Jakob Bignert examines the spectre of automated merchandising and tries to reassure us that there is nothing to worry about – no seriously, you’ll be fine!
Since the industrial revolution, automation in the workplace has been met with extreme reactions. As a business owner you would rub your hands in glee as you realised you could punch out more widgets, more quickly while employing fewer people.
However, if fate had dealt you a different hand, you’d be quaking in your boots as you realised your widget making skills were no longer required and unemployment beckoned.
Retail automation
Retail, though, has seen remarkably few significant step changes when it comes to automation. And understandably; buy products, display them attractively, take the money, count it, bank it and repeat. OK, an oversimplification I grant you, but you get the point.
There are some though:
Cash registers and subsequent EPOS systems have removed the need for a counting…
Cart recovery emails are a powerful tool for converting. Make sure yours are having the maximum possible impact.
If you run an online store, you already know that cart abandonment is one of the biggest conversion killers; causing millions in lost revenue worlwide due to the many reasons for retail basket abandonment. And the chances are high that you must be sending a cart recovery email campaign to recover this lost revenue. But sending a cart recovery mailer doesn't guarantee conversion. You need to execute your cart recovery email program the right way to convince the lost shoppers to come back and complete their purchase.
A successful recovery campaign is optimized for everything from design to copy, send time and the right sequence. And, if you are not taking all of these things into consideration you will not get the results that you are hoping for from these email campaigns.
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A user's preferred social network factors heavily in their propensity to spend
There are many ways to try to assess the value of the customer and judge their propensity to part with their hard earned cash on your site. You could go by age, use location data or even job title if you have that data. One signal of propensity to spend which you may be overlooking is the users social media use.
Data from QZ.com shows how average order value fluctuates widely between users of different social networks. Polyvore tops the list, which is hardly surprising given it's a site built around fashion and social commerce. If you aren't a fashion retailer it's not really relevant. However, Instagram could be relevant for all sorts of B2C verticals and has an average order value almost double that of the likes of YouTube and Google+. It's interesting how the networks really focused around visuals (Instagram, Pinterest,…
Read your customer's digital body language to discover what they really want
This year has seen big companies make emotional measurement a regular part of their product planning. Marketers around the world can no longer afford to ignore this simmering trend. It's time to sit up and take notice of what’s sure to be the next big thing in community reach and conversion.
Think about having a conversation with your partner. They’re telling you that they’re fine, but their tone is abrupt, arms are folded and they’re avoiding eye contact with you. They may be saying they’re ok, but everything else is telling you what they’re really feeling.
And it’s just the same for marketers and digital entrepreneurs when it comes to their audiences.
Likes and views may give you some insight, but you’re missing the bigger picture – the real feelings behind the computer screen.
Communication is 93% non-verbal with body language and…
Does your SaaS business measure these key metrics?
New research from Totango reveals the metrics that are being tracked by most Saas businesses. Their survey of over 300 SaaS businesses found that whilst the vast majority measure basic metrics like churn and web visitors, surprisingly few measure customer retention cost. Retention cost is important for SaaS businesses, because churn rates make a huge difference to long-term profitability. It's good to see 80% of SaaS businesses measuring churn, as this is crucial to long growth, as this post on ideas to reduce SaaS churn shows. Really that figure should be closer to 100%. If you're not measuring churn then your setting yourself up to fail.
For reviewing benchmarks of actual performance there are some great compilations including these SaaS business metrics in an updated Google Sheet from Nathan Latka…
Recommended design patterns and best practices for your Basket/Shopping Bag
Here is the 6th in my series of posts on recommended Ecommerce page layouts. We've been working our way down the funnel, so now we move from product pages to improving your Basket or Shopping Bag Page. Given it's the launchpad to checkout, it plays a vital driver in pushing the buyer down the conversion path.
As with checkout, the basket page has to serve two user types:
1. New users: Reduce barriers to purchase and persuade them to trust your brand and website, with their payment.
2. Returning users: Provide a quick transition to check-out, summarising key information which commit buyers to purchase.
If you work in an ecommerce team at a retailer, or are involved in design for your client’s accounts, then I hope these templates and tips will guide you along the design/re-evaluation process to maximise results for your pages.
Key Ecommerce Basket Page…
China to drive growth of global eCommerce sales
eCommerce has been a booming sector for several years now. The good news is that isn't about to stop. Global retail sales are expected to almost double between now and 2019.
However if we look at the data for established markets like the US, we see a less exciting picture. eCommerce will still grow, but the growth has pretty much plateaued. The big growth is in emerging markets, and China with over 1 billion people is the biggest emerging market of them all. Chinese eCommerce sales are already enormous yet are predicted to more than double between now and 2016. This will present enormous opportunities to international eCommerce businesses. That said, China is a tough market to crack so don't rush off too fast to established a Beijing office. Dip your toe in before taking the plunge.
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Recommended best practices for Product Listing Pages
This is the third in my series of posts to share best practices on design and user experience for retail sites. My post aims to give you some tips to consider for testing improvements and designing your Product Listing Page (PLP). For each site page template type I have created a wireframe summary of a typical responsive site layout for desktop or tablet rendering showing key design elements, to give you a toolkit to review and optimize your pages.
If you work in design or merchandising for a retailer, or are involved in design at an agency for retail client’s accounts, then I hope these templates and tips will help you along the design/re-evaluation process to maximise results from your pages.
For retail sites, PLP pages sit within the category hierarchy and provide a list of all products available within a chosen category. For large catalogue retailers, these are usually…
eCommerce organisations prioritise reliability above all else when it comes to delivery
Research by retail week and Metapack has revealed what eCommerce organisations value most in a delivery provider. The answer is clear: reliability. A whopping three-quarters of the businesses asked in the research agreed this - meeting customers' delivery expectations - was the most important thing when it came to delivery.
This is hardly surprising. Customers are not forgiving when it comes to late deliveries, or worse still, when they never arrive at all. As an eCommerce site, you'll know it's far easy to get a previous customer to come back for repeat business than it is to get a brand new customer. So when if you annoy a customer by missing a delivery thanks to an unreliable provider, you've probably lost that customer for good, and with them all that valuable repeat business.
So if you're an eCommerce site, make sure your delivery provider…
Recommended design patterns and best practices for retail Home Pages
This is the first in a series of posts from me in which I hope to give you ideas to consider for testing improvements to page elements on Ecommerce sites following emerging best practices. In each post I will provide a wireframe summary of a typical layout showing key design elements, to give you a toolkit to review and optimize your pages.
In this first guide, we have focused on Desktop and tablet design and merchandising elements since in today's era of mobile responsive and adaptive web designs, the smartphone experience is usually simplified in style and content - so it needs separate treatment which we cover in our mobile marketing guide.
If you work in an ecommerce team at a retailer, or are involved in design for your client's accounts, then I hope these templates and tips will guide you along the design/re-evaluation process to…
