There’s a useful post over at econsultancy by Eric Abensur of cloud-based commerce company Venda, that asks a simple, but very pertinent question, is social commerce worth the investment?

The short answer – according to the post – is a qualified yes, if retailers adopt the right approach and tone.

For the e-consultancy post, social commerce is not about turning social media into a marketplace, but using social media to promote the marketplace/site you’re selling on – essentially through social sharing. For instance, Etsy sellers use Pinterest for free advertising, and 20% of buyers come to the craft marketplace from seeing shared pics on Pinterest.  Use e-commerce software to sell, and social software to share. Simple, right?

But is that it? Is social commerce really just regular e-commerce with social sharing added in?  Well it’s certainly part of it.  Social commerce software solutions with traction - TurnTo, 8thBridge, AddShoppers, inSparq, Bazaarvoice, Lithium, Sellaround – are all increasingly focusing on adding premium social features to e-commerce solutions – with ratings and reviews, Social Q&A, social recommendations, and customizable share buttons leading the pack. This is social commerce as a plugin, or rather, a set of plugins – and yes, it is worth the investment.  Why? Because these social plugins for e-commerce sites are simple, time and cost-efficient ways to help retailers monetize the referral value of their customers – which can be up to 40% of total customer lifetime value. Social commerce as a plugin is a no-brainer.

But there’s more to social commerce than a plugin.  The opportunity is to use social commerce for business model innovation – using a social mindset to create and capture customer value in new and different ways.

• Tuangou (team buying) – selling to groups, not individuals (e.g. Mercedes has offered members of social networks the opportunity to club together an buy in bulk with group discounts)
• Pop-up Retail - using social media as a channel for selling limited editions. (e.g., this year Mercedes launched a special limited edition Smart Car sold only on the Chinese version of Twitter)
• Collaborative Consumption – selling stuff for sharing (e.g. Zipcar, AirBnB, Zopa)
• Collaborative Commerce – using social technology to manage supply chain alliances and collaboration. For example, last year luxury retail chain Neiman Marcus said it will put together a limited collection from 24 American designers this holiday season with an unlikely partner … discounter Target Corp

Social plugins are a good way to start with social commerce, they are worth the investment.  But the big wins will happen when companies adopt a social mindset to do business model innovation – by thinking we-commerce not me-commerce.  The future of social commerce will happen with business model innovation, not a plugin.

(Via Social Commerce Today)

Retailers are focusing their attention on mobile strategies to improve the customer experience. As many as 32% of consumers said that they have researched a product on their smartphone prior to purchasing item within the brick-and-mortar store, according to study conducted by Equation Research.

This infographic, courtesy of Mobiquity, highlights 6 retailers that rank the highest in overall customer mobile shopping experience, as well as the most significant reasons why consumers might be unsatisfied with a mobile experience.

(Via Strategies to Optimize Every Customer Interaction)

ConAgra Foods, makers of Healthy Choice and Marie Callender’s meals, created the video below to show what the future of shopping may look like from behind Google Glass.  This is clearly not possible today but is within the realm of possibility for the near future.

I was annoyed they chose to follow two people instead of just one.  I assume they did it to illustrate the conversation between the women, but it distracts from the overall shopping theme.  If the conversation was that important, it would have been better to ask for product advice.  I was more impressed with the voice response than the augmented reality aspects.  Being able to direct commands to Glass vs people in the room is tough — usually you need to preface commands with a keyword or press a button.

Being able to overlay text on products is pretty tough as well.  Today you’d need to use a barcode or marker of some sort because image recognition is just too unreliable, especially when all the products look similar.  At best you can count the number of facing items and possibly recognize the brands.

Checkout was certainly fast!  Surprised they didn’t have to blink Morse Code for their PINs.  All in all I thought most of what they accomplished would have worked well on their smartphones without Glass.  It certainly has me thinking about the future.

Would have been funny to see one of the women run into an endcap because spam blocked her vision.  Maybe next time.

(Via Insight-Driven Retailing Blog)

As a busy, working mom I have no choice but to multi-task every day, and multiple devices such as my PC, Surface Pro and mobile phone help me get the tasks I need done so I can spend more time with my 3-year old daughter.

