Dave Kohn of Snow + Rock, the #1 ski clothing and equipment retailer in the UK is discussing his company’s experiences with site search, and the ways it’s helped improve the customer experience on the Snow + Rock site, during the site search workshop at Internet Retailing in Birmingham, UK.
eCommerce consultant Steve Groenier will also be presenting at this workshop, on how to converge social media and site search on the mobile platform, and our own Chris Edge, customer success manager in the UK, will be discussing how and why to conduct A/B testing in order to get more purchases and less site abandonment from search results pages. This workshop will be held at 1:30pm GMT tomorrow, 3/21, Workshop Room B.
While you’re there, be sure to stop by our stand (#C11) and see a live demo of our learning-based site search and navigation solutions, and talk with our team of experts about how full-service site search, navigation, and merchandising can help your business.
Dave Kohn will also be offering a webinar on best practices in site search next month, so stay tuned for more details and a registration link.
It has been a couple of weeks since I returned from the Internet Retailer Web Design show in Orlando. It’s a nice show – it’s a lot smaller than the main IRCE show in June – with only one stream – so it’s easy to see all the great presentations without missing any. I love the opportunity to educate myself on what’s happening in the industry and to spend time talking to the people that are making ecommerce happen.
Chatting to Doug Cadmus from GMCR at IRWD 2012. Photo by @tim_ash
One thing I noticed at this show is that there seemed to be a lot of businesses attending that sell to businesses rather than consumers. One of the keynotes was from Paul Miller, VP of E-Commerce at Grainger who provide products to facilities. It’s a serious business: $6B of revenue, $2B of that on line. Many of the other attendees were also B2B companies. One of them that I was chatting to said that the presentation he had just seen that was talking about selling underwear wasn’t that relevant to his business. That got me thinking about the difference between B2B and B2C ecommerce.
Different prices for different customers
One thing we’ve seen with our B2B customers is they will often have different prices for different customers based on their login. Larger customers often negotiate lower prices based on buying commitments for example. When this happens the online retailer needs to work out what price they should show, if any, to people that aren’t logged in. We are exposed to this, because we need to make sure that if we’re showing prices in the search and navigation that they match those that are shown on the rest of the site – so this involves a more complex integration.
Different purchasing process
The purchasing process on a B2C site is comparatively straightforward: the consumer puts in their credit card and other details and the sale is complete. On a B2B site the purchasing process may be more complex – the person who decides what they want may be different from the person who makes the purchase – there may be a procurement department that actually does the buying. The payment may be done through an account which is invoiced to the customer at a later date, particularly for large purchases. Paul described that Grainger customers have an account manager who approves the purchase orders when they come through. They have developed an iPhone app so the account managers can approve these easily when they’re away from their desk.
Lower traffic and larger AOV
B2B customers often make relatively large orders – so a B2B site that value of sales as a B2C site may have much less traffic. The lower traffic can mean it’s more difficult for multivariate tests to reach statistically significant decisions.
These are just a few differences between B2B and B2C ecommerce that I’ve come up with. What others are you aware of?
Next week’s eTail West will be a great event on many fronts. Aside from the warm weather and sunny skies in Palm Springs, there are a lot of interesting discussions on topics that are timely and relevant to e-commerce brands. AND, if you stop by SLI’s booth (#9), you’ll have a chance to win a new iPad.
Steve Groenier, our resident guest blogger and former VP of marketing for ArtBeads.com, will be giving two talks on the first day, Monday, 2/27 – at 12:15 he’s participating in a panel on ”10 Ways To Increase Customer Engagement In Today’s Digital World;” and at 2:25 he’ll present on “The New Content Kings: How Retailers Are Using Content To Create Loyal Lifetime Customers.” Additionally, our customer, Michael Burgess, EVP of FTD.com’s consumer division, is taking part in an Executive C-level Panel at 9:25 a.m. on Tues., 2/28 on “Maximizing Your Resources And Gaining Revenues In Today’s Retail Environment.” Another customer, Jason Miller, CTO of Motorcycle Superstore, is also participating in an Executive C-level Panel at 9:15 on Thurs., 3/1 – the topic is “A 360-Degree Comprehensive Plan To Increase Sales From Your Mobile Strategy.”
If you’re heading to Southern California next week to attend eTail West, be sure to stop by our booth – #9 – to say hi and see a demo of our learning-based search and navigation solutions. And don’t forget to enter our iPad drawing!
This week is the week of usability at the annual IRWD conference in Orlando, FL, and we’ll be there carousing with other vendors. In addition to all the fun we’ll be having at our booth (see us in booth #300), our CEO, Shaun Ryan, is giving a talk alongside our customer U.S. Toy, about how to over-come multi-brand usability challenges through cross-linking of results in site search. The presentation, taking place at 4:00 p.m. EST on Tues., 2/14, highlights U.S. Toy’s success in this area (the company has a B2B site called Constructive Playthings and a B2C site called U.S. Toy). Shaun and Seth Freiden, U.S. Toy CEO, will demonstrate how the toy retailer captured more sales and improved the user-experience by showcasing products on sister sites in each site’s search results.
Be sure to stop by our booth at the show to see our learning-based search and navigation solutions in action, and learn first-hand how seriously we take the “full-service” aspect of our business. And while you’re there, you may just win a brand new iPad.
I have just returned from the Internet Retailer Conference in San Diego. This is the biggest show that we attend and the one where we have the largest presence. Because the show is fairly close to our office we had a lot of people there – I counted 22. It was fantastic fun seeing current and future customers, and partners and learning about some of the new stuff.
For me this is the third show that I’ve been to in the last 4 weeks, The other two were Ecommerce Expo in Manchester and Online Retailer Road show in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, Australia. A gruelling travel schedule but apart from seeing very little of my family for the last four weeks it has been very rewarding. One overriding theme that I have been getting from the customers I met during my travels is that they are very happy with the service they get from us. I heard from several that we are one of the best vendors that they deal with. It was great to hear this because we put a lot of effort into making our customer service the best it can be and it’s nice to see the evidence that this is working.
With over 500 vendors, multiple streams and workshops I feel like I missed out on a lot of good information at the show. However there were plenty of interesting bits and pieces I did pick up. Here are some of them…
A novel approach to getting answers
George Eberstadt, the founder and president of TurnTo Networks showed me their question and answer service for retailers. The novel thing they do is when someone asks a question about a product an email is sent to people who recently bought the product. They get a great response from this which means people get good answers to their questions in a timely manner. He had some good stats about the uplift they saw for their customers. I can see why this works. I would be likely to answer a question about a product I had just bought in this situation. Sending the question to people who have just bought the product is a great idea. Like most great ideas, it seems pretty obvious once you hear it. but I hadn’t heard it before.
Having the same URL for mobile and the web
Igor Faletski, the founder and CEO of Mobify was telling me about their approach to producing mobile websites. Like others they translate existing pages into mobile optimized pages. Unlike others they use client side JavaScript to do this which means the URL is the same whether you’re on a mobile page or the normal page. This means people aren’t sharing mobile URLs and has a number of other advantages. I thought it was an interesting approach.
Paying people to like you
While I was sitting on the floor eating lunch I was chatting to a couple of reps from a San Diego company whose name I forget (sorry). The interesting thing they told me they are doing for their customers is offering people a discount on some purchases if they “like” the product. I thought this was interesting from a couple of perspectives. The discount may help close the sale in the first place and secondly, by sharing it on facebook they are telling their friends about it. I expect the retailers will be able to maximize the benefit by paying to promote likes on facebook. But what this will force them to do is to try and quantify the value of a like. Something else I hadn’t seen before.
2B searches/quarter on eBay
Chris Payne, VP and Head of eBay North America talked about their strategy to provide infrastructure to retailers of all size, the standard eBay for Mom and Pop retailers, and their new acquisitions Magento and GSI for medium and large retailers. He shared that in the last quarter there were over 2 billion searches on eBay. That got me thinking – how many searches did we serve across our customers in the last quarter. One of my team looked it up – just over 700 million. We’re working to catch up with them.
Robots
Finally Kiva had a great display showing their robots at work. Who doesn’t like robots?
Next week we’ll be exhibiting at the annual Retail World conference in Sydney, taking place June 27-29. If you’re attending the event, be sure to see us at stand #51, where we’ll be demonstrating our recently announced Conversion Optimizer A/B testing tool for site search, as well as the power our Learning Search site search, navigation and merchandising solutions deliver to online retailers. You can also enter our draw to win an iPad 2.
Be sure to also pick up your conference passport, which allows you to get stamps from participating exhibitors (like us) and be entered to win prizes once your passport is complete. And on June 29 we’ll be exhibiting in the eRetailing and Multi-Channel Retail Day in stand #2 – so you can also catch us there.
Like most of you, we’ve been gearing up for IRCE for months. Well, it’s almost here, and it’s sure to be a great event. We love the opportunity to see familiar faces and meet new people as well – and offer a first-hand view of our Learning Search solutions in action. If you’re attending, please be sure to drop by our booth #405 where you’ll see a demo of our full-service site search, navigation and merchandising product offerings, as well as a new tool we’re unveiling next week (more to come on that soon).
We’re also giving away 3 iPads over the course of the event, so you can enter to be one of the lucky winners. And, as IRCE’s tote bag sponsor, you’ll find inside your bag a special key which opens our treasure chest of prizes – located at our booth – giving you another opportunity to score something nice for yourself.
Have safe travels to sunny San Diego, and we hope to see you next week!
SLI will be at two key industry events over the next couple weeks – if you plan to go to Internet Retailer Web Design or eTail West, come by our booth and see a demo of our learning-based search solutions.
At IRWD (Feb. 14-16 in Orlando) we’ll be at booth #301 (we’re also the event’s lead sponsor), where we’ll be raffling off an iPad on Feb. 16 – enter to win when you visit our booth any time during the event. You can also hear our customer, Carolina Rustica, co-present a session on Feb. 14 at 9:30am on developing a site navigation plan of action.
Also, stop by the “Ask the Expert” table just outside the pre-conference workshop session room on Feb. 14 – our very own Ed Hoffman will be there to answer questions about search and navigation, and other topics related to web site usability.
There’s another iPad ready to be raffled off at eTail West, Feb. 22-25 in Palm Desert, California. Come see us at booth #57 and enter for a chance to win.
As you might know, SLI Systems recently entered the mobile arena with a new solution to help e-retailers quickly and cost-effectively create a mobile website. Next week we’ll be demonstrating our solution at the Mobile Shopping Summit at Bridgewaters in New York City Oct. 25-27. If you’re attending the show, be sure to stop by our booth (booth #14) and learn how to develop and drive your mobile strategies. While you’re at our booth, make sure you enter our drawing for an iPad. Our search and navigation experts will be on-hand to discuss your mobile needs and offer guidance on when and how to create a mobile site to drive more sales.
Be sure to also check out our customer, Ian MacDonald of Century Novelty, who will be presenting with Jeff Pandolfo of Amazon Payments on Tues., 10/26 at 1:20pm on his work with SLI & Amazon in creating his company’s mobile commerce site – “Sealing The Deal Through Mobile With Amazon Payments: Be True To Your Brand As You Streamline The Checkout Experience.”
This year’s Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition was a great success – thanks to the team at Internet Retailer who worked so hard to pull off an amazing event!
Probably to nobody’s surprise, mobile commerce was a big theme this year. As our recent survey revealed, 80% of retailers haven’t yet tackled the mobile arena, but my guess is that’s going to change quickly in the months to come. Given the early results from some of our customers, it seems clear that having a mobile web site is not just about keeping up with trends, it’s good for business.
SLI had quite a presence at IRCE, with 14 members of our team on the show floor, and we also sponsored drinks on two nights (hopefully you enjoyed a cocktail or two on us). Three of our customers presented, and we saw lots of traffic to our booth. We also had a drawing for a 3-D TV and 3-D DVD Blu-ray player – the winner was Lada Heep, eChannel manager for Thomson Reuters. Congratulations, Lada!
If you were at IRCE 2010, hopefully we had a chance to connect – but if not, feel free to drop us a note if you have any questions or requests. Next stops are eTail East (Aug. 9-12, Baltimore), Search Engine Strategies San Francisco (August 16-20) and Shop.org Annual Summit (Sept. 27-29, Dallas). We hope to see you there!
