On January 19th, we got together with Boston-area eRetailers for the first in a series of nationwide roundtable discussions about the issues facing retailers in 2012. Allowing the retailers to drive the discussion, we learned some pretty interesting things about the opportunities and challenges facing the industry. As one attendee put it, "It's good to know that I'm not on an island. You have challenges and problems, and often aren't able to consult with peers on the important issues."
Here are some of the opportunities we heard during the conversation:
For most mature retailers, incremental lifts in conversions and other KPI's will be the focus. As one person put it, "there's no silver bullet for retailers. It's all about incremental benefits." Programs and initiatives that can drive a 5-10% lift drive real revenue and results.
What are a few of these to consider in 2012? We heard plenty about the effectiveness of A/B testing anything and everything. When talking retargeting, many found it hard to understand the threshold of shopper acceptance. There's always a branding element to retargeting and "over-retargeting" can cannibalize other efforts.With more and more tags, tag management (a relatively new area of focus) will continue evolving in 2012.
Other prominent areas of focus were surveys and reviews. "Nobody trusts a retailer," and "There's no residual bad benefit from reviews" were the common sentiment.
Personalization was brought up by a number of retailers present. Those that were serving product recommendations manually were quick to point out that predicting what people might buy can be difficult. For all retailers, they expressed the idea that each business is unique, and there's no "one-size-fits-all" box that can provide a personalized experience.
However, using a combination of the right platform and customized merchant and business knowledge, the future is bright. Soon, social graphs will feed the algorithms, and we'll be able to connect that users who like horror movies will buy a red women's shirt--as one retailer put it.
Here are some of the challenges:
Ecommerce has become so influential in other channels and departments that organization challenges can arise. Some aligned ecommerce with technical teams or underneath marketing. Others operated ecommerce entirely on its own. The bottom line is, learning how to facilitate an omni-channel vision in part rests on the organization of a retailer's ecommerce department.
Multi-attribution. It continues to plague lots of folks in the ecommerce space and will probably still have them scratching their heads in 2012.
Social. Many have been driven into the social world by demand of consumers. Admittedly, most shared the idea that "Facebook Likes" -- the overwhelming elementary measure of success--was certainly fluffy and uncorrelated. Playing devil's advocate though, there are great examples of retailers that use the channel for engaging consumers.
Video. What's it worth, and how can it be effectively used? The jury is still out on that one.
Hiring eCommerce Talent. As one retailer put it, "We're at war to capture talent."
Check our roundtable schedule to see if we'll be coming to a city near you!
http://roundtable.igodigital.com/
Here are some of the opportunities we heard during the conversation:
For most mature retailers, incremental lifts in conversions and other KPI's will be the focus. As one person put it, "there's no silver bullet for retailers. It's all about incremental benefits." Programs and initiatives that can drive a 5-10% lift drive real revenue and results.
What are a few of these to consider in 2012? We heard plenty about the effectiveness of A/B testing anything and everything. When talking retargeting, many found it hard to understand the threshold of shopper acceptance. There's always a branding element to retargeting and "over-retargeting" can cannibalize other efforts.
Other prominent areas of focus were surveys and reviews. "Nobody trusts a retailer," and "There's no residual bad benefit from reviews" were the common sentiment.
Personalization was brought up by a number of retailers present. Those that were serving product recommendations manually were quick to point out that predicting what people might buy can be difficult. For all retailers, they expressed the idea that each business is unique, and there's no "one-size-fits-all" box that can provide a personalized experience.
However, using a combination of the right platform and customized merchant and business knowledge, the future is bright. Soon, social graphs will feed the algorithms, and we'll be able to connect that users who like horror movies will buy a red women's shirt--as one retailer put it.
Here are some of the challenges:
Ecommerce has become so influential in other channels and departments that organization challenges can arise. Some aligned ecommerce with technical teams or underneath marketing. Others operated ecommerce entirely on its own. The bottom line is, learning how to facilitate an omni-channel vision in part rests on the organization of a retailer's ecommerce department.
Multi-attribution. It continues to plague lots of folks in the ecommerce space and will probably still have them scratching their heads in 2012.
Social. Many have been driven into the social world by demand of consumers. Admittedly, most shared the idea that "Facebook Likes" -- the overwhelming elementary measure of success--was certainly fluffy and uncorrelated. Playing devil's advocate though, there are great examples of retailers that use the channel for engaging consumers.
Video. What's it worth, and how can it be effectively used? The jury is still out on that one.
Hiring eCommerce Talent. As one retailer put it, "We're at war to capture talent."
Check our roundtable schedule to see if we'll be coming to a city near you!
http://roundtable.igodigital.com/
Comments for Heard on the streets at the iGoDigital eRetail Roundtable - Boston