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Sheerluxe E-tail Conference
We recently attended the Sheerluxe Etail conference in glitzy Fulham's town hall - the new e-capital of Europe. Here's a summary of the proceedings.
Future of e-commerce
Brent Hoberman (mydeco) & Mark Esiri (Smythson)
A question and answer session - my notes reflect this format. When will shops be replaced by high street? Never, they're different.
What's the maximum price tag - there isnt. Amazon has commoditised diamonds (see Amazon's diamond selector), so the sky's the limit. What determines brand will change over time & brands embrace Internet can effect this.
How will Smythson protect itself? Mark reported that the fastest growing bit is online, now 15% of its sales (minimiun market e-tail growth is 30%). The web needs to reflect this & be better. The keys for Smythson are making it more engaging. Smythson has been in there since 2003 - but there's a huge way to go before it can match ASOS etc.
What's the impact of pricing & copycats from Far East? Big, but design & differentiation is key.
What part does Twitter have to play? Twitter is just one form of social media (Facebook gives the same since its new update). Interconnectedness is the big thing (Brent uses his Facebook login for other sites). You can track brands online and social media accelerates brand communication. Brands must use these new channels. Social media is also a great way of getting feedback/ideas - "democratisation of design & the death of the celebrity designer", quoth Brent. The brand can still be the umbrella for all communications across all channels & media.
"Luxury is for people who spend beyond reason", said Brent, very quotably.
Says Mark, America is where British companies go to die. Two of the major complications are fulfilment & taxes.
Mobile as retail tool? Brent has been too early on mobile for 10 years, now. Brand experience can be packaged up very well on iphones for example. Too be effective, mobile needs to be relevant (local, realtime, personalised etc). Mobile is getting better (screens are nearly more than adequate).
What's the economic knock-on? Online will benefit from recession (co nsumers will chase research, deals, be more considered etc). Top 10 survival tips? Mark says big advantage of online is metrics. If you don't understand who the customers are & who's profitable, you're wasting your money. In shops, retailers haven't a clue so they think product. Online you know. You can buy these kind of customers at x and they spend y.
Three nuggets each: Brent says user interface, testing/reacting, speed-to-market(and it doesn't have to be 100%), and make sure you get found. Mark says metrics, team (who must understand the internet inside-out & be embedded in it).
Luxury brands have fans too - brands should use them! Provide them tools and repackage what the fan base does & recognise it.
Oh and the head of the website needs to be internal - they need to really understand internet and have a good eye for product & merchandising (good photography is a massive, massive issue). Customer service needs to be impeccable.
State of Online Luxury
Martin Bartle (ex Net-a-Porter & boo.com)
Only 1/3rd of luxury brands sell online, and half have no plans to - this is a shocker. Martin summarised a lot of the Walpole research we have covered elsewhere.
82% are influenced by online. Rich people earn more, spend more & shop more (sort of obvious really). 42% of people find shopping in-store intimidating; 97% enjoy online shopping experience; 75% of wealthy consumers belong to at least one social networking or community site.
Martin's experience is that "on the whole, you have to buy traffic" and the "site structure has to be impeccable to find things & buy."
Martin's brass tacks:
* Traffic - search, online pr, advertising & partnerships
* Site - product, presentation, structure, decision support
* Repeat - packaging, service, customer care, email marketing
One third of FAQs at Net-a-Porter were about size - beef up your sizing guide. Delivery & packaging is critical, especially for brands. Martin produced some Liberty packaging which completely wasted the company's image.
"Nail the basics first, not Facebook."
Net-a-Porter found that it was all about convenience & delivery, less the price of delivery. It experimented with next day shipping as default and it was a disaster - folk were happy with the £30 charge.
How retailers can use online video
Nancy Cruickshank, Videojug
Videojug has produced 50,000 short-form videos (at a cost of millions). Online video has reduced telly watching by 36%! Nancy gave some examples:
* ASOS - great use of video online. Most items have video content.
* Lipsy - how to wear lace.
* Max Factor - applying make-up.
* Waitrose recipes
* B&Q - tied in with product sales
Here's an idea for video - put one on the basket to re-assure customers.
