Posts filed under 'E-Commerce'
Yesterday I’ve assisted to the Conversas Unicer (an informal meeting organized and sponsored by Unicer a major beverage player in Portugal) where Bruno Giussani was the main speaker and some very well knowned portuguese bloggers (Maria João Nogueira, António Granado, Luís Paixão Martins, Eduardo Correia, Paulo Ferreira and Paulo Querido) joined in in yesterday’s conversation.
The starting point “We used to call them users” set the motto for a great presentation. The title was a clear reference to the ‘OLD’ web, where people’s role weren’t anything more than mere spectators of the whole business. The web we live in today if far different, since much of it is actually based in Action, web2.0 brought in personalization and customization, users stood up and embraced the role of actors! Which for companies actually meant more work or at least they couldn’t just count on users eating all the PR jargon they meant them to take. Users got a voice!
According to Bruno, users can be more or less involved along time with a company or product, but they tend to follow a specific path of engagement:
- witnessing
- sharing
- conversation
- collaboration
- action
At first, we’re all mere spectators, witnessing whatever happens around us. Nothing new here, or by that matters with the any of the following states. The only difference is that with the advent of web, the power and time by which this all process happens is amazingly fast, meaning I can progress from the point where I’ve witnessed something to the point where I decide to engage some action about it in a fraction of the time it used to happen.
For companies this brought in the need for them to engage users in all this different mind settings. And basically you have two options about it: retreat or engage the conversation. Bruno and the portuguese bloggers that joint the conversation seem to have an agreement that if you’re 100% into it, it’s probably better not to jump into blogging at all, since the side effects of poor communication (blogging in this case) can be as worst as traditional communication.
On the other side, for the companies that actually engage the blogging as a communication process, there are clear advantages. Users will always talk about a company products, so if a company does provide their customers with a place for open discussion about their products, they somehow control or at least have an active part in that discussion. Anyone barely involved in PR knows how much better that is 
Plus, and this was something I haven’t heard during the general conversation, people bond with brands, it’s a natural happening, the difference this days to me is that people don’t expect to be mass-branded any more, so the closer they feel to a brand, the more personal the experience gets… and experience is everything in there days.
I personally thing that this theme is amazingly important in the Portuguese context, and I’m not complaining as usual to the fact that Portuguese companies tend to be 2/3 years far behind the rest of Europe/World! But by seeing so many companies PR’s in that room and see them taking part of the discussion and acknowledging the importance of the blogs in their communication as a way to increase their users satisfaction and have closer control how their brands are interpreted by their customers it’s already clear the importance blogs will have in the future or traditional public relations.
One last note, for the Unicer team who organized this all event, congratulations to them all, I’m truly inspired and admired with the concept.
UPDATE: the full video (PT) is now available:
April 11th, 2008
It’s true, SHiFT is back!. We almost died on our first ’round’ in 2006 but we decided to do it again and today we just gave the first (public) step towards it: we’ve unleashed the dates - set your calendars:
A lot of work, discussion and planning will take place in the coming months, so EVERYONE is invited to help and participate in the discussion! We haven’t closed down the speakers list and there will be space for the community to vote on who gets to go up on stage later on, but if you know an exciting speaker or you’re just wishing your secret hero to be there, don’t be shy and let us know!
Pop us an email over at speakers@shift.pt.
Don’t forget to keep an eye on the official Blog, or subscribe SHiFT’s Twitter / jaiku feeds.
See you back in October!
February 29th, 2008
Trying to forget the high summer temperature outside, I just discovered this nice retro t-shirts and sweatshirts! Now i just have to decide which one I prefer:
Now, what about this site details? Thinkgeek sucks, this guys know a little about marketing, at least nerd marketing, just look at the girl!
hey?
August 19th, 2005
Don’t know if they (Google) have already thought of it, but on the other day while browsing trough their maps I realized there’s a new business opportunity opened by their satellites images:
Roof Advertising
For instance while seeing the satellite images around my place, I noticed some pretty big structures (super malls, markets, empty parking lots, etc.) with pure white roofs! Well, when you look at those white spaces in the images, one thing crossed my mind: BLANK MEDIA!
One problem raised, google images aren’t refresh every day, so how could one guarantee the normal proceedings for the normal advertising business: the refresh rate of the advertising? Well, that might pose a problem for me, but not for Google, since they control the refresh rate of those satellite images, whenever someone’s updates their roof they could ask (pay!) for their images refreshment, right?
One funny thing about this, is that in Portugal for instance you probably don’t have to pay any particular tax for roof advertising!
July 2nd, 2005
According to a report I came across some days ago about hopping habits and their implications on the online merchants the Internet is rapidly becoming the ultimate window shopping experience for online shoppers, in a sense that online shoppers are more prone to visit 10 or more sites before making a decision on where to buy and return to that website. It kind of simulates what we do on our everyday life when shopping downtown or at the mall.
The authors of these report also state that shopping cart abandonment is a new trend in online shopping, something that didn’t happen for instance two years ago, and that forces online commerce sites to rethink about their marketing strategies. They suggest that online merchants set their focus on the reasons that drive costumers leaving their site without buying. The authors refer to the fact that window shopping is one of downside effects of having better navigation tools and faster connections than before, allowing the shoppers to visit and compare more sites before making a decision.
Online shops should redesign their costumers experience if they haven’t done it before, Some of the suggested improvements is turning their shopping carts in more than just a commodity or a mere convenience factor, since it’s rapidly became a key factor for the user that window shops on their sites, and later returns to make a purchase. Online consumers have learned to use shopping carts as the ultimate comparison shopping tool.
Another curious thing mentioned in the report was that online costumer often take as many as 18 hours before making a purchase, which wasn’t even near to what most of the merchants was expecting, but a rather common thing for the common shopper like myself. Almost every-time I shop online I end up spending quite sometime comparing prices across different sites, sometimes even in the same company like amazon.com and amazon.co.uk for instance, and later (sometimes even days later) return to a particular site, recovering my shopping cart and making the purchase. According to the report here’s some average times from first visit to purchase:
- 50% took more than 1 hour
- 40% took more than 3 hours
- 35% took more than 12 hours
- 28% took more than one day
- 21% took more than three days
- 14% took more than one week
- 4% took more than two weeks
Times are indeed changing in the e-commerce world, or not!
Further suggested reading:
May 20th, 2005