According to comScore, the number of people using mobile devices to access the Internet on a daily basis more than doubled from January 2008 to January 2009, with 63.2 million people—29% of the U.S. population age 16 and over—accessing the Web on their mobile devices during the month of January 2009. 22.4 million, or 35%, went online on their mobile device on a daily basis—an increase of 107% over the 10.8 million who did so in January 2008.

Cross-channel capabilities have become critical to selling, and the growth in mobile use is a big part of that. The consumer buying cycle, once limited to a simple visit either in-store or on the Web, now typically spans interactions across multiple channels. A consumer may start on the Web, contact the call center for assistance, look up information on a mobile phone, and then buy in-store or back on the Web. As more and more U.S. consumers become accustomed to their phone as a primary device for emailing, social networking, blogging and absorbing multimedia content, it’s clear that m-commerce will rise, as well.

• Kelly O’Neill, Product Marketing Director, ATG (moderator)
• Cindy McGuire, Web Content Manager, Casual Male Retail Group, Inc.
• Joey Wilson, Director of Marketing Strategy, Sapient
• Karen Weber, Assistant Vice President, e-Marketing, Irwin Union Bank
• Link Walls, Senior Product Manager, Search Services, ChannelAdvisor

One topic the panel spent a lot of time on is optimizing personalization. And, yes, it requires the brand maintaining control (there’s that word again). We’ve blown by the time when personas were enough. It’s now all about needs-based marketing that identifies and responds to what an individual customer needs right now and feeds them the right content and offers. Does this mean abandoning personas? No, of course not. It does mean, however, giving merchants the ability to dynamically change the site and marketing offers to motivate an actual individual.

[tags] e-commerce, personalization, needs-based marketing, Insight Live 2007 [/tags]

[tags] mobile computing, marketing, customer service, Insight Live 2007 [/tags]

Interesting perspective. Makes me wonder if there are other pressure appliers in other industries. Who do you think they are?

[tags] Apple, iPhone, Insight Live 2007 [/tags]

Please – we welcome any feedback!

Do you ‘prefer’ one over the other and, if so, what factors (type of products, customer demographic) contribute to your preference?

• Curt Avalone, General Manager CVS.com
• Shawn Freeman, Senior Vice President of Product Strategy and Technology, Handango
• Jimmy Hale, Vice President Application Development, Neiman Marcus
• Marty Keane, Vice President e-Commerce, Bluefly

 [tags] The Long Tail, Chris Anderson, e-commerce, Insight Live 2007 [/tags]

Keith is taking the audience through the history of retail’s evolution from single-store through big box to e-Tailing, focusing on the dramatic increase in variety. He makes the really interesting point that this evolution, however, has had little direct impact on experience. The power of online selling to this point has really been more about efficiency in procurement. He argues that many of the efficiency-oriented e-commerce features that have been layered into sites to this point will soon – if they haven’t already – reach the point of diminishing returns. The focus needs to be on starting conversations with customers that will turn customers into advocates. This, of course, requires being an “open brand” adhering to the Web 2.0 tenets of sincere, transparent participation (i.e., this is NOT an opportunity to “spin” a story).

That’s the first time I’ve heard the word today. Advocates. Think about it. That’s what we’re really after isn’t it? Sure loyalty is great. And, yes, many here today have talked about the fact that friends, family and others “like me” are the most trusted source of recommendations. But advocacy is something more than that. It is more active. It is more emotional. He uses the NAU philanthropy program as an example.

In this world of infinite and immediate choice, is it possible to create not only brand loyalists, but brand advocates? How are you doing it?

[tags] Insight Live 2007, Blast Radius, e-commerce, online communities, Web 2.0, social networking, NAU [/tags]

The ongoing industry discussion about Web 2.0 is almost always from a consumer/user perspective, so it’s really interesting to sit through Web 2.0 sessions that are intended for sellers. One persistent theme is about who is in control (see post about David Towers’ session).