Nancy's tip to get started: get a cameraman in & shoot video when you shoot images & chunk it up (for a few hundred £s). But think about the lifespan of video - it's actually years for maybe £1-2k per video.
Affilliate marketing
Liane Dietrich from Linkshare
Linkshare is a leading luxury affiliate network (& actually a good fit with our clients). There's a misconception that affiliates mess with brands and 95% of shoppers visit at least two websites before purchasing.
Remember that 80% of sales come from 20% of affiliates.
Maximising returns from customer databases
Kevin McSpadden, More2
Very few companies make money out of acquiring. Customers are the real asset.
What stunned me was that nobody in the audience had heard of RFM (recency, frequency and monetary value). Kevin told us his client Abel & Cole had stopped bidding on brand - there was no change in traffic levels & profits obviously increased.
There's a relationship between email last opened date and likely conversion: work this statistic. Kevin's big push is on "propensity modelling" - analyse all known customer data, not just the basics. Then he generously provided 17 things to do today (& I quote 16).
1. Collect good quality data from every source
2. Make sure 80%+ of customers opt-in (opt them in as part of "sales negotiation")
3. Testing is critical (do it every campaign), but make sure you can roll out the result!
4. Keep a written record of learnings from each campaign - people forget and get bored
5. Who are your customer segments, really
6. Think about the customer journey and how you communicate along the way
7. Use email engagement reporting
8. Flag customers with key variables so you can market more relevantly
9. For retailers, get names & addresses from 50%+ shoppers
10. Mail deeper to retail customers
11. Market differently to people via an RFM grid
12. Measure matchbacks from catalogues (proper customer tracking)
13. Integrate campaigns - ues email as a warm-up
14. Team up with like-minded brands (e.g. Smythson & Joules)
15. Don't tell customers you won't share, because you should! You need to acquire.
16. Make your websites work
E-commerce strategy
Mike Baxter, Sales Logiq
What is your plan for e-commerce. By the way, there is no magic bullet.
The difference between success for musicians: 4,000 hrs vs 20,000 hrs practice by the time you are 20. Beatles were together for 10,000 hrs together before their first record - that's more than most bands survive.
The key to craftmanship is the same as the key to successful e-commerce: development of technique through feedback on practiced performance. That is, do it, do it a lot, and elicit rich & varied feedback.
There are 7m different views of data in Google Analytics.
Analyse this funnel: Visits-Nonbounces-baskets-start checkout-end checkout. Put this in a spreadsheet and follow.
Sheerluxe Dos & Don'ts
Georgie Coleridge-Cole
Georgie collected a pile of tips from her clients/customers about e-commerce and here they all our.
- Follow established web conventions (eg search in top right)
- Reduce clicks to product: put all product categories on home page
- Get as much flexibility as possible in your platform - so you can move fast
- Test in all main browsers
- Invest in stock control & order processing
- Your site is not an ad
- Site is a shop window: needs dressing & refreshing
- Beautiful photography and cleverly layered information
- Don't keep out-of-stock items on your site unless you know they're coming back
- Have great product & give customers a good reason to choose you
- Do targetted emails & promotions
- Use time-based incentives
- Don't expect ROI from bought lists
- Use social networking
- Build strategic partnerships with like-minded brands to extend database
- Its about SEO/PPC, not creative
- Choose advisors wisely (there are lots of cowboys out there)
- Get the structure right from an SEO perspective
- Invest in PPC
- Be ruthless with your keywords (& dont be generic)
- Use Google Website optimiser
- Listen to customers via blog, twitter & ask for feedback
- Test & measure - dont use gut!
- Do a usability study - you are too close to it.
- Make buying a warm & friendly experience
- Offer service standards & compensate if you fail
- Call customers if there's a problem - not by email
- Online experience rests upon delivery of the customer promise
- Online is not overnight
- Don't waste money on projects that you cant do properly
- Don't be afraid to do it yourself if you are not getting the results
- Don't chase the new technique - get the basics right
- Don't become too insular
- Don't believe your website is ever finished
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