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What do online shoppers think about?

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Good News For Retailers From Mint.com

Mint.com is an award winning personal finance site that helps 900,000 US consumers track their spendings, and they may have a valuable piece of data for retailers.  I know most retailers are very glum these days with the worsening market reports.  But we should listen to Mint’s CEO Aaron Patzer because he has access to hard facts.  Aaron’s message to …

Would You Consider This A Design Flaw?

I was on the Wish List page on tenderfilet.com and noticed a search box.  Being a curious monkey I entered ‘h’: I was surprised to see this list pop up.  The screenshot below is a partial screenshot of the results page: It has the customer’s full name and address. Would you consider this a design flaw?

Why eCommerce Is So Damn Paradigm Shifting

I’ve been a big fan of the Road Warrior segment in Fortune magazine for a long time.  It’s such a clever idea: interview frequent travelers on their favorite travel companions (items) and publish it for readers. I would launch an ecommerce store that played on this idea.  The site would be very similar to the Fortune segment but customers will …

And Why Should I Be A Repeat Customer?

Lets face it, most products available at your store could be bought somewhere else (possibly for less).  In todays crowded ecommerce marketplace it’s really hard to make a customer remember you.  That’s why this find by Andy Sernovitz is so brilliant. Andy writes “Jim Kukral makes a crazy offer when you sign up for the email newsletter on his blog, …

We Didn’t Make A Dime Sale

Imagine if your web-store had a yearly “Thank-You” sale for your top 200 customers. The Thank-You sale is a sale where you only charge the cost of production (sourcing) plus shipping, in short, you don’t make a dime.  Do you think this is a bad idea? If so, why?

Monday Question

Why can’t I go to my grocery store’s web site and: – create a shopping list – set a future shopping date – mark a discount alert And have the store send an email when my list has the best possible collective discount? Do any of your grocery stores already provide this service?

Why Can’t We Be Friends

For a retailer, it would seem, the brick and online store are like oil and water.  Both are needed individually but must never be mixed.  But mixing has its benefits. In previous posts we’ve discussed bringing store functionality online through features like browsing stores by area code, but the reverse is equally powerful. Retail space is expensive and brands like …

eBay Buys Bill Me Later

In a move to further consolidate control of online payment environments eBay has gone and bought the second largest player Bill Me Later for an all cash transaction of $820 Million.  This is significant because eBay already owns PayPal.  Obviously the company is doing this to realign their business by focussing on strengths because the news also comes with the …

In-Store Analytics

A big advantage for ecommerce sites is the ability to track minutest details of customer activity.  For the average store, however, swing door operators is the extent of their analytics.  Now it’s time to bring analytics deeper into store isles. One idea consists placing infra-red sensors at the ends of isles.  These would trip each time customers walk in or …

We, The Super Crunchers

I’ve just finished reading one of my favorite books this year.  It’s called Super Crunchers and I believe it has  some very valuable lessons for retailers.  The central theme is that through statistical tools like regression analysis it’s possible to test for the co-dependence of variables.  Finding these dependencies allows companies to exploit them.  Let me explain through my made-up …

Borrowing From Andy

Andy Sernovitz is a passionate advocate for Word Of Mouth Marketing (WOM) and his book Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking is a must read for all niche ecommerce retailers. So how does small retailer with a limited marketing budget ignite a following? The first thing to seriously consider is the caliber of the product.  No …

Losing Sale To Poor Memory

A few months ago I bought a new hot-sauce and fell in love with it.  Now it’s time to restock but I have no clue where I purchased it.  The packaging makes no mention of the grocery store that housed it.  I could look online or search for the product on my next grocery trip but by not mentioning store …

Dishola For The Offline World

If restaurants added a feedback feature on bills it would give valuable input on how people liked individual dishes.  As long as the feedback process was painless most patrons would participate and the information could be integrated to update the menu.  Avinash has shown how simple feedback gives valuable insight through 4Q, my idea merely extends the concept to an …

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