailers, boasts 3D, an online floor planner that lets customers visualize their home in 3D when buying new furniture. From the comfort of their home, a customer can upload up to 2 floor plans for free and move the walls and manipulate furniture from any of Mydeco’s retailers to their liking. After the customer is satisfied, they will receive back a 3D rendering in one business day. Additionally, the site has a community feel in that customers can connect with Mydeco’s collection of interior design enthusiasts, students, and professionals.

Mydeco.com also has another tool, Moodboard Creator, which is a Pinterest-like tool that lets consumers use furniture and home accessories from Mydeco.com (or any image they like) to get inspired to redecorate their homes. Pictures can be rotated and mixed, along with background and frames.

Blueport Commerce recognizes the value of Mydeco.com’s 3D tool, as the output is more realistic than Create & Barrel’s 3D Room Planner, and it allows users to get more creative, with furnishings from multiple retailers. Additionally, consumers can use the tool from their homes or offices, and not have to make an appointment or drive to a physical store location. The community and social feel of Mydeco’s 3D planner and Moodboard Creator allow for a greater viral reach, encouraging users to share their designs within the Mydeco community, as well as social sites such as Google+, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon and Pinterest. The only negative is that it’s not as fully visually compelling as it could be yet – it has not achieved the next step of augmented reality.
 

Augmented Reality – The Next Dimension

Imagine in the near future a customer being able to walk into a brick-and-mortar store and, with their mobile device or a device supplied by the store, scan and have elements of the display room pop out with information such as pricing, reviews, dimensions, availability and description. Or imagine being able to scan a room in your home or office you wish to redecorate with your mobile device, and have a retailer’s furniture placed into your home, in varying colors and at scale. Hidden Creative has a video depiction that suggests such a possibility here (at the 2:00 minute mark) through the next step of Augmented Reality, called Articulated Naturality Web. As the drive to capture the increasingly-connected consumer continues, retailers will need to stay attuned to technology advancements that can aid them in reaching and capturing tech-savvy consumers.

Blueport Commerce is currently developing exciting new technology that includes augmented reality. Our goal is to help solve the e-commerce challenge of allowing consumers to envision their desired big-ticket retail item in their own space. Let us know if we can help you develop technology to enhance your brick-and-mortar store or e-commerce website presence – we would welcome the opportunity to enrich the consumer experience and increase e-commerce transactions for your business.

Related posts:

• How You Can Capture the Mobile Consumer
• Making Sense of Mobile Payments & More
• How Will Facebook’s Acquisition of Instagram Impact the Social Network for Retail Brands?

These days, companies that want to get noticed online can no longer pay for the attention – they actually need to be contributing to the online discussion. While display advertising is an opportunity big-ticket retailers cannot afford to miss, there is a lot to be gained in the value search engine optimization, social and content marketing offer both to their customers and brand.

According to a recent eMarketer article reporting on data from SEOmoz, more and more marketers are focusing on these three types of inbound marketing. And of these three, marketers spend the majority of their time on SEO (23.9% spent more than half their time on this), followed by social media marketing (7.8%) and then content marketing (6.3%).

What’s particularly interesting about this is that the three tactics can be set up to really feed each other. Content creation can boost SEO rankings as can links from social media sites, and the content can also feed your social media posts. The result? E-commerce growth like never before.

Content Creation and Inbound Marketing Are Evolving

Over two-thirds of online marketers globally are already creating short-form content, like blogs, social media posts, articles and guides. And now only a small percentage focus on the longer forms, like white papers and surveys, they used to depend on.

Why? The shorter, more social content is quicker to create and you can expect it will get in front of your intended audience on your website, on your Facebook and other social media pages, and in search.

For Content Marketing, Pictures Can Be Worth a Thousand Words

And this content can also be visual. Product photos and videos are an important part of any retailer’s content marketing efforts.

And we at Blueport Commerce find the marriage of rich images with detailed text to be essential to selling and marketing big-ticket items like furniture in the digital space for our clients. This is an important component of every product page, as we have to help consumers experience the items as they would in a store.