Like me, most people are multi-tasking throughout their day and we wanted to dive deeper into the consumer motivations behind why they use multiple screens. In our new study, called Cross-Screen Engagement, we found that while the era of ‘Content is King’ isn’t over per se, there is a new ‘Crown Prince’ coming on the scene: consumer experience. While marketers once generated content to fit manufactured and static advertising placements, consumers now control their own flow of content—from day to night, and from screens large and small. So it’s even more imperative that marketers understand consumer motivations in order to meet them in their moment.

We partnered with Flamingo Research and Ipsos OTX to recruit consumers across five markets— including Australia, Brazil, Canada, the UK and the US— to learn more about why consumers are using multiple devices and to understand the motivations that drive simultaneous or sequential usage across screens, and the opportunities for marketers.

Our study identifies that consumers typically follow four multi-screening pathways:

• Content Grazing: This is the most common pathway 68 percent of consumers Content Grazing. This occurs when consumers use two or more screens simultaneously to access unrelated content; for example, watching a show on TV while at the same time checking email on your PC and texting a friend on your mobile phone.
• Investigative Spider-Webbing: This is the second most common multi-screening pathway with 57 percent of consumers in this category. It’s a simultaneous path where consumers embark on a content driven investigation across devices at the same time, either to gather more information or for pure exploration. For example this could consist of watching a movie on the TV and looking up what other movies the actors have been in on a tablet or PC.
• Quantum Journey: Forty-six percent of consumers land in the Quantum pathway. Here, productivity and efficiency are paramount as consumers are trying to accomplish a task.  Each screen separately and additively takes them closer to achieving their goal. For example, you snap a picture of a pair of shoes on your mobile that you see for sale while shopping, and then look up reviews about the shoes on your PC at home before purchasing.
• Social Spider-Webbing: This is the least common multi-screening pathway with 39 percent of consumers engaging here. Consumers in this instance are extroverted and focused on sharing content and connecting with others across devices. For example, you beat your friend’s high score for a game on your Xbox, and then use Skype or other social channels to brag about your win to friends.

Here are just some of the tips we suggest to marketers based on the research findings:

• Keep Content Seamless:  Windows 8 enables a consistent and cohesive experience across desktops and laptops, tablets, mobile phones and the Xbox gaming console. Marketers should think about utilizing SkyDrive for easy cloud storage and implementing content into apps such as Xbox SmartGlass – both provide seamless movement from one screen to the next.
• Be ‘Always On’: In the morning, consumers tend to be more task focused and in the evening hours, all four multi-screening pathways kick into high gear. Marketers should tailor their messaging throughout the day. For example, connect them with commercial content that can be consumed in small bites via Bing and casual gaming apps, and then help them investigate or communicate deeper in the evening through Windows 8 Ads in Apps, MSN Video and interactive rich media ad units such as the new IAB standard Filmstrip unit.
• Think Personal and Portable: The mobile phone is a highly personal device, but is also the bridge between work, on-the-go and home. Marketers should leverage the intimate feel consumers have with the mobile to drive relevant messaging, and apps are a natural fit here.
• Keep it Contextual: MSN via the portal or Windows 8 apps disseminates contextually rich content around the topics consumers care about most: Lifestyle, Food, Finance, Autos, Entertainment, Sports and more.
• Spark Conversation: Connect through rich, engaging ad experiences in environments where consumers make more personal social connections. Marketers should consider using Skype or gaming via Xbox to tell their brand story at scale and on the platform that consumers prefer: across PCs, TVs and mobile devices.

We’re continuing to build upon and dive deeper into the implications of these four pathways, as well as how they map back to our ongoing Consumer Decision Journey research. You can find more information within our full research report: Microsoft Advertising’s Cross-Screen Engagement.

As always, be sure to get in touch with questions or feedback. We love hearing from you!

Natasha Hritzuk, Senior global director of Research & Insights, Microsoft Advertising.

(Via Microsoft Advertising Blog)

A while ago, we recounted the story of how a simple divider in a shopping cart can radically change shopping behavior. In fact, the little sign that said, “place produce here, all other products there” doubled fresh produce purchases during the experiment.

Additional secondary research by Collin Payne and Mihai Niculescu found that this was massively more effective than other produce marketing methods (shelf labeling, advertising, coupons, etc.), which often only increased sales a couple percentage points.   

But we began to wonder if such a persuasive marketing method would ever survive the standby of shopper research: the direct response survey of purchase intent. So we fielded the question to a panel of 4,593 US shoppers.

We found that a cart divider ranked last in what people claim would influence them to buy more produce.

When asked directly if a cart divider would influence their produce purchases, an overwhelming majority said it would have no effect.

  

Compare this to what Payne and Niculescu essentially found through their research:

These results raise two serious questions. First, what are really the most effective ways to influence shoppers? And second, how much should we rely on surveyed purchase intent to predict shopper behavior? And at minimum, these results suggest we should do more experiments to not just test marketing methods, but to test our own assumptions and intuition. 

(Via Shopper Culture)

“LAS MARCAS QUERRÁN OFRECER LO MEJOR DE LOS MUNDOS ON-OFF Y HACERLOS COMPATIBLES Y COMPLEMENTARIOS”

¿Cómo definirías el actual contexto de la actividad Retail?

Durante años el Retail Marketing ha trabajado bajo la premisa de su potencial para poder influir en los procesos de compra de los clientes. Eso está dejando de ser posible, al menos en la medida en lo que lo ha sido hasta el momento. Cada vez más es el propio consumidor quien dirige su proceso y experiencia de compra. Ello añade elementos de indeterminismo en ese proceso y, por tanto, de falta de predictibilidad. Este contexto ha sido bautizado con el nombre de Retail Volátil por tratarse de una actividad comercial que debe tener en cuenta muchas más variables para explicar o prever un comportamiento que ya no es lineal sino que, en términos físicos, se asemejaría mucho más al comportamiento de un gas que al de un sólido.

¿Qué perfil de cliente protagoniza este Retail Volátil?

Se le ha definido como Smart Shopper por tratarse de un tipo de comprador que ya no se deja influir tan fácilmente y pasa a ejercer un mayor control sobre el proceso y experiencia de compra que más le conviene en cada momento. Se trata además de un consumidor que cuenta con un menor presupuesto, por lo que tiende ha hacer una compra más racional. Es más responsable y analítico, aunque también es más social: Interactúa con su entorno, le gusta expresar su opinión respecto a sus opciones de compra y busca y acepta las opiniones de los demás respecto a productos, servicios y experiencias.

¿Qué supone en ese Retail más volátil el auge de la omnicanalidad?

La tienda física va a tener que reforzar en su propuesta todos aquellos elementos que no pueden ofrecerse a través de los nuevos canales online: experiencia, sensorialidad, relación cara a cara con personas, etc. Se necesitará por tanto dar una mayor importancia a elementos como el diseño de los espacios, la comunicación, el visual merchandising, la innovación en el punto de venta, etc. De igual manera, las propuestas online deberán intentar compensar las deficiencias de la virtualidad. En cualquier caso, las marcas querrán ofrecer lo mejor de ambos mundos y hacerlos compatibles y complementarios. No imagino un futuro  más o menos cercano en el que un vendedor de cierta importancia trabaje sólo en el medio físico o sólo en el online.

¿En qué punto se encuentra actualmente esa tendencia hacia una mayor omnicanalidad?

Los casos de éxito se están convirtiendo en el principal impulsor de la tendencia. En el campo de la moda la irrupción de las grandes marcas en el canal online se hizo con cierto retraso. Sin embargo, su éxito está suponiendo que muchas otras marcas menores se hayan interesado posteriormente también en probar innovadores canales y nuevas formas de relación e interacción entre ellos. En España llevamos cierto atraso respecto a otros países europeos, pero iniciativas singulares de marcas internacionales como Mango o Desigual las convierten en grandes impulsoras de este proceso.

¿Qué cabe esperar en este ámbito más allá de la proliferación de tiendas en la web por parte de las marcas?

Durante los próximos años veremos importantes avances en áreas como la movilidad, con estrategias que incorporarán de diferentes formas en los procesos de compra a los móviles o a las tabletas. Está también todavía prácticamente por explorar el terreno de las redes sociales y del llamado Social Shopping como ámbito de consumo. Existen muchas oportunidades por explorar y lo importante es no actuar nunca en base a dogmas. El tiempo ha demostrado que allí donde se encuentren las personas hay espacio para propuestas comerciales.

Entrevista Cegid