uk social commerce trends report
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Key takeaways from Social Commerce Summit London 2010TRANSCRIPT
UK Social Commerce Trends ReportKey takeaways from Social Commerce Summit London 2010
REPORT • OCTOBER 6, 2010
Each year, the Social Commerce Summit London brings together innovative brands and thought leaders to share best practices and trends in social media.
At the 2010 event, national treasure Stephen Fry and JibJab CEO Gregg Spiridellis shared their views on the evolution of the internet and social media. The bottom line? People are people — deal with them as people, not as “business decision-makers.” Stephen Fry especially encourages companies to simply “be human” as they deal in social media.
Several UK brands, including Argos, Debenhams, and The Body Shop UK, shared specific strategies they found successful. And Forrester’s Patti Freeman Evans spoke on the future trends that continue to shape social media — and the way we interact beyond the web.
This paper encapsulates the highlights and key learnings from this event.
Table of ContentsThe latest trend in social media? Humanity 4
Failure and learning go hand-in-hand in social media 5
Start the conversation, then take action: Successes from Dell,
Homebase, The Body Shop, and more 7
Argos improve the entire business by listening to customers 9
To be successful, make the most of your unique influencers 11
Forrester share trends that shape e-commerce in Europe 13
Three megatrends that will power the next phase of social media 15
Your next steps 17
Sources and contact information 17
The latest trend in social media? Humanity. Stephen Fry, popular actor, writer, comedian, and
television presenter, is “deeply dippy about all things
digital.” Right out of university, he became fascinated
with computers, feeling if he didn’t have one
immediately, he would be computer illiterate.
And that’s just one of the things he loves about today’s
online experience — you don’t have to know how a
computer works; you just have to understand how to
navigate and be nimble in the space. This is much how
the computer industry has evolved over the years.
Stephen bought the second Apple Macintosh computer
in the UK, and realised how extra-ordinary a computer
could be. He saw how the graphical interface changed
everything. And while it took Bill Gates the best part of
10 years to create the Windows interface for PCs, people
fell in love with Apple. When the Mac came out in 1994,
it was expensive and incompatible with business users;
however, it brought people joy. “It’s something that Steve
Jobs and Apple continue to do in their design — create
things that, while they might not be the best version of
a technology tool, they make their users laugh with joy,”
Stephen says.
As social media — and all things digital, for that matter
— continue to evolve, Stephen encourages all of us
to remember that people are not people who become
“business people.” They are always people. “We are
made as emotional characters,” he said, “and if we have a
device with us at all times, we want a joyful one — even
if it doesn’t have all the functionality of the other ones.
“I suppose the element of social media that bothers me is
that it has to be led with human understanding first and
business understanding second,” he says. “If businesses
lead with their wallets and not their hearts, businesses
will fall by the wayside with social media. I have so many
Twitter followers because I’ve been on TV and I got on
Twitter early. I would never exploit my followers for my
own commercial gain. I would keep them updated on
where I will be, that I have a new book and so on, but I
wouldn’t tweet that ‘I like these biscuits’ and get paid by
a biscuit company for it. I’m trusted to be myself and I
wouldn’t want to break that trust with my followers.
“The huge challenge of the internet,” he continues,
“is the enormous positivity of what comes from the
conversations across the globe, whether it’s Twitter,
Facebook, or using open API, the analysis of that traffic
is a hugely valuable tool of who we are. Most films open
on a Friday and the first weekend gross is incredibly
important to Hollywood in terms of its long term success.
On the Wednesday before a film opens, people can tell
how much money it will make by analysing Twitter noise.
Translate that across the whole commercial sphere and
it’s very amazing what were on
the brink of.”
Stephen contends that businesses can’t “learn” how to
maximise Twitter. “The fact is it’s like saying, ‘How can
I be more popular? Teach me.’ If you want to be liked,
you like other people, you listen, are friendly and kind.
It’s about being as human as you can be and not hiding
behind jargon.
“It doesn’t matter what your job is, you can escape the
tedious treadmill of business talk and think about what is
exciting and occasionally you may need to use a phrase
like user-generated content,” he continues. “Be more
exciting; think of yourself as running EMI studios with
the Beatles coming in. That’s the world we’re living in,
it’s all of us who have voices now and they can be heard.
