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GDR Creative Intelligence Global Innovation Report - Conversational Commerce

Many – particularly moms – manage to shoehorn 27 hours of activities into the standard 24-hour day.² It should come as no surprise, then, that 40% shop online during work hours.  They are buying everything from clothes and books for their family to more considered purchases like electronics and home furnishings.

Given the focus on social for online retail, I guess it will be only a matter of minutes before these women ask you to make it easier for them to connect and collaborate with their spouses, friends, family, etc. in real-time while they are on their lunch break trying to buy that new dining room table or new school shoes for her finicky teenager??

Sources:

1 “The New Female Consumer: The Rise of the RealMom.” Advertising Age, November 2009. 2 “Living La Vida Rapida.” AOL/OMD Global Moms Study, July 2008.

As part of the “Recommendations, Reviews, and Ratings” category that Christine includes in the No. 1 spot, we would also add our ShopTogether Crowd application as an example of a real-time recommendations engine. ShopTogether Crowd displays the most popular items on a retailer’s site in a dynamic display, with products moving in and out as the crowd’s favorites change in real time.  ShopTogether Crowd lets customers see what’s popular with other people who shop when they do.

For example, if you think about online shopping in terms of a real-world shopping mall, visitor demographics tend to change during different times of the day, i.e., there may be older customers coming to the store in the morning, office workers visiting during their lunch breaks, and students stopping by in the afternoon when classes are over. As the likes of those different demographics change during the day, ShopTogether Crowd reflects those changes in real-time, giving like-minded visitors new ideas for what to buy and marketers a new look at their customer base.  Here is an example of how this application works via our customer Charlotte Russe’s Facebook fan page.

It looks like the Altimeter Group has a great show lined up for October and it will be interesting to see what other innovations for online retailers they discuss.

1. Viral Marketing: Retailers need to tap into their customers’ social networks to promote products, find new, like-minded customers and generate traffic or buzz around the brand. There are many companies working in this area, with many creative agencies developing smart, integrated campaigns leveraging Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter and the like, while generating new “fans” for brands to reach.
2. Affirmation: Ratings and reviews initially served to give consumers more confidence in a product’s reliability, worthiness or “cool” factor. But until recently, these have mostly been from anonymous reviewers or people unknown by the purchaser. Now though, buyers can get this affirmation directly from the people who matter most in the purchase decision, namely friends, family and peers.  The Facebook “Like” button and commenting/feedback via social networks are examples.
3. Collaboration: Consumers can work together in real time to choose a car, furniture or an outfit.   Also, some companies are promoting group purchasing and/or steep discounts if large numbers of consumers buy within a certain timeframe.  This area stands out because it can lead directly to a purchase. ShopTogether, Groupon are specific examples of collaboration solutions.

Retailers need to address all three of these areas in their social strategy.  ShopTogether’s flexible interface and turn-key products can help retailers address each one of these aspects to create a complete and effective social commerce solution. We would love to hear how you’re viewing the space.

Although design differs, many real estate and rental sites are strikingly similar in terms of functionality and usability.

Real-time collaboration technologies like ShopTogether can provide an immediate point of differentiation for real estate sites.  It’s a technology that has already seen success among early adopters in the retail segment; however, we think it could help connect agents, spouses and roommates online for a more productive home “search.”

For leaders in online real estate, early adoption of these collaboration tools can help further outpace competitors. For companies jockeying for the number 2, 3 or 4 positions in a crowded market, collaboration technologies like ShopTogether can be just the thing to help spread the word, build brand and catapult a company to No. 1.

In the study, Peter Caban of Mekanism suggests a possible force behind the growing importance of digital marketing for brands.  He says, “Just as much as the conduit for brand storytelling has evolved, the modern consumer of 2010 plays a huge role in your marketing plans. Consumers have beyond proven themselves as content creators and distributors – they are the medium. Consumers are living, breathing, passionate people who are redirecting traffic and content in real-time, based on personal interests, relationships, and the culture of the moment.”

What’s clear is that consumers have new demands for interacting with brands online, and marketers are looking to find ways to appeal to them. Social shopping apps like ShopTogether do just that through real-time collaboration and engagement tools that connect users, update friends on their various social networks about their brand experience, attract new customers back to the e-commerce site and bring an entirely new dimension to online shopping.

Steve Wages, the executive director of SoDA says that we “…must avoid complacency at all costs and continue to focus on driving innovation as well as engaging consumers with relevant dialog in uncharged and fast-moving channels…” We couldn’t have said it beter ourselves.

Additionally, 68 percent of home buyers are couples (either married or unmarried), and 87 percent work with an agent. What that implies is that an overwhelming majority of home buyers works with at least one, and in most cases, two other people throughout the decision-making process.

In spite of this inherently “social” nature of home buying, the online experience for the real estate industry is a highly isolated and solitary one, e.g.:  An agent emails pages of links and options from an MLS that may or may not fit the buyer(s)’ criteria; the buyer looks through the links on her own and eliminates the ones she knows off the bat don’t fit.  Then she goes through the site doing some research on her own, copies the links and adds them to the list.  Next, maybe she forwards the links from work to her fiancé, who then repeats the process. Once the couple has decided on their list, they may send it back to the agent, who then has recommendations on certain listings she knows have inherent flaws the buyer might not know about and finally they arrive on a set of possibilities.  Then, it’s time to start pounding the pavement.

Social commerce tools like ShopTogether minimize those hassles by allowing two or more people to view properties online together from different locations.  A couple can browse properties together in real-time from across town during their lunch breaks.  They can even have their REALTOR join in to guide them and answer questions, and couples can give a quick “thumbs-up” or “thumbs-down” on a listing.  And for rental sites, ShopTogether can provide similar benefits for friends or couples researching a place that will appeal to everyone in the group.

Given we’re still in the early stages of social commerce, ShopTogether can be a differentiator on innovative sites that will attract more visitors and keep them there longer, which benefits not only end-users, but also the sites that depend on ad revenue as part of their business model.

With the explosion in popularity of sites like Facebook and Twitter, the real-time social potential of the web is finally starting to be realized, and the sooner real estate sites embrace this trend themselves, the sooner they’ll be exclaiming, “Sold!”

Baird argues, “The future is not about strengthening the retailer’s or brand’s position in the community but in the ability to bring the right community to bear for the right context. Early in the process, community plays an educational role — helping the shopper learn about products or categories of products. Later in the process, the community serves to validate the decