s.mueller

How consumers shop online

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Ever wondered how consumer really behave when shopping online?
If you are running your own ecommerce website you can invest a great deal into web analytics. Analyzing visitors paths, conversion rates and visitor loyalty can provide interesting insights. Still it may be really hard to get definite information. Changing IP addresses, inexact origins due to electronice data processing centers and all the common inconveniences of web analytics make it hard for online retailers to analyze their customers behavior.

McAfee Secure now came up with a white paper that summarizes the results of the analysis of 163 million consumers who completed a total of 2.52 million transactions. The results are stunning. And they prove what we already know from real life shopping: We love to promenade through the inner city stores monitoring all the interesting products and comparing prices before we finally come to the obviously bet decision based on the information we have gathered. The same happens online. Consumers do not shop at once (except for spontaneous purchases). The average online shopper is in no hurry. Of course not, as stocks online usually last some time and there is barely any fear someone else might grab the last item available. The average online shopper of those 163 millions shoppers surveyed take their time – on average up to two days – between first visiting a website and finally purchasing a product.

What happens within those 33 hours and 54 minutes? Well, nothing extraordinary. Consumers compare prices elsewhere, read test results and consumer reviews, ask their peers about the product and gather recommendations from other users. An ever growing source of information are social networks and the entertaining social media presences of brands. They may lack elaborate information but they provide a good impression of a brand’s character and its fans. Some ecommerce websites even allow shopping together making use of social media technology. We call it social commere. Paul Marsden, an expert in this field defines social commerce as follows:

Selling with social media – the use of social media in the context of e-commerce (Source: www.socialcommercetoday.com)

What are the implicatios of this analysis for online retailers?

Well in order to assure that shoppers really shop with you instead of finding another place to get the product of their desire, you might want to assure this: clarity / good usability, transparency in terms of costs, shipping and handling, warranty, product details and of course the reputation consumers have of you! You know, price is not everything. Simply treat your customers the way they expect it. And for your own sake, always keep an eye on costs. The best service in the world is useless if it costs you too much and eventually ruins your business. Then customers with a service issue will sadly have to find out that only some months after they bought your products your business went bankcrupt….

For a more detailed list of advice, please see a really good article on this here:

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/1799-Online-Shoppers-Wait-Two-Days-to-Buy

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s.mueller

Don't go Social Media if….

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well, plenty of reasons to enumerate!
As I had been previously writing about the fact that not every company or organization should blindly invest in Social Media campaigns or open up a group, account or whatever wherever possible, I much enjoyed an article by Lisa Barone on her blog. She lists up „10 signs your company isn’t suited for social media“ – which pretty much covers the issue.

Here they are:

1. You have no social skills (and don’t want to fake them)
2. You have no sense of humor/can’t handle criticism
3. You’re going to forget about it in the morning
4. Openness is a problem for you
5. You’re only there to sell
6. You view social media as a numbers game
7. You’re inclined to call people’s wives ‘douchettes’
8. You think Twitter is a social media strategy
9. You don’t have a ‘social’ culture
10. You don’t have permission

For the details, well you know where that is to be found!
Please see her blog for the entire article.

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s.mueller

SOM is back and here's a goodie on B2B Marketing

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After a brief cold that came across my way and totall corrupted my schedule I am back on track. Having barely found the time to provide content for this blog here is a goodie published today on mashable.com.
Social Media still is in every mouth and this is very likely to continue for much longer. These two words combine the hopes of oh so many companies out there, fearing to lose touch of their consumers as times change faster and faster. But Social Media can also be of help in the B2B sector. The only trouble is that solution are not as evident as in the B2C field. Open a Jaegermeister youtube channel or a Nike facebook page. No big deal. But in the B2B area you need to be a little more fact-oriented and less entertaining. To successfully apply Social Media here, you might need more phantasy than in the B2C field. Sounds weird? Well, who would have thought that an electronic devices supplier such as Farnell would successfully establish a community (element14) for its business customers where they can exchange their insights, tips, troubles and so on about Farnell products. And it obviously does work and they do love it!
Another aspect is going out into the existing platforms such as facebook, twitter, and so on. This may not be the ideal place to sell B2B goods, but at least what you can do is learn and find the appropriate partners. Mashable.com’s today article provides you with 10 essential Social Media Tools for B2B Marketers. If Social Media is a topic in your business you might wanna check their article. But do not forget: in the end it is still you who has to find out if Socia Media does make sense and does generate real profit for you business! Enjoy!