They can be unbelievably exciting. We’re all part of this
excitement as these technologies begin to converge.
Stephen Fry encourages brands and marketers to “be human.”
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“That’s my message. Be Human.”
Failure and learning go hand-in-hand in social media. Gregg Spiridellis founded JibJab Media in 1999 with his
brother, an independent film maker. At that point, two
trends influenced him. First, video had become easy to
capture and produce — you just needed the talent to do
it well, which his brother had. Also, file servers made it
incredibly easy to distribute and share video. These two
things led Gregg to believe JibJab would be successful —
and it didn’t hurt that people loved to forward videos.
In 1999, they began by creating funny videos that went
viral via email, then evolved over time to create offbeat
Sendables® eCards, personalised Starring You!® videos,
and satirical viral videos. They work with major brands to
bring personalised, shareable fun to get people talking.
Due to the dot-com bust, when all their clients went out
of business, JibJab have worked to reinvent themselves
while staying focused on their core value: making people
laugh. Here are the lessons Gregg learned over the past
11 years with JibJab.
1 Do something really dumb. When JibJab started, they had no idea how to monetise media, but they went with what was happening at the time to be pioneers.
2 Experiment broadly. Experimentation taught them that people love humour,
faces, and music in animation. On 9 July 2004, they finally had an “overnight” success with their U.S. political video, “This Land.” The video got 80,000,000 online views in the United States and gave JibJab huge exposure.
3 Learn from your success. The way their videos were shared showed them that the social distribution was really what set them apart from traditional media — their audience is the network. They kept creating content that was relevant to the audience, but continued to strive to monetise it. In 2007, the online e-cards trend and social media were converging — people were truly starting to live their lives online and this was a huge trend that JibJab saw they could fit into. The influx of social sharing is not just a new market — it’s the opportunity to disrupt a huge industry.
4 Pivot and reinvent yourself. Gregg and JibJab pivoted from political satire videos to e-cards. They saw e-cards could be really great if you could put your own faces on them, so they launched the Starring You offering, which lets people use JibJab templates and create fun videos using their own faces. Experimentation and reinvention helped JibJab create content that’s instantly relevant to people because they put their own faces into it. JibJab creates one template, but it’s relevant to millions of people because they can personalise it, and each video is then viewed five to 15 times, on average. This creates a huge scale for
5
Gregg Spiridellis, Founder & CEO of JibJab, suggests brands experiment and learn from their successes.
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JibJab, a model they could build and invest in.
5 Invest and execute. There are now more than 500 Starring You titles on JibJab.com. They monetise this model through individual memberships and creating partnerships with top brands. For example, they worked with OfficeMax in the United States on their popular “Elf Yourself” online interactive promotion. They have extended out to partners such as Disney, including a promotion that lets teens put themselves into popular movies. In the last three years, users have made almost seven million Starring You films, which upload 169 million Starring You heads into system and create 400 million streams for content. There have been 1.7 million credit card swipes from people signing up to JibJab, and now 90% of their business is direct to consumer. It’s incredibly rare for a creative company to have end users as its customers, but JibJab has had great success.
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“You don’t have to be a comedy brand to do this well,” said Gregg. “You just need to tell stories that appeal to an audience, give them the tools to share it, and create more value.”
Start the conversation, then take action: Successes from Dell, Homebase, The Body Shop, and more. Manufacturers often have the hardest time deciding to
implement customer reviews, and this was the case at
Dell. When they first launched reviews in 2006, they
were hesitant; however, they soon learned that reviews
help them increase sales conversion.
Beyond that, though, former Senior Vice President,
Dell Product Group, Alex Gruzen, saw the potential for
reviews to improve Dell products. The inconvenient
truth? Dell products had an overall average 3.7 out of
5-star rating — Alex knew they had to act. He set a goal
to have an average of 4.5 out of 5-star reviews for all
products. The product team now strives for that 4.5 star
mark, based solely on customer reviews — not surveys or
focus groups — and they have created great products in
the wake of this goal.
DIY retailer Homebase realised they needed to get their
in-store shoppers involved in leaving customer reviews.