We also work the visual and text combination into our furniture buying guides, blog posts and social media updates. And each time we bring these types of content together, we find a profoundly larger response. Employing this multichannel strategy can pay off quickly as your audience does your marketing for you.

What’s Next for Content Marketing for Big-Ticket Retailers?

We believe the next step will involve further engaging customers in the content creation. With e-commerce website data and social media, retailers are in closer contact than ever before with what their consumers are thinking. And the next step is to harness what customers are saying, build the relationships and engage them in being your brand ambassadors and content creation. And we at Blueport have never been more excited.

Related posts:

• 3 Ways to Leverage Social Media for In-Store Events
• Old SEO Tricks Won’t Help Your E-Commerce Business, But SEO Basics Will
• Retailers Win Over Consumers with Social Media and Content Cultivation
• Omni-Channel Retailing 2012: Marrying the Best of the Digital and Physical Channels

Mobile users spend 144 minutes a day — 26% of the nine hours they use various media — with their mobile devices. For the first time, television came in second with 141 minutes. This is according to this Business Insider article, where people were asked how much time they spend interacting with all forms of media.

In fact, a survey by InMobi, a mobile ad company, found that people now spend more time watching their phones than watching TV.

 

Interesting findings include:

• 55% of those surveyed used their mobile device to shop.
• 59% said mobile advertising impacts their purchasing decisions, compared to 57% who said television advertising did.
• 24% of users said their mobile influenced their in-store purchase.
• 69% of people used their mobile to find local resources.

Retail chains, take note.

It is clear mobile's popularity (both tablet and phones) is steadily increasing, and the influence of traditional channels like television, desktop, radio and newspapers is declining. But how can you reach your audience if your current multichannel marketing mix isn't working? What should omnichannel retailers do? The answer: Go where your audience is.

How Big-Ticket Retail Can Succeed with a Refined Mobile Strategy

Adapting to a world that embraces mobile can seem daunting even for those who have already taken their retail stores online. But via a multichannel analysis, there are some quick and easy steps that you can take so that your mobile viewers can convert into mobile purchasers. Following the best practices of SoLoMo (Social Local Mobile), you can ensure shopping experience that is optimized for anyone on the go. At Blueport Commerce, we help our big-ticket retail clients not only transition to e-commerce, but provide their customers with an optimized mobile shopping experience.

1. So (Social Media): Include social sharing buttons. Many mobile users spend hours on social media sites such as Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Twitter. Often, if they are following their favorite e-commerce stores, this can be their first source of information about an upcoming sale or in-store event. By including these buttons, all it takes is one quick click by the consumer to share his favorite sectional on his Facebook wall for all of his Facebook friends to see in their newsfeeds. Congratulations, you've just advanced your multichannel marketing strategy, and better yet, have had others do it for you.

2. Lo (Local): Get found – both online and in person. Because 69% of people use their mobile devices to find local stores, having a store locator app (which automatically finds the user's current location with GPS or allows them to plug in a preferred zip or postal code) can be the difference between making or breaking an in-store sale. In many instances, buyers feel the desire to see, touch and feel big-ticket items in person. By leading them to your brick-and-mortar store, they feel more confident completing their big-ticket purchases. Additionally, offering localized content for big-ticket items, such as less expensive delivery or shorter wait times, can help close a sale.

3. Mo (Mobile): Make your e-commerce website mobile-friendly. Shoppers on mobile devices tend to be on the move and cannot wait for slow-loading, complicated graphics or a disorganized site that renders strangely on a portable device. You can either reevaluate the mobile version of your website or create a unique mobile experience.

The Big-Ticket Retail Takeaway

Big-ticket items, such as furniture and appliances, often have long purchase cycles and require more research before potential buyers will pull the trigger on purchasing. By including social sharing buttons, offering localized content and a store locator app, and optimizing your e-commerce site for mobile, you're leading your mobile customers to what they're really seeking: more information. And as you lead them further down the funnel, closer to purchase, you are creating engaged, informed online shoppers who are interacting with you through their chosen medium.

Related posts:

• Putting the Local in SoLoMo E-Commerce
• E-Commerce Gets Fabber -- and More Social!
• Auto Buyers Research on Mobile; Other Big-Ticket Shoppers Can’t Be Far Behind