Here is the link:
http://mashable.com/2010/04/08/b2b-marketing-tools/

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s.mueller

Missed the SXSW? No big deal!

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As most of us had no chance to attend the SXSW, here is a nice selection of presentations that have been held.

http://www.slideshare.net/sxsw2010/tagged/sxsw2010

SXSW 2010 Presentations

SXSW 2010 Presentations

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s.mueller

Trying to reach Samsung customer service….

For quite some time I have been trying to get in touch with Samsung Deutschland in order to return our compact digital camera which seems to have some technical problems (I just decided not to do its job anymore). Samsung offers a special contact form which is separated into the different product segments and thus alllows to filter for the specific product. I gave it three times and have not received anything back so far, I even included images of the brand new looking camera to show that there is no exterior damage at all. But somehow there is no one on the other line….

From the start:

1) First Attempt
I went to Samsung’s website to check for the ideal way to get in contact for returning our at that time 0,75 yrs old camera. I even found the contact form and then had to find my way to the somewhat confusing manual when it comes to compact digital camera. Walking the path that seems intuitively right did not bring me to my model. Instead I had to try severyl menu combinations to finally get to my model. I then fillled in all the contact details into the form, explained the problem with the cam and then sent it off.

2) Over and Over
Having sent away the message I did not get a confirmation via email. So I simply had to assume the message reached its recipient and Samsung would soon answer to tell me the nearest service company I have to send the camera to. But no response. So I filled out the form again thinking that maybe theres was some important box not checked, etc. Again, all worked fine, all was filled out – no response. I did all that three times:
Samsung_support425x

After several weeks of simply postponing the issue I checked the Samsung website again. Relauched! It looks pretty good: big visuals, a feeling of proximity, nice menus, features, new form promiosing „one day response“ Sounds really good.

New Samsung.de

New Samsung.de


Well, I also tried to use this new way to contact Samsung customer service and the result as of 27 March 2010 is „nada.“ No response aside from the automatically generated confirmation email.
What is going wrong? Is there a database issue, do they lack the necessary personnel to really respond within a day? I would also be happy with a 2 day response, just any response at all…

to be continued..

Update 09 April 2010: Samsung did answers. Unfortunately I received no email notification about Samsung’s reply. Also, when logging in at samsung.de I can check the status of my inquiry. Again unfortunately, Samung’s response is shown directly UNDER my message just like in an answered email. Thus even when you login and check the status of your customer inquiry you do not at once see that there is an answer at all. Only when you scroll down you all of a sudden realized that there IS a response. However, I must admit that they indeed answered within one day! Promise kept!
So please Samsung, try to give this form some update and make it more user-friendly. I am quite experienced in the web. But like so many other customers I am notoriously short of time and thus it took me 2 weeks to realize Samsung responded. Give it some more work and you will have a really good online service tool.

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s.mueller

Internetrecht – frei verfügbares Skript von Prof. Dr. Hoeren

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Wer heutzutage im Web unterwegs ist, stößt zwangsläufig immer wieder auf rechtliche Fragestellungen und Probleme.
Das betrifft aber nicht nur Gewerbetreibende und Unternehmen, sondern auch Privatleute. Gerade diese trifft es oft aus heiterem Himmel wenn von irgendeiner windigen Kanzlei eine Abmahnung ins Haus flattert.
Für Gewerbetreibende, die ihr bestehendes Geschäftsmodell auf das Internet ausweiten wollen – sei es in Form einer reinen Internetpräsenz (ja, nicht jede Firma hat heute eine corporate website) oder gar einer (social) ecommerce-Lösung – findet eine erste Berührung mit dem Gebiet des Internetrechts schon bei der Registrierung der passenden Domain statt. Fragen wie „Ist mein Firmenname verfügbar?“ oder was darf meine URL enthalten, was ist verboten, etc… stellen Unternehmer vor viele Fragen. Und das ist meist nur der Anfang…
Gut, wenn man hier auf die Hilfe von Experten zurückgreifen kann.
Einen sehr guten Überblick über die gängigen Fragen des Internetrechts gibt das frei verfügbare Skriptum von Prof. Dr. Thomas Hoeren, Inhaber des Instituts für Informations-, Telekommunikations- und Medienrecht an der Uni Münster. Im Sinne eines Chris Anderson ist dieses Skriptum trotz seiner 552 Seiten frei verfügbar. Dies sollte eine rasend schnelle Verbreitung, wie auch hier in diesem Blog mehr als garantieren.

