E-Commerce

Well into the second decade of the Internet, many of you reading this — if not all of you — have a pretty good recollection of the “Wild Wild West” days of the Internet early on. It actually still is the Wild West, but in a much different way. And, having sat in on a number of sessions at the e-Tail conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, I noticed the breadth of knowledge that’s permeated the catalog/multichannel community and helped give it an entirely different character than it had 10 years ago. For one, consider how the language has changed. In the mid-’90s, I

Boosting conversion rates and improving the user experience top the list of priorities in 2008 for online retailers, according to a survey of 70 marketers and other e-commerce attendees of the recent e-Tail conference in Washington, D.C. The survey, conducted by SiteSpect, was taken on Aug. 6-7. Among the findings ... * 57 percent said that site testing will be an important focus in 2008, with 17 percent making it the top priority; * 69 percent were “moderately confident” to “confident” about the effectiveness and performance of their current Web channel programs and strategies; * 14 percent expressed significant to major concerns about

During a session at the recent e-Tail conference in Washington, D.C., Vernon Wyatt, director of customer experience at Tealeaf, an online customer experience management solutions provider, pointed to four causes, cases and situations in which e-commerce customer service-related problems are related to technical issues. These include the following: 1. 80 percent of the total time it takes to solve a problem is spent identifying the problem, he noted. Just 20 percent is spent implementing the change. 2. In his experience, Wyatt said that 300 to 400 of the issues reported to technical support last year were rejected due to “unable to reproduce” the

This week, I offer you a simple, easy to clip (or print out) checklist of ways to convert prospects to customers. It’s my goal for you to come away with two vital ways of thinking and planning:
1. Think beyond the catalog mail schedule, and
2. Think about the customer lifecycle (prospects, one-time buyers, multibuyers and customer advocates) and how to move them higher up the food chain.
Although it’s pretty much self-explanatory, I’ll follow this up with some commentary in the coming weeks.
Checklist: Customer Lead Conversion
(based on LTV and ROI analysis)
* Add prospect to catalog schedule, mail X number

Whether they’re great CEOs from good companies, good CEOs from great companies or great CEOs from fantastic companies, these people often don’t want to let the rest of the world know what’s made them or their companies so great. So, it was a joy to sit in on a wonderful presentation by Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh during the e-Tail conference in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 8. He openly reeled off 10 truly fascinating ways Zappos has succeeded in its first eight years as a dot-com seller of shoes and apparel. What does your company have in common with the $800 million Zappos? For

People On the Move MCM Electronics: Phil Minix has been named president of Centerville, Ohio-based B-to-B catalog distributor MCM Electronics. A member of the Catalog Success editorial board, Minix is a 12-year veteran of the catalog/direct business. He most recently served as president of Astral Direct. Prior to that, he worked at Reiman Publications and J. Schmid & Assoc. Sharper Image: Andrew P. Reich has been named EVP of merchandising. James Sander has been named SVP, general counsel and corporate secretary. Eddie Bauer: Neil S. Fiske, the head of Limited Brands’ Bath and Body Works, has been appointed president and CEO. Fiske, 45,

Certainly over the years, the retail shopping experience has endured many peaks and valleys — plenty more valleys than peaks. But the changes I’ve noticed more recently have gone in the other direction, and catalogers need to adapt quickly. Retail shopping ain’t so bad these days. More stores look better. Even the Lands’ End department in a Kmart I visited in July didn’t look so bad. Service has improved, too. So the gap may be tightening on the edge catalogers/multichannel marketers have long enjoyed with regard to service and shopping ease. Certainly, there always have been exceptions to the notion that retail shopping is a

For some reason, I often feel the need to reflect back on my past experience in the catalog/multichannel business when I write these things. Is that typical for these kinds of columns and newsletters? Or at 47, am I just gettin’ old? Hopefully the former, because here I go again. These days, it seems like more and more “rules” of cataloging must be changed for myriad reasons: to account for unfair postal rates, to cater to consumers’ reduced attention spans and to accommodate catalogers’ increased reliance on other marketing channels, namely the Web and retail for consumer marketers and the Web, distribution advancements, telemarketing and

Recently, I had a discussion with a B-to-B client about his successful online marketing. The client was very pleased with how many new customers were now coming from his online marketing activities and what percentage of its orders and sales were being received online.
He crowed about how much money he was saving getting orders online vs. over the phone. He sounded like a giddy online marketing manager! On the surface, those are all good achievements. But I couldn’t help but wonder if the focus and attention were on the right things. I pondered the situation for a moment and thought about the

Customer reviews are becoming an increasingly common way to use the online community aspect of the Internet to help convert visitors to buyers. Amazon.com, CompUSA and other sites have been on record as saying customer reviews do lead to increased conversions. Here are four things you’ll want to consider: 1. Allow negative reviews? Absolutely. Including negative as well as positive reviews on your Web site makes you appear trustworthy. 2. Are they important? Heck, yeah. Ninety-two per-cent of online customers rated “customer reviews” as extremely or very helpful (the top-rated Web site feature) in a 2006 survey conducted by J.C. Williams/the e-tailing group. 3. Must they constantly