They created a post-purchase email that asked these
shoppers to review their recent purchases, and today
97 percent of their online reviews come from in-store
customers. This content increases conversion online
and gives their in-store teams some great information to
share with shoppers.
Debenhams are still early in their social experimentation,
and wanted to test how Facebook may work for them.
They launched a Facebook page that focuses on the
Debenhams Beauty Club, then set a goal to gain 10,000
fans. They put the word out on their existing Facebook
page, then let relevant bloggers know that the first
10,000 people to “like” their Facebook page would get
50 Beauty Club points, which can be used for discounts
on purchases. While they thought it would take them
some time to get to 10,000 fans, they got there in three
days — and shortly after, they were up to more than
50,000 fans. To Debenhams, the high number of fans
indicates that people are passionate about their Beauty
Club and their brand overall.
Joanna Robb, Head of Development and CRM for B&Q
Direct, pays special attention to reviews and actually
tracked down a person who wrote a negative review. This
person had bought a product in a B&Q store, and was
pleasantly surprised to hear from the company. It turned
Top international brands share what’s worked – and what hasn’t – in their endeavours with social commerce.
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out that this customer was a blogger, and B&Q’s quick
action resulted in a positive experience for this customer.
B&Q focuses much of its social activities to assist with
customer service needs, and are building up their Twitter
and Facebook communities.
Gino Goossens, Chief E-Commerce & Innovation Officer
from Germany-based Conrad Electronics, shared that
the 90-year-old company gains most of its sales from its
online channel.
“People use our products to build inventions,” Gino says.
“Social media is the best way to share these stories and
show off their innovations and how they built them.”
Conrad has great success getting customers to share
their input, and they work to ensure that the intimacy
between the brand and their customers remains — it’s
important to them that everyone who participates feels
appreciated and wants to continue contributing.
A post-purchase email campaign helped The Body Shop
UK increase their number of reviews 500% almost
overnight, according to Adam Plummer, User Experience
Manager for The Body shop UK.
“The level of engagement has been surprising,” he says.
“People do want to talk with us, and they opt to come
onto the site and add reviews. [Reviews] represent
a hotline to our customers and take us closer to our
customer base than we’ve ever been. Our customers love
writing reviews; the average rating is 4.7 out of 5.”
The Body Shop saw immediate negative reviews
when they launched a new product, so they were able
to address the issue immediately, and their biggest
challenge now involves evangelising the whole concept
of the social web to try to leverage these tools across
the business.
Retailers have a variety of ideas about what really
matters when it comes to measuring the results of social
marketing. Adam from The Body Shop looks at revenue
per visitor, comparing those who interact with user-
generated content, like product reviews, to those
who do not.
“Social is the most cost-effective way to use your best
and worst customers to evolve your brand,”
says B&Q’s Joanna.
According to Craig Barry, Retail Operations Manager for
Multi Channel & Loyalty with Homebase, “It’s not about
ROI yet — it’s about customer service.”
“Customers seek reassurance from customer reviews,
which leads to more conversions and sales,” says Simon
Forster, Director for Debenhams.com.
Peter Fitzgerald, Director Google UK, has seen brands
have great success by leveraging the entire shopping
ecosystem – multiplying the value of all content — by
making it available beyond the organisation’s site. For
example, Google Product Reviews Program is the first
program that lets online brands use their full review
content to directly impact natural search, mobile, and
Google advertising results.
Brands can expose star ratings to searchers, put their
logos next to their reviews, and link directly back to the
product page where a searcher can buy. This lets the
consumer reviews gathered on the site help consumers
who are still just searching for products.
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Argos improve the entire business by listening to customers. Argos are a large general merchant retailer with 750
stores in the UK and Ireland. Known primarily for their
twice-a-year catalogue, they now sell through many
channels, including mobile reserve-and-collect and online
ordering. They attract £1.4 billion in online sales annually
and £1.9 billion in total multi-channel sales.
David Tarbuck heads up multi-channel programmes for
Argos, and he has helped bring customer opinions into
the company to transform the entire organisation. David
and his team added customer reviews to argos.co.uk
at the end of 2009 and launched customer Q&A in
mid-2010, all in an effort to start conversations with
customers, allow them to tell Argos what they think, and
provide additional information that helps shoppers buy.
“This is how we started, with [getting customers to
contribute],” David says, “but we moved on to listen. It
wasn’t easy [to decide to add reviews]; it took us 12-14
months from our decision to sign the contract to get
started. We needed to get all the right evangelists for
word of mouth throughout the entire organisation in front
of right people.
“We had to overcome questions such as, ‘What will
customers say?’, ‘How will we use the information?’,
‘How can we control what is said?,’ and ‘How will we
manage the content?’”
A short time after customer reviews were launched on
the site, Argos saw that most customers were positive;
their average product rating is 4.3 stars out of five. Argos
have gathered 760,000 reviews from customers since
2009, and more than a million shoppers read reviews
on their site each week. Today Argos use reviews across
all marketing channels, including, print, emails, via
their iPhone app, and in social sharing, and they share
customer input across the entire business.
“The view that all areas of business will improve by
engaging came true,” David explains. “The value of
negative can outweigh the value of positive. We can now
articulate across the business that if people don’t like
something, let’s change it. If we listen, we’ll learn about
product, service and brand. What’s important is as a
company how we listen and what we do.”
Argos use customer conversations in many ways, including:
To contact customers. “Over 1000 customers a week are
contacted as a result of customer- generated content,”
David says. “We have automated reports that send
moderated content directly to our contact centre agents
who respond to concerns or issues. Customer feedback
from these conversations is fantastic – often customers
are surprised that we are listening.”
To improve products and the information about them. “We care about getting product descriptions as accurate
as possible,” David explains. “This is linked to customer
satisfaction. We have automated reports that email
reviews containing product detail errors to product
information teams. All of these are investigated and,
when required, improvements are made to fix data
David Tarbuck of Argos Ltd. explains how customer-created content has fundamentally changed the way the company does business.
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issues. Improved product data is distributed across the
business to all customer touchpoints.”
To give feedback to manufacturers. “This has benefited
our trading teams; when we meet suppliers they
understand what we’re doing and value the information,”
David says. “Buyers take packs containing product
ratings with them when meeting suppliers to help
negotiations, put information on customer reviews
down with margins, and talk about what needs to
change to improve ratings. This leads to improved
supplier relationships, which is enhanced further as we
collaborate to improve ratings.”
To change products. “Before [reviews], we wouldn’t
know if we were stocking products that customers
don’t like,” David says. “Now we look at what’s sold
objectively and change products based on comments.
Customer comments lead to a stronger product. If we
didn’t have this content, it wouldn’t have happened; it’s
very unlikely that word would have gottten back to us.
Today our quality control (QC) team have direct access
to review information, helping them target products and
suppliers. We can collaborate with suppliers. If the QC
team sees a drop in quality and ratings, we adapt
buying patterns.
“For example,” he continues, “we had put a huge order
in for an item that received an overall negative review.
We went to the manufacturer and this led to a re-design
and testing of the product. After reworking the product,
it got a 5-star review. We are using this content now
in our contact centre, online, and with merchants and
manufacturers. We are pushing this now to the back
end and looking at how we use it in store marketing
and across other channels. Customers said they wanted
reviews on our mobile application, so we added them.
We use customer conversations as integral parts of the
changes we make across the business.”
To assist with the product selection process. “Trading
teams use what customers have said about products to
assist them when choosing which products to re-include
in the Argos catalogue,” David explains. “Obviously,
we aim to remove lower rated items. The result is that
customers get better products to choose from and
therefore have a better Argos experience.”
Argos’ contact centres are geared up to listen to the
customer, and they use word clouds for products to
understand customer sentiment and how to fix problems
with products. Word clouds for customer questions
show Argos the specific content they need to add to help
products sell.
Argos’ participation to transformation in summary
• We know our customers participate in social commerce
• We know our customers like talking to us
• We know they like to hear from us
• We know they want to share knowledge with other customers
• We know when we listen and act, we improve our products, our service, and our brand
• Customer-generated content is expected and we are expected to act on it
• We are still learning, getting better and developing
• Customer conversations are transforming our business
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Argos use word clouds to easily see overall sentiments about products.
To be successful, make the most of your unique influencers. Social media levels the playing field, making consumer
contributions as loud as – or sometimes louder than – the
corporate marketing message. Dmitri Siegel, Executive
Director of Marketing for Urban Outfitters, shares
how this unique brand – with independent, creative
consumers – uses social media to take core business
values and blow them out exponentially.
According to Siegel, “We don’t have a logo. We don’t
have a style guide. We have a spirit.” Their social
strategies reflect this spirit and get their customers
involved. Here are some guidelines Dmitri suggests.
There are some people you want to be friends with, and some you don’t, just like in any social situation. Urban
Outfitters started out by featuring some of its customers
on its blog – people they or their customers “want to be
friends with.” They interview their customers to draw in
others who share the same lifestyle/style.
But don’t be a snob – don’t ignore people. To get all
types of consumers involved – not just the fashionistas
or style mavens who regularly review products — Urban
Outfitters ran a contest where consumers submitted
images of love, so anyone could submit something
creative. The company also embraces different uses of its
products – photo reviews show the way people actually
wear Urban Outfitters clothes, even paired with clothing
and accessories that do not come from Urban Outfitters.
Their products don’t really come to life until people show
exactly how they actually wear them in the real world.
Be a good listener. This is basic. Urban Outfitters get
about 1,500 reviews per week; they read them and dig
into them. You also see what it’s like to be your own
customer. For example, one woman said that a shirt she
purchased was too big, but she cut it and wore it off the
shoulder, and submitted a photo of her new creation. This
gives Urban Outfitters a relevant data point about how a
product is actually used.
Ask good questions. If you put a good question out,
you’ll be amazed at what you get. For example, last year
Urban Outfitters did a “lo-fi, high style” sweepstakes/
contest, where customers shared the cool things they
created for cheap. When Urban Outfitters started getting
photographs from customers, they were beautiful
and creative. Today, when Urban Outfitters mash up
their own professional photos with those submitted
by customers, even the marketing team can’t tell the
difference – which is exactly as it should be. Urban
Outfitters’ customers’ creativity inspires Dmitri and the
design team.
Make some introductions. Urban Outfitters added
community Q&A to their site, which created a good
format for introducing customers to one another; they
now get about 400 questions each week.
Dmitri Siegel, Executive Director of Marketing at Urban Outfitters, outlines his philosophy on engaging with customers who are non-joiners by nature.
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Other customers as well as Urban Outfitters designers
respond. The more people you can get involved in the
conversation, the better the experience.
Stop talking about yourself so much. Being social allows
you to let your customer be the voice for awhile; be
quiet, ask questions, and see what they have to share.
You need a good party spot. It must be free to participate.
For example, Urban Outfitters often invite unsigned
bands to perform in its Backlot, their back parking lot
behind a flagship store, and they stage similar events
around the country. They’ve been doing these events for
years, so now tens of thousands of people watch them
through live online broadcasting. During and after the
events, they feature cool people they met in their
blog and on Twitter.
Music can really set the mood. Urban Outfitters have
Music Mondays on Twitter, giving away hundreds of
thousands of songs each month; it’s a top topic on
Twitter each week. They usually feature unsigned bands,
and play these songs in their stores, too, creating a sense
of discovery in the store. Urban Outfitters believe that if
someone recommends good music to you, their level of
credibility goes up.
Be spontaneous. Urban Outfitters share live links to their
in-store events, so customers can watch even if they’re
across the country.
Don’t take yourself too seriously. Anybody can be cool,
but awesome takes practice. Social media is a chatty
medium; be authentic to your voice.
Be vulnerable – share information to get information. When Urban Outfitters encouraged customers to send
photos of their mothers as part of a Mother’s Day
contest, their team members sent in their own photos,
too.
Keep in touch. These relationships have real value –
keep them going. Keep up with the people you have
interacted with. It’s less about numbers; more about
one-to-one connections. Social media can’t be measured
solely by the number of people who potentially see the
information, like traditional advertising is measured. The
deep connections with individuals build over time and
create an annuity that continues to grow.
