I met Morten Kamper, CEO of the Danish eCommerce Federation (FDIH) at an ACSEL event in Paris earlier in the year, and he has also contributed a wonderful piece to Internet Retailing magazine (May 2009 issue). It was therefore a great pleasure to accept his kind invitation to give a keynote at their conference on the use of social media in retail.The event was held at the IT University, a wonderful and modern venue in the heart of Copenhagen, to a sizeable and enthusiastic delegate group.

As usual I was humbled by the fact that everyone spoke English, but moreso this time that some of the speakers even took the time to send me fully-translated versions of their slide decks: courtesy as well as capability. Very much appreciated.

I spoke on the retail progress made on Facebook and the lessons to be drawn, as well as considering other social media trends and opportunities (is it possible these days to present without mentioning Twitter??).

I was pleased to be invited to speak for the Omnicom “Innovation in Retail Forum”, an even for the agency’s CEOs and senior managers, along with key clients. The event was organised by DAS Global in a rather exemplary fashion and held at the Wolff Olins offices in Kings Cross/Islington, overlooking Regents Canal.

The line-up was very impressive and a little intimidating.

Chris Sanderson, Strategy and Insight Director of the Future Laboratory opened proceedings with a clear and stimulating articulation of “prosumers” – today’s demanding and knowledgeable consumers.

Mary Portas, “Queen of Shops” (pictured) gave a really engaging and characterful articulation of the need for innovation, engagement and collaboration in retail. I’d obviously seen Mary on ‘telly’ and so had certain expectations of her presentation. These in no way prepared me for such an open, amusing and highly engaging 40 minutes. I was totally won over.

Dr Jonathan Reynolds of the Oxford Institute of Retail Management (at Said Business School) gave a fast-paced and and well-supported presentation on ‘location’ in retail and queried its importance in future.

I followed with a presentation on opportunities for ecommerce in the ‘network age’ (a development of my presentations on epiphenomenology, magic and the network/attention economy).

The event was fast-paced, intense and fun. It ran very smoothly and this was largely due to the intensive work by Danny and Alice (you know who you are!) in detailed advanced preparation with the speakers. Not only did we have several phone conversations to flesh out the content, tone and approach of each session, but great care was taken over the interaction of the presentations. The result of this advance work was that there was a good flow, negligible overlap and good thematic reinforcement.

I’ve taken a lead from this and will be emulating this approach for the October InternetRetailing 2009 conference!

This article appeared in November 2008’s edition of Internet Retailing Magazine.

This last month has seen Ian Jindal up to his nose in web analytics and trading reports, pondering the painful question of “conversion”: can this really be a useful metric for etailers?
Now there’s no arguing that conversion is a ‘metric’. Number of visitor sessions ending in a purchase, divided by the total number of visitor sessions. Ta-daah. After a month of looking at ‘the math’ (as our US friends would say) I’m losing faith that this is an actionable or useful metric.

Conversion has its place in reporting: at a gross level it’s a rolled up indicator of “persuasive attraction”: how many people are being attracted to the site, and from that level how effectively are they persuaded to buy. However, if conversion is up or down then it’s not clear that there’s a single lever to apply. Unlike a car’s speedometer, it’s not straightforward to press or ease the accelerator to regulate the speed. Conversion as a metric lacks direct impact on the business: it’s observational rather than action-oriented or definitively comparable.

Two retailers may have the same conversion, but revenues many millions of pounds apart. Equally, a multicategory retailer may have very different conversion rates across products from £3000 sofas to £20 trousers. Who’s making the most money? The best use of resources?

Where products have a long consideration cycle it’s misleading to simply consider the final, purchasing visit as ‘effective’, while the previous ones are somehow ‘overhead’.

A final objection is that in a multichannel world research and purchasing my take place over different channels – where then does ‘conversion’ help drive our activity?

My contention now is that conversion should be consigned to the dustbin of pointless, but detailed, metrics – nestled alongside the “hits” measurement from the 90s.

What then can satisfy us as being a rolled-up metric, against which you can manage your business and which is directly comparable across etailers, categories and time?

Such a metric would need to include as a factor the notion of “profit” – otherwise it’s simply an engineering metric of ‘activity’. Equally, it should relate to maximising invariates.

In traditional retail we have a universal metric of profit per metre of shop space. This illustrates a retailer’s effective use of the fixed resource (space) and their management of yield and profitability.

Online, our limitations are different. While some of us may still believe in the misleading fallacy of the ‘infinite warehouse’, we know that our two limiting factor are:

• the screen size – there’s no use having a magic warehouse if the window is small, dirty and germ-ridden!
• the attention span of the customer, measured in the number of seconds they’ll spare for you in which you may persuade them to buy.