A really interesting point was raised by BazaarVoice about customer reviews giving customers a megaphone. If they need to, they will use it to shout at you, even if it’s not about a product review, per se. So before implementing reviews, make sure things like customer service are operating the way they need to. PowerReviews added that customer reviews are supposed to be about product reviews, not about company, service or price. Both companies agreed that you need to make sure the user communicty understands that at the outset, so you moderate reviews appropriately if they veer off the topic of product performance.

Also, Vitamin Shoppe pointed out that what the community aspects of Web 2.0 technologies do is force the company to live up to its brand promise, or risk the very vocal ire of customers. You can’t control what the customers are going to say, except by doing the best you can to reflect your brand in the online experience you create. Vitamin Shoppe starts by observing actual customers shopping in actual stores and monitoring their experiences.

This actually points to another emerging theme…the idea that customers’ online experiences should mimic their offline experiences (assuming the latter is an optimal one, I assume!)

A question was posed about how online sellers can determine where to start with Web 2.0. Several panel members answered quite correctly that they need to understand what drives their business, prototype, test, experiment. All of these are reasonable responses.

But Gene Alvarez couldn’t resist falling back into analyst mode (answering questions instead of asking them) and really boiled it down from a rich media perspective:

• Make it as easy as possible to take the money - use single page check-out
• Make the product self-descriptive – if a user mouses over it, pop up the information

While the bluntness of Gene’s response got some laughs, he really has a point. Let’s face it, people are shopping online because they want to buy something. Perhaps the best thing sellers can do is to let them do it easily.

[tags] Insight Live 2007, e-commerce, Gartner, Gene Alvarez, Web 2.0 [/tags]

David is a former retailer, having previously run e-commerce at J. Crew and Liz Claiborne, so he’s not just an “agency guy” trying to generate fees with the cool new online stuff retailers “have” to do. In fact, he goes to lengths to point out a couple of the “obvious areas” that he recommends most retails NOT get involved yet.

David really had to jam through examples of a lot of tools in action. I believe I’ve captured the categorization correctly (and, if not, I hope he’ll correct me in the comments!)

Must-have today

• Blogs & evolved user generated content
• Product reviews are 1.0
• Retailer POV is 2.0 - David uses Ice.com as an example of what not to do, in this instance - “news” is that there is a sale; the user questions aren’t useful to a general population)
• Social networking
• Join MySpace or another existing social network - He says “Why not? it floors me that companies trying to be hip and trendy fail to put up a simple MySpace page.”
• Make your own – examples include American Eagle Outfitters’ yearbook program and Target’s helping users run their book club
• Let your customer make their own social network – check out Ning user Marcos’s own Coca-Cola network
• Rich Media, AJAX, enhanced visualization
• Guided selling (no page reload; no boxes around products; Target, Coca-cola, Nike, Best Buy)
• Visual navigation (products jump out at you when you mouse over; Breville, Disney)
• All that said, nothing beats good photography (Bvlgari)
• Video
• Examples include the Engadget “unboxing” and BlendTech’s “Will it blend?” video
• Widgets and gadgets
• Lots of potential b/c it helps transcend browser by getting on the desktop; getting in front of consumer before they even open their browsers

No there, there yet 

 

• Virtual Worlds
• Poster child American Apparel ROI is unclear; some backlash because the company failed to engage in the community property
• Mobile
• No clear homerun in mobile for e-Retailer selling things online (not talking about ringtones and games); phone is too personal a means of communication; big future in mobile, but aren’t here right now

Finally, David closed with 5 Things Every Dignital Executive Should Know About Web 2.0

1. Your Web site is like everything and nothing you’ve ever known
2. Distribution will trump destination – we are about to see the end of channels
3. Accountability will rule the day – everything is infinitely trackable
4. Today’s Web is in its “Uncle Milty” stage – it’s Web 2.0, but it’s ONLY Web 2.0
5. The consumer is not in control – sellers are still in control of their brands; you make the decisions, you are in control, make good use of it

OK, I apologize to making you wait to the end of a long post to bring out the WOW, but read #5 again. Doesn’t that just fly in the face of everything we “know” about Web 2.0?? But, when you think about it, is it really crazy? While it wasn’t intended to be about brands, but maybe that that old saw about letting go of the thing you love holds water here.

What say you?