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Forrester share trends that shape e-commerce in Europe. Patti Freeman Evans, VP and research director at
Forrester Research, shares the top trends for
European e-commerce.
“In the past, if you were [shopping] alone, you had very
few options,” she says. “Now you can be alone with
many options anywhere.Connected through your mobile
phone, you become a nexus for communication. You are
able to engage with someone who has used the product
you are considering. It’s a different world full
of complexities.”
Patti says that, going forward, it’s important for brands
to focus on the four C’s:
1 Clarity: Who are you? Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, said that “Brands are the solution… brands are how you sort out the cesspool of the internet.” In a sea of options, clarity
is about how quickly and clearly you can send a brand message. Apple does a good job of this; you see an Apple product and you know what you’re looking at. The stores only have around 20 products and the product is simple. That is clarity. That is what Apple have always been about.
2 Competition: It’s not what you once thought it was. Today, competition includes different sales channels, new online models, and new options for not just products, but how shoppers find and buy them. Brands need to realise that customers could be coming from anywhere around the world.
3 Customers: What are they looking for? The customer is more elusive and intimate with you at the same time. We don’t have people in mass audiences like before as it was with traditional media. In new media, people are fragmented, so communicating with them is more personal and intimate. We can have a personal conversation but it’s fragmented and happening in more places. Brands must strive to be relevant to each customer segment — and each customer — to where they are and what they are saying at the moment.
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Patti Freeman Evans of Forrester Research explains that European shopping behaviours are increasingly complex.
4 Connection: We have easier access to consumers; we know them in a way we haven’t before. There are now so many ways people buy and shop — up to half of buyers research online, then buy offline. And channels don’t rule each other out —
the invention of TV didn’t kill radio — but the channels continue to evolve. Today, mobile devices are used to connect, even settle arguments at dinner parties. Consumers are now used to instant access to information.
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Forrester Research indicates customer ratings and reviews are the clear winners among social commerce tools and tactics.
Three megatrends powering the next phase of social media. Brant Barton, Chief Innovation Officer and co-founder
of Bazaarvoice, points out three megatrends that power
long-term innovation for Bazaarvoice and, he believes,
social media in general: new retail, co-creation, and
mobile empowerment.
New retail: social media changes the way we shop. Retailers should now think of shoppers in relationship
to their social graph. For example, Amazon recently
deployed active social network integration with
Facebook. Shoppers can now access their friends’ tastes,
which can help them discover new products.
Groupon and other group buying sites are huge trends in
the United States. In short, Groupon emails and tweets
limited-time, deep discounts each day, but a certain
number of people must respond to make the deal a
reality, so users share the coupons to get the discount,
which is usually 50 to 90 percent off a product
or service.
There are many examples of this model, with more
entering the market each week. Brands should take care
to keep the new customers they attract by providing a
great customer experience and gathering their contact
information to keep conversations going.
ShoeDazzle gives its members, who pay a monthly
fee, personalised stylist recommendations, advice from
celebrities, and one pair of shoes or an accessory each
month. Items are carefully curated and selected to appeal
to members. Bag Borrow or Steal also uses a subscription
model to allow members to borrow luxury accessories,
giving consumers less expensive access to
trendy accessories.
Brant challenges retailers to think about new models,
new ways to present products, and to take part in
existing models that make sense.
Co-creation makes consumers part of the brand. Burberry introduced “Art of the Trench” in 2009, where
the brand and consumers submitted photos of the iconic
coat. Burberry let the consumer become the face of the
brand, resulting in a highly viral, long-living campaign.
Threadless.com takes this a step further, allowing
consumers to post their own t-shirt designs. The
community votes on the best ones, and those designs are
created and offered for sale to the same community.
Nike iD lets consumers create their own unique,
customised shoes, creating a hugely profitable business.
All these examples are benefiting from the “IKEA
effect.” When consumers invest their energy and time
into assembling a product, such as they do with IKEA
furniture that must be assembled, they feel a greater
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Bazaarvoice co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Brant Barton, highlights the megatrends shaping the landscape of e-commerce and the future of innovations in social media.
sense of ownership. Brands should consider how to
get consumers intimately involved in helping to create
the company and extend the brand.
Mobile empowerment lets brands attract buyers exactly where they are. The iPhone has been a revolutionary
device. Mobile has transformed consumer behaviour;
Google recently shared that 10 percent of its search
volume was from mobile – and it’s still rapidly growing.
There has been a move to location-based and mobile
services. For example, Foursquare lets users “check in” to
physical locations via their social networks, and brands
have taken advantage of this. To introduce its new
trainers, Jimmy Choo launched a “treasure hunt” around
London via Facebook, Four-square, and Twitter. Brands
should think about where many of their social consumers
are congregating — how can you leverage this data?
The mobile device also means that brands should think
more like video game producers in creating the consumer
experience. It needs to be interesting, there need to
be twists. The smartphone is like a controller for your
videogame, enabling you to interact with this world
like never before. For example, Shopkick is a mobile
commerce start-up that has partnered with a number of
large US retailers and created a game. With the Shopkick
app, you go into a store and earn points by entering. As
you interact with products, you earn more points, which
can eventually be redeemed as discounts. Shopping tools
like this are quickly evolving and becoming more like
playing video games.
These applications are in their infancy, but they are
bridging the gap between the offline and online worlds.
This convergence of channels is a sign of where things
are going.
Other big truths for the future:
Social isn’t a just feature. For a couple of years, social
was seen as an add-on. But if you look at today’s
examples, social is an intrinsic part of these businesses
and even their fundamental function. Think about how
the social experience is shaping consumer experiences,
expectations and behaviour.
The web is dead. This is a very current debate. The web
isn’t dead, but it is increasingly fragmented. The linear
experience of searching, landing on the homepage,
navigating a site, then buying a product is dead. New
apps create rich experiences and shape consumer
expectations.
Shoppers are people, too. These new models like
Groupon play on the fact that consumers are attracted to
exclusivity and fear rarity. There are triggers that brands
can employ, but remember shoppers are still people — we
respond to basic things.
Customers are your brand. Urban Outfitters are a perfect
example of this. If you don’t like how a consumer is using
or wearing your product, that’s too bad — your customer
is fundamentally your brand. The co-creation examples
are extreme versions of this. Getting consumers involved
in how you run your business gets them involved at a
level that loyalty schemes and marketing plans can never
achieve.
The fourth dimension of mobile. Simply optimising your
site for mobile is not enough. Mobile is a whole new
layer of services and control; it will change customer
expectations of the web.
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REPORT: UK Social Commerce Trends
Your next steps.These insights should answer some questions, but raise even more. Bazaarvoice is the world leader in social commerce, serving top brands across a huge variety of industries. Visit us at bazaarvoice.co.uk and schedule a demonstration that will help you understand how to connect to consumers, build engagement, and drive measurable return on investment.
Sources and contact informationPresentations excerpted in this paper came
from the following sessions at the Social Commerce
Summit London 2010, held 6 October 2010.
For more information on this and future
events, visit socialcommercesummit.co.uk
and socialcommercesummit.com.
What’s Next: The Innovations Inspiring Our Vision
Brant Barton, Co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer, Bazaarvoice
Email: [email protected]
What’s Next: Trends and Leaders Shaping
Europe’s Future in E-Commerce
Patti Freeman Evans, VP, Research Director, Forrester Research Site:
www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/patti_freeman_evans
Stephen Fry on Stephen Fry:
Being Liked One Tweet at a Time
Stephen Fry, Actor, Writer, Journalist, Comedian, Television Presenter, and Film Director
Twitter: @stephenfry
Site: www.stephenfry.com
How Customers Create the Urban Outfitters Brand
Dmitri Siegel, Executive Director of Marketing, Urban Outfitters Twitter: @dddmitri
Site: www.dmitrisiegel.com
Go Elf Yourself:
How a Stupid Little Viral Video Started a Revolution
Gregg Spiridellis, Founder & CEO, JibJab Twitter: @jibjab_CEO
Site: www.jibjab.com
The Argos Story: From Participation to Transformation
David Tarbuck, Multi-Channel Programme and Operations Manager, Argos Ltd. Twitter: @David_Tarbuck
17
REPORT: UK Social Commerce Trends
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