This leads to a metric that could be expressed as yield or profit per pixel-second.

We know that not all pixels are created equally and placement is vital: persuasive messages, imagery, promotional prominence, branding, tools – all vie to colonise the limited space. Different retailers take widely diverse options – luxury brand stories versus pile ’em high money-off screaming. Let’s measure their effectiveness on yield.

So then to customers. We’ve noted before that a rising tide floats all boats, and until the end of 2008 there were plenty of new customers spending evermore time each online to allow every retailer to record growth. However, in a saturated market there’s evidence that online customers are settling into a core group of a dozen retail sites (where ‘retail’ include aggregation/affiliate, voucher and cash-back portals who – from a customer’s perspective – are simply alternative ways to shop). The battle now is for the customer’s attention as much as for their money once you have that attention.

Of course, the cunning reader will realise that I’ve not included here the important offline dimensions – time spent handling goods in store, discussing configuration of complex furniture offers, speaking with experts about high cost items… However, a number of retailers are experimenting with ways to track a customer’s activity across channels – a voucher code in-store redeemed online, purchasing cards, logging, custom item codes, case numbers…

As these gain traction – and retailers can take a multichannel view of the effort and investment needed to support sales – then yield-per-pixel-second will morph into a metric of ‘yield per customer engagement second’, across all channels.

At this point we’ll have a universal, comparable, profit-oriented metric. This will allow us to benchmark ecommerce operations, but also see the value of etail within the mix – and importantly draw in the costs of contact centres, store activities and direct mailing into an overall cost of doing business. Maybe not next month, but such an index of effectiveness must be the aim.

I recently contributed a piece to The Walpole Yearbook on Social Media. This is a publication reviewing the British luxury brands and the wider luxury market and I was pleased to be able to make a contribution. I’ve reproduced my article below since the original is in print only (and rather sumptuous, glossy print at that – as one would expect 😉 ).Here’s a copy of the article text:

Luxury retail is at the heart of a conversation, connecting products and service with a discerning clientele. Digital developments allow customers to initiate and sustain conversations amongst themselves without the permission, support or mediation of the brand.  Ian Jindal considers how and why the luxury sector might better engage with customers online and finds that the options have little to do with technology – rather a return to core values.

Social networks have always existed in luxury – just not in a digital form. Trunk shows and champagne evenings fêted select customers, and these exclusive events gained a wider circulation via key media titles.

‘Feedback’ outside these circles was limited to “letters to the editor”. Current web technology allows customers and readers (now interchangeable) to air their views directly– via comments, ratings and reviews, click-through sales or by creating their own blogs. This is the ‘social web’ – where customers can talk to each outside of the direct control of the brands they’re discussing.

It’s tempting to dismiss such customer feedback as irrelevant for the luxury sector: while it may be appropriate for commodities, surely a luxury brand needs no plebiscite!  As Tyler Brûlé, Editor in Chief of Monocle comments: “strong brands don’t win by consensus”. Brûlé’s challenge to brands is to lead, but not to ignore customers: feedback can improve a design, and early input (say on a prototype) from key influencers can improve a production model. For services in particular no amount of marketing hype can compare with sincere feedback from users.

Brûlé’s insight is resoundingly supported by recent research, specifically for the luxury sector. 71% of shoppers use reviews (Forrester), 91% of millionaires always or often check reviews before purchase (Advertising Age) and 84% of those earning $150k+ use  sites where customers review and rate products and services (Luxury Institute). Tellingly, 78% rank recommendation as the most credible form of advertising (Nielsen).

None of these findings will surprise luxury brands who will recognise in these findings the key components of “reputation” – favourable experienced amplified through repetition. The issue is that in 2009 many of the mechanisms used for amplification are tarnished or jaded – hence the interest in new tools.

Not your father’s old social media

It’s an easy misconception that to engage in social media a brand needs to have forums, ratings and blogs all enabled on their sites already. In reality, expert and experienced practitioners advocate a range of approaches, depending upon the brand’s position and their target customers’ behaviour.

One important tools is of course ‘Ratings and Reviews’, where customers can post their review of a product or service, along with a ‘star rating’. Justin Crandall, UK Managing Director of Bazaarvoice, the review system provider, notes that ratings are not a universal panacea. How can one be sure that customers are qualified to comment? How relevant are ‘star ratings’ to a complex luxury experience? Crandall cites their research into brand empathy as inspiring their new offering – “Stories”. These allow customers to relate a narrative experience with a brand or service. This echoes the use of editorial in magazines, allied to the power of the personal and specific. A trial last year with an upmarket, niche cosmetics brand found that 39% of all site visits started at a story, page views increased 81% and average order values increased 20%.