Das Skriptum kann unter folgender URL im pdf-Format heruntergeladen werden:
http://www.uni-muenster.de/Jura.itm/hoeren/materialien/Skript/Skript_Internetrecht_Februar2010.pdf

Wir danken Herrn Hoeren für die Bereitstellung dieses Werkes und wünschen allen aufschlussreiche Erkenntnisse bei der Lektüre!

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s.mueller

The US behind Europe in Social Media Usage – or is it the other way round?

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US behind Europe in Social Media?

US behind Europe in Social Media?

This post refers to a blog post by We are Social, a digital marketing and social media agency based in London.
The reason this post caught my attention (I actually found it via Twitter), was a statement in the very beginning of the post which I am citing here:

„Europe is ahead of the US in terms of the consumer usage of social media, and yet little attention is often given to the nuances of what is on one hand is the world’s largest economy and on the other a collection of 48 countries with very different cultures.

Find out why the blogging scene in Paris is 2 years ahead of the US, the Brits are all a Twitter, the Dutch prefer Hyves to Facebook and the Germans will take any chance to give brands a hostile reception in social media.“

This statement by Robin Grant came as a surprise to me. Usually the latest marketing trends do come from the US, not good old Europe. And please not that I am saying marketing and not social media. The latter ist a branch of marketing, not a separate phenomenon. Anyways, I was fairly surprised to see that obviously something may have changed. But has it really? I do have some doubts that this is really true and that it can be stated that easily. German Facebook users may be the most active, England may be in the hand of Twitter but still the companies behind it are from the US. Also, can you name a Head of Social Media in the home of cars, Germany? We do not have a Scott Monty at BMW or Daimler or Audi. And even if we have someone in a similar position, he or she is not yet living up to his US counterparts. Now je ne connais the French blogosphere but I can hardly imagine les Francais are so much more active than the Americans.

I don’t want to take a definite position on this issue and I will leave you with some very nice presentations covering the European face of Socia Media. Please decide for yourself who is ahead in Social Media. Or if maybe it is not about being ahead but perhaps about employing Social Media more profitable…

European Social Media

Iab Social Media Research October 22nd 2010

View more presentations from Tom Smith.
Oh and please make sure you drop by We Are Social for an impression on how others responded to Robin Grant’s post
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s.mueller

What We Expect from Brands

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Strong brands offer us a lot. We in return pay a premium price. But aside from hard facts such as superior product quality, better service and warranty they also provide us with orientation, reduction of uncertainty, trust, the feeling of belonging to a certain group and other much more subtle things. This is what we pay for and what we deserve.

iStock_000008724062XSmall

In return for the high price we expect certain values a brand has come to represent: sportiness with BMW, innovativeness and design with Apple, tradition, expertise and superior quality with a Glashütte watch. I expect you at this point to say „Stop! That’s all premium brands you’re talking!” Well, not necessarily. Volkswagen is traditionally not a premium brand and still there are certain values such as reliability or quality that are associated with it. Mc Donald’s is also no premium brand but would also well fit the list.

In the following paragraphs I picked out three things we expect from strong brands: consistency, service, and change when needed.

Consistency
What most brands have in common is consistency.
We do not want them to fundamentally change their business model, their target group or elementary core values. This would confuse us. A Bmw panel van? McDonald’s selling local food? Chateauneuf du Pape sold at discounters? These things are inconsistent with what we have learned about brands and the image we have in our minds. And thus they confuse us and they cause damage to the carefully grown brand identity.

Service
Another important thing we expect from strong brands is excellent service.
Personal service, listening to our problems, understanding what troubles us and working hard to satisfy our wishes and desires. We want to feel the assurance that we or rather every single one of us matters. In total, we expect a degree of service that trade brands cannot provide (financially). The markup we are willing to pay does include this extra service -when we need it.

Change when needed
The final of the three expectations towards a brand which I am dealing with today is the ability to change when needed.
This might at first sound contrary to the consistency point. Time changes and so brands have to respond to changing market situation and technological developments. One example would be the increasing time we spend online. Brands (not necessarily all of them) need to follow their customers just like predators follow their prey. The key challenge is to adapt while still being consistent. That is also why I argue that whatever viral or social media marketing actions a brand takes – it always has to be in line with the overall marketing and brand strategy.

Case
I just recently had trouble with a brand new pair of really nice Timberland Splitrock boots. After only 1,5 months both laces were close to tearing which might have been caused by a too sharp eylet. I emailed Timberland USA and informed them about my troubles. It took only one day and I had a friendly email in which they provided me with the contact details to Timberland Deutschland. In the meantime I had also twittered about the issue, wondering if my tweets maybe would be heard (Social Media Monitoring). After two days I received an email from Munich, in which a customer service agent excused for the quality issue and promised to send me a pair of similar hopefully more durable laces. That was two days ago. Today I received a small package by mail with two pairs of laces similar in color to the original ones. Great work, Timberland! Checking through my personal Twitter account I saw that Timberland Customer Service is now also one of my followers. I do not know about their internal processes, but from what I experienced, I can say that they are obviously doing things right. They created a strong global brand, with loyal customers all over the world. They listen to their customers’ troubles and do their best to maintain our loyalty. The result: I feel important, taken care of, appreciated. I pay a premium price for the product, but also get a lot more than just a simple pair of shoes…

Timberland Splitrock

Timberland Splitrock

Update: Timberland Customer Service responded via Twitter:

Timberland twittering

Timberland twittering

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s.mueller

Xynthia: Twitter ist schnellstes Informationsmedium

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Während Orkan Xynthia übers Land fegt und europaweit aktuell 45 Todesopfer gefordert hat, kommen die etablierten Nachrichten nicht hinterher die stetig neuen Informationen zu verarbeiten.

Insbesondere die Unternehmen wie Deutsche Bahn, Airlines und die Verkehrsgesellschaften tun sich enorm schwer die sich im Sekundentakt ändernden Informationen usergerecht auf ihren Websites darzustellen.

ScreenHunter_05 Feb. 28 22.39

Ich selbst hatte das Problem, dass ich Profipendler bin und sonntags mit der Deutschen Bahn im Fernverkehr unterwegs bin. Eine Stunde vor Abfahrt mehrten sich die Hinweise auf die unterschätzte Schwere des Sturms. Woher aktuelle Infos nehmen? Wetter.de und Co. gecheckt und die aktuellen Infos auf bahn.de. Da mir diese Infos aber wie gewohnt zu statisch waren habe ich zusätzlich noch Twitter gecheckt, was mir erst einen richtigen Eindruck lieferte: Sperrung der A3 wegen umherfliegender Baumaterialien, das Gleiche am Stuttgarter HBf, Züge, die bereits mehrere Stunden Verspätung haben und ein englischsprachiger Hinweis, dass der Hbf in Frankfurt kurzzeitig geschlossen war. Auch die Tatsache, dass es Probleme mit dem Dach am Frankfurter Hbf gab erfuhr ich weder über bahn.de noch die RMV sondern über Twitter.

In letzter Zeit häuften sich die kritischen Stimmen am Microbloggingdienst Twitter, der angeblich nicht mehr wachse und dessen Userzahlen aus zu vielen Karteileichen bestehen. Wer aber wie ich im Fernverkehr unterwegs ist, nutzt zunehmend die „user generated“ updates die Pendler wie ich bereitwillig anderen zur Verfügung stellen. Ob Gleiswechsel, minimale Verspätung, unfreundliches Bahnpersonal oder „Kandidaten“, die meinen im ICE Sauerkraut, Döner oder Ähnliches essen zu müssen – all das erfahre ich innerhalb weniger Minuten, manchmal gar Sekunden auf Twitter.

ScreenHunter_06 Feb. 28 22.40

Neben den puren Fakten, die oftmals sehr hilfreich sein können und kaum aktueller sein können, sind diese tweets oftmals sehr unterhaltsam, repräsentieren sie doch nicht den Stil eines routinierten Redakteurs sondern den persönlichen Stil und Humor von Menschen wie du und ich.

ScreenHunter_04 Feb. 28 22.39

Jenseits von Tweets á la „war grad am Klo“ finde ich Twitter sehr hilfreich und unterhaltsam. Exzellent ist auch die Möglichkeit für gut befundene Links blitzschnell mit aller Welt auszutauschen.

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