Retail, in the eyes of the everyday customer

Social Networks have helped us all get many more friends than we imagined possible.  But while our friend list is huge it offers little real life benefit.  That’s where TurnTo comes in.  TurnTo leverages the power of these casual networks in a very specific area: online shopping.

TurnTo is based on a simple idea: unknown customer reviews are OK but opinions of friends matter way more.  TurnTo tells you when people you know have experience that could be helpful.

Curious to see how it works? watch the video:

Tabulatua.com has a live implementation, here is a sample product page.

This seems like a novel idea but it’ll only take off if it hits critical mass.  If.

In a world inundated with marketing messages Dale and Thomas Popcorn is asking customers to return at a later date:

Dale and Thomas Popcorn

Will shoppers used to instant gratification have the patience to check back on the 28th?

Typetees.com has figured out a way to maximize screen real estate.  To enjoy their cool interface head over to www.typetees.com.  Here are two screenshots:

Typetees.com before mouse over

Typetees.com on mouse over

Will this make me convert the moment I land on their site? No.  Will it improve the odds of my remembering the site when considering buying a tee shirt in the future? quite possibly, and in a world made or broken by fractional percentage points that’s a big deal.

Related article: The Immersive Store

If you are an online retailer make sure your store stands out on at least one of the following dimensions:

– unique product (that is very very hard to find elsewhere)
– lowest price (biggest discount)
– largest selection
– friendliest policies (shipping, return, membership discount etc)
– uniquest content (heartfelt editorial, video, superb product photography etc)
– most innovative features (filter options, in stock reminder, gift finder, return-o-meter etc)

If your store has none of these qualities I guarantee you’ll never pay off that loan you took to build the estore.

As a multichannel retail strategist I am genuinely excited about online commerce.  One could even say I’m obsessed.  Reviewing ecommerce sites and reading latest ecommerce trends, stats and best practices can be quite boring for someone lacking natural interest in the subject.  Now, by no way should one confuse enthusiasm with erudition.

This wide-eyed enthusiasm is what I use to reach out to the long tail of retailing.  I see huge unrealized potential in this segment and when I make a pitch I try and give personalized recommendations and share as much as is possible without a contract.  But not everyone talks back.  This makes me believe that either retailers are on top of their game and have already tried my recommendations and seen that they did not work or they are clueless about the paradigm shift in the marketplace.  A few days ago AdAge reported Procter & Gamble had a “supplier summit” where it also invited 40 media companies to tap for ideas ranging from new products to new ways of marketing them.  If ginormus companies like P&G are listening to ideas from outsiders, shouldn’t you?

Amazon and Zappos are two wildly successful, yet characteristically different companies.

Amazon is an engineering company with solid focus on measurement.  This is great for incremental improvement (even very rapid paced improvement) but means they have had few paradigm shifting moments.  Akin to an awesomely efficient Supercomputer Amazon knows how to squeeze efficiency when a set of variables is presented but lacks the ability to question and test the input variables themselves.

For a long time now I have wondered why Amazon didn’t have author interviews (video or audio).  I imagined a format where after book launch an author would be interviewed and describe the book etc etc.  I’ve seen authors talk about their books at conferences and this has greatly influenced my buying decision.  But this concept was not implemented by Amazon, and now I understand why.  Engineers at Amazon are so focused on improving throughput (like maximizing number of books sold) that the ideation process needed for author interviews is simply not there.

Zappos, on the other hand, is a marketing company.  Founded on the backbone of customer service Zappos aggressively identifies areas of growth and then uses marketing to get there.  A great example of this is the “Vegetarian” shoes section on Zappos.  The idea of “Vegetarian” shoes was picked up by a marketer within Zappos who realized untapped potential.  This innovation could not have come about by tweaking dials.

Email Sign-up

Lets face it, most products available at your store could be bought somewhere else (possibly for less).  In todays crowded ecommerce marketplace it’s really hard to make a customer remember you.  That’s why this find by Andy Sernovitz is so brilliant.

Andy writes “Jim Kukral makes a crazy offer when you sign up for the email newsletter on his blog, the Daily Flip:

On your birthday, he’ll send you a video of him singing happy birthday to you.

Simple, silly, fun, and effective.  Subscribe rates up 300% and with 95% of the people who do sign up giving their birth date.”

<— Now that’s a smart idea!

Lets say this is your store locator page….

Store locator page

…and a searcher from Chicago lands on it.  Normally this would lead to an abandon (because you don’t have a Chicago location) but there may be a way to convert this exit into a sale.  Right at the bottom of the page I’d post this message:

“If you couldn’t find a local store please leave your email address with us.  We’re opening stores all the time and would love to notify you the moment a local store opens.  And because we feel bad for being unable to help you today we’ll email an exclusive discount coupon for you to share with one of your close friends who live near our 14 national stores.

PS:  When we open a store near you we’ll send you a discount coupon too!”

Most customers don’t care to promote your brand, but when you put it this way it’s hard not to notice:

whiteflowerfarm.com gave me a reason to evangelize

This is how ConsumerReports’ evaluates apparel etailers:

ConsumerReports Page 1

ConsumerReports Page 2