For luxury services in particular an amplified, inspiring experience is extremely powerful and resonates more than boilerplate marketing patter.
Crandall mentions other benefits of Stories, including improving Google ranking, understanding how your brand’s perceived, and identifying pockets of interest that might support a new store or retail operation. Relevant content can assist customers at every stage of the purchase consideration cycle.

DIY is not the only way

One does not have to manage social media tools oneself to benefit. Indeed, there’s a new category of retailers who are becoming ‘social intermediaries’. Companies like ThisNext.com have placed social network at the very heart of their business, rather than a bolt-on. In addition to the now-expected rating systems, ThisNext goes further by promoting style-setters and recommenders on their service, identifying them as “Mavens”, their place being secured by page views and click-throughs. Theirs is an empirical, modern take on a brand advocate or style-setter. Brands – whether on not sold via ThisNext – would do well to monitor the activities and recommendations of these Mavens. Asked about the importance of the ‘social’ aspects to their business, Jessyca Frederick, Director of Product Management at ThisNext comments that “social media, like every other marketing tool, has a purpose and a place within a well-balanced marketing campaign”.

All Customers Are Not Created Equal

As David Ogilvy noted some years ago, not all customers are equally profitable. Both Bazaarvoice and ThisNext offer brands, albeit in different ways, mechanisms to identify the segments or profiles of contributors and so respond appropriately.
Further selectivity comes from focusing one’s ‘social attention’ in places that chime with your brand’s values and form an ‘oasis’ at which your target customers congregate. One example is Suzanne Aaronson’s “Spire.com” which offers a distinctive, savvy perspective on luxury consumption with a surprising level of user-contributed insights and tips. Spire is in the tradition of insider, style-leading publications and so offers an opportunity to benefit from social media while remaining on familiar territory.

Rules of engagement

There’s no magic wand for social media – any more than there’s an instant answer to customer engagement in more traditional media. The key requirement is to develop and understanding an engage appropriately. Neither a blanket adoption nor wholesale rejection are likely to be successful.

The modes of engagement to consider are:

• Awareness: monitor the more social activity of your retail channel or customer advocates and dedicate staff time to consider the implications for your brand and opportunities. Even though your responses may be via traditional publishing, marketing or retail channels you will at least be learning and gaining insights.
• Engagement: use the platforms that others have built and contribute appropriately – whether adding information, posting comments or answering questions. If you’re minded to try direct social media tools then consider using them on a subset of your base as a trial – for example supporting a ‘VVIP’ group or around an event. Again, learning and experience are important outcomes.
• Defensive: even if you choose to be inactive, do not ignore social media activity. Existing brand monitoring techniques and services should be used (from Google Alerts on key brand terms, to “buzz monitoring” services across all media). Social Media channels open new areas for protection, however, with many brands not in control of their terms on Twitter and as usernames. Consider the users “Prada” or “Chanel” on Twitter – not exactly as one might expect. Usernamecheck.com offers a free, instant check on 68 social media sites – if your brand is not registered yet then do so quickly. If it it, either congratulations or time to look up the name dispute resolution procedures!

Whether an advocate or sceptic, there’s no escaping the fact that our customers’ behaviour and expectations have changed as a result of new digital media. Commercial brand-owners will see these changes as an opportunity to connect afresh with consumers in the spirit of service and quality synonymous with the luxury market.

In a busy and extremely interesting week I was privileged to be invited to the conference of the International Association of Departments Stores (IADS.org). Frederik Nieuwenhuys (Director at FredHopper.com) and I gave the opening keynote and were invited to stay for the remainder of the conference. A really stimulating and convivial two days. The event was hosted by De Bijenkorf at their Amsterdam flagship.I’ve written a post about the IADS conference on my blog.

Earlier in the week I chaired a session at the SocialMediaInfluence conference (conference site), organised by my friend and occasional collaborator, Matthew Yeomans (now at RadarDDB). There was a real feeling of a common interest at the day, along with much twittering, discussion about twittering and some discussion /on/ twitter… 😉

My post on the conference is on my blog.

A couple of weeks’ break from speaking now – time to concentrate on preparing the Managing Digital Teams training series that I’m running for Econsultancy.

Had a great evening in Brighton delivering my Digital Shorts presentation on future trends, epiphenomenology and ‘magic’…The event was not without incident, but it was without projector and screen, meaning that I gave the presentation on a blackboard rustled up from the cafe downstairs.

Shows that ‘making do’ is the post-Web2.0 mantra 😉

Write-up on my blog.

I had a really great evening in Manchester last week, presenting the Digital Shorts evening.The evening was further notable since it was the first time I’ve had a live ‘twittering’ of a presentation (more details on my blog posting).

In the meantime here’s the slide deck, along with a reminder that I’ll be giving this presentation in Brighton on Wednesday 11 February.

On Thursday evening I spoke at the inaugural meeting of the eConsultancy ‘alumni’ network. This network is for people who’ve studied on the eConsultancy Masters programmes, or the Graduate Academy. I’ve been pleased to work with both of these groups and so it was a pleasure to see some familiar faces in the crowd (although it meant that I couldn’t reuse material!).Fortunately, I had some up-to-the-minute results on Christmas trading and trends, as well as the first outing of work I’m doing on data and epiphonomena. I’ll be giving these a further outing in the coming weeks in Manchester and Brighton.

In the meantime, slides from the evening are on my Slideshare account, or below:

ACSEL, now L’Association de l’économie Numérique, is France’s leading body representing eCommerce, multichannel and distance selling (Vente a Direct – VAD) working via digital channels (hence the name change to ‘numerique’).On Tuesday January 20th they held a conference on eCommerce and social media, with representatives from across Europe looking at the adoption and commercial aspects of SM.

It was a fascinating and very engaged session – some 380 turned up, against a registered level of 120! – and the good folk at Baker and McKenzie (in their wonderful venue) did well to cope – the presentations were filmed and streamed live to an overflow room.

You can see the presentations from Spain, Italy, Slovakia, France, Germany and a Scandinavian overview at the conference page.

My presentation is available on slideshare, embedded below:

This article appeared in November 2008’s edition of Internet Retailing Magazine.

After the buzz and positive atmosphere at the InternetRetailing 2008 Conference, Ian Jindal considers the role of ecommerce in a hostile and uncertain period for retailers: can etail’s star shine undimmed?
There’s a stunned and bruised feeling in retail. Not so much as a result of the downturn/recession/depression (delete according to pessimism) but  at the effect of the unintended consequences.

The speed and extent of the seizure of short-term lending markets has caused significant trouble to businesses who depend upon flexible working capital: growing businesses, seasonal businesses, leveraged businesses with liquidity covenants and suppliers whose working capital needs to be with retailers are all suffering. The amplified impact of retail and manufacturing workers losing confidence, buying power or even jobs will be, for the retail sector, like hitting a wall.

In retail Boardrooms across the land, all eyes are now on eCommerce. While offline like-for-like performance is down across sectors, eCommerce is still growing or at least ‘holding up’. As drowning men cleave to passing logs, so do CEOs view the online channel as an opportunity to save the financial year. Many in eCommerce, myself included, remember the nuclear winter of 2001-3: the question is what lessons have we learned and do we have the strength to apply them?

The key lesson is that this is a time for brave people to be ruthless and focused. In a rising market there’s always a “mañana” in which to implement gentlemanly improvements in segmentation, stock control, processes, addressing margin… However, there is no “tomorrow”. I know that Christmas is busy, but we must all fear that January post-sale will be even tougher. Putting off decisive action until December 31st is folly.

While each business is different, in general we can concentrate upon pace, focus, agility and responsiveness – attributes that should be a fundamental part of ecommerce.

Pace is vital since we need to trade our sites daily, not weekly or monthly. Learn lessons quickly and implement immediately. This is no time for a ‘to do’ list – you need a ‘just done’ list!

Focus must be upon customer-facing activity – help them part with their cash. Simplicity is a function of this: in merchandising, marketing and projects.

Agility is needed to move quickly and with confidence: make the changes now, not next week!

Responsiveness should be to the customer or emergent opportunities. The origin of the word ‘retail’ is from the French word “retailler” or ‘re-tailor’ – creating something anew for each customer, focused on serving them. The web’s ability to segment, personalise, algorithmically optimise and merchandise should come to the fore. Now, today – not tomorrow.

These are simple requirements, but take backbone to implement. Wibbling, waffling and waiting should be reserved for those on the sidelines.

Even with this bold, brave approach we etailers are dependent upon our colleagues in logistics for service levels, buying and merchandising to have the right goods to sell and our stores and contact centres for cross-channel leverage. The temptation is to try and forge ahead online but now more than ever is the time to work closely with colleagues to burnish a consistent service to customers across all channels. While your colleagues see ecommerce as an opportunity to rescue trading performance you have an opening to cement cross-channel working… not to show that you’re separatist, selfish and narrowly focused!

eCommerce continues to perform well, and it’s said that stars shine more brightly against a dark sky. However, our aim cannot be simply to be valued in comparison with the decline of others. eCommerce professionals have an opportunity in the coming months to demonstrate a robust and agile commercialism and to lift the whole business by customer focus, modern inclusive working practices and delivering the multichannel leverage of which we speak so often.

In these dark times it takes bravery to be brilliant and simplicity to sparkle. eCommerce should be a constellation, not a lone star: this Christmas,  don’t twinkle alone.