2. Agenda Guidelines in E-commerce: Get the Basics right! the customer perspective the company perspective align e-commerce with retail commerce from theory to practice: a good example current tendancies in E-commerce New media & 2.0 technology: an opportunity or a trap? Research & trends – what do they tell us ? Potential opportunities What does the future hold?
3. The consumer perspective Get in Get it Get out Average duration of purchase: 8 minutes and 18 pages Average stay per page : 4 seconds
4. The company perspective Access = find your site and offer Choice = clear overview of the offer Guidance = efficient steering and navigation Trust = confidence in your brand & offerings Fulfilment = succesful closure of the purchase Up to 43% of potential customers log out during purchase process Consumer consults on average 7 to 8 sites before purchase decision
8. E-commerce : current tendancies Decreasing development & maintenance costs New opportunities for more entrepreneurs Increasing customer satisfaction ratio for E-commerce Growing profitability Extended statistics Cross selling Cross border sales & marketing and so …..Online shoppers become more demanding
9. Agenda Guidelines in E-commerce: Get the Basics right! New media & 2.0 technology: an opportunity or a trap? Potential opportunities What does the future hold? European research & trends – what do they tell us ? Different behaviour per country Popularity of products Satisfaction study of online sales & services Cross border sales tendancies
10. E-commerce orders per country (2008) Why : part of a market monitoring in the retail industry focusing on barriers in cross-border sales within EU member states
13. Retailer Satisfaction : Quality&price for entertainment/leisure goods Price transparancy Price affordability Choice of qualities Price comparability Range of prices Innovation Secured payments Product Information Quality comparability
14. Barriers for EU cross border sales ? (survey sep-nov 2008) Language, cultural & technical barriers Logistics Payments Administrative & regulatory barriers Search & advertising
15. Agenda Guidelines in E-commerce: Get the Basics right! New media & 2.0 technology: an opportunity or a trap? Potential opportunities for better E-commerce customized Email Marketing align “traditional” retail commerce with E-commerce google 3 in 1 What does the future hold? European research & trends – what do they tell us ?
16. E-mails that are roughly 80% personalised 50-85% open rate E-mails that are not personalised 30% open rate j Example Connections.be Belgium Impact of customized email marketing
17. Rebrand your offline store as an online name Invoices, delivery notes, emails, promotional material, adverts, instore, … Difference online and offline behaviour extremely impatient fast & cheap usability above design&beauty simplicity & focus pay attention, not attract attention web marketing = serving searchers web content = don’t get to the point. Start with the point Align E-commerce with retail-commerce
18. E-commerce = serving searchers 80% of surfers = searching via google Google = more services Use & integrate a “winning concept” Google Checkout : 3 in 1 transactions + product search + adwords
19. Agenda Guidelines in E-commerce: Get the Basics right! New media & 2.0 technology: an opportunity or a trap? Do’s & don’ts 2.0 technology : some examples social media : some examples Potential opportunities for better E-commerce What does the future hold? European research & trends – what do they tell us ?
20. Social Media & 2.0 technology Social Media Personal expression Relationship 2.0 Technology User relevance User simplicity
21. DON’TS be “in” or “innovative” as a primary motivation confuse your customers with new gadgets direct sales through social media sites New media & 2.0 technology: an opportunity or a trap? DO’s serve your customers even better build a long term relationship improve your brand image improve your e-commerce process reduce clicks
26. Agenda Guidelines in E-commerce: Get the Basics right! New media & 2.0 technology: an opportunity or a trap? Potential opportunities for better E-commerce What does the future hold? As from 2010 As from 2015 European research & trends – what do they tell us ?
27. Digital identities ( identity 2.0) Personalisation of services and products due to improved use of digital passports. Social Commerce : the power of personal networks Fast internet access @ bargain prices the second billion” set of users worldwide are in sight M-commerce Improved multimedia (streaming video, podcasting,…) Product personalisation & customization (“Lego” Economy) Dynamic Packaging What does the future hold : > 2010
28. The consumer in 2015 ? The travel store in 2015? The online bank in 2015 ? Lower barriers for cross border E-commerce Improved M-commerce & L-commerce What does the future hold : > 2015
29. “ Let your organization inspire your customers. Let your customer be grateful to turn your business into a success story. Let my creativity, passion and expertise help your company to grow.” E. Collet Eric Collet Kloosterweg 25 B-3020 HERENT Belgium T - (+32) 16 / 30.95.45 M - (+32) 479 / 29.85.81 E-mail: eric@colinno.be www.colinno.be www.colinno.com COLINNO Thank you
Editor's Notes
My name is Eric Collet & I was honoured to be asked to prepare a presentation on E-commerce trends & tendancies. I’m a self employed consultant in CRM, internet and E-commerce strategies & tactics.
The points I would like to adress today are the guidelines on how to start in e-commerce -> why is it so important to get the basics right We then will have a look at the research and trends – and more importantly the value of what they tell us I will also address some potential opportunities to launch your e-commerce and will discuss the impact of new media and 2.0 technology But let’s start with the beginning – get the basics right!
The average duration that potential customers spend on a website is only 8 minutes – it is therefor fundamental to reach success to ensure potential customers can find you website easily (get in), find their required goods and purchase them (get it) and leave the site fulfilling their purchase (get out) as the average Stay per page is only 4 seconds – your content must respond to their personal requirements: quick, simple, but complete
From a companies perspective there are 5 guidelines you must adhere to : access – choice – guidance – trust and fulfilment Access – ensure the potential customer finds your site and offers within easily Choice – ensure they can easily navigate through the site and can find easy links -> if they have to look for content, this is killing as up to 43% log out during ourchase process Guidance – guide your customer through an easy process Make you they trust the content (brand reputation, payment security) This should all ensure they will succesfully close the purchase
Let’s have a look at how these theoretical perspectives could be translated into real life. Which elements offer great opportunity to sell ?
Even for those with a great eyesight, this E-commerce website remains a great example - let’s translate the 5 former steps into this site Access - languages : communication with your audience - who are we Choice - search & quick select - 5 main categories (texte + image) - featured products - most popular - popular brands Guidance - “start here” block - easy ordering Trust - secured environment & payments - contact details - as from price Fullfillment - no shipping cost as from - recurrent visitor
Trust & fullfillment Full screen per product = no waste Button + text = order Clear pictures + other + video Brief description
Now that we have discussed the basics, let’s have a look on current tendancies in E-commerce. Development and maintenance costs are continuously decreasing, offering more and new opportunities of more entrepreneurs Increasing customer satisfaction has a direct impact on your bottomline and will help grow profitability Extended statistics : lasersharp insight in customer behaviour and needs …Due to these trends, online shoppers are becoming more demanding. And yes, it’s justified.
Which European trends might be of importance to you? Let’s have a quick look at a study by the European Commission has recently published in February of this year.
This chart will give you an overview of the percentage of individuals per country who have the used the net as consumers. Interesting to see is that Northern countries and Western countries are more used to use the web as a shopping facility then Southern and Eastern countries.
When checking which goods and services are mosty purchased through the web, this is the top 5 On nbr 1 are the travel and holiday accommodations – not surprisingly so as this is a topic everyone likes to endeavour A close second are the clothes and sport goods 3rd place is kept for books, magazines and e-learning material Household goods (like furniture and toys) occupy nbr 4 And on place 5 are tickets for events For those adepts of media like films and music, these are at nbr 6
When we look within the specific segment of entertainment & leisure goods, we find that the satisfaction of quality and price are more favourable for the online process then compared to all channels (80% versus 67%) Also the overall satisfaction is more favourable online then compared to all channels (86% versus 76%)
Looking more closely into the quality and price area, then it seems that price transparancy, price affordability, choice of qualities, price comparability, range of prices and innovation are the key drivers in the overall satisfaction levels What this also tells us is that the quality and price area is driven by 2 main components: transparancy/ trust and credibility
Which are the barriers to be succesful across the border – why is it sometimes so difficult to be succesfull across the own national market Firstly there is of course the multiple languages and cultures within Europe – this is what makes us unique and exiting but can also be challenging Different consumer preferences in different countries and technical barriers can sometimes be an obstacle Difficulty to set up diverse logistics and payments (credit card fraud) Complaint handling across the borders On an administrative and regulatory level there are also key differentiators
Let’s have a look at some potential opportunities to improve e-commerce
A study by Jupiter Research shows that personalised and focused e-mail campaigns can offer a significant increase in net profit A large Belgian travel organisation proved that personalised emails are much more opened and read then those who are not. This will help you reach the audience and get your message across
A second opportunity is to realise that you should ensure your physical stores are associated with your online presence. You should rebrand your offline store as an online name to ensure consistency and brand reputation between both sides of your business – leverage your potential succes. Hammering it into the heads of your customers using all means you’ve got, that’s what it takes. In practice it’s about multichannel, there are no standalone silo’s anymore = seamless transition & seamless experience. Then also realise that the consumer does behave differently online then in a physical store – the customer is extremely impatient, is looking for a fast and cheap solution, prefers usability above a smart and beautiful design Furthermure make sure you pay attention to the customer, not only attract attention.
Thirdly, have a look at how potential customers will find your site_ research shows that 80% of surfers use Google as search engine It is therefor of utmost importance that you work on this (SEO) but also realise Google can help you in different ways They also offer a payment mode which could be to your benefit, product search and adwords.
What about new media and the new 2.0 technology – when are they to be used When will they prove to be an opportunity or when can they be a trap?
Social media ex YouTube – Facebook
Just make sure when you use these technologies and media, that you use them for the right reasons Do not use them simply ot be “in” or “innovative” but to ensure they will support your brand image and will help you serve your customers better
In this example you can see that the personalised choice will attract and better guide your customers through the content/ offers however the use of complicated filters does not enhance user friendliness
In this Swiss example the fact you can see the favourite products of other consumers, will be attractive to many and help you grow trust All items are clearly visualised and the option to tell a friend will help you market your site/ products.
STA travel is integrating its Facebook community/ website in its generic site – this will help grow this community and “hype”
And then finally, let’s have a look at the future – what does this hold for the near and far future??
The consumer in 2015 ? = in control = unpredictable = make or break a brand = needs according to time/place/emotion/friends The travel store in 2015? Mostly online, except for specialists & high margin products. Travel stores handing over travel brochures = dead Personalised information : reviews, advice, testimonials, streaming video & sound, user generated content Personalised search : not only per destination but also on personal & emotional wishes Personalised webpages : previous destinations, check similar profiles Online Experts : permanent advisory & professional guidance throughout the process The online bank in 2015 ? Mobile payments, prepaid and contactless payments Realtime switching between banks = and so excellent value for money for a customer who’s in control uniform security system for all banks Banking Service Provider = new access to handle all banking issues Simplified and personalised banking services
I thank you for your interest and time and will gladly answer any of your questions during the panel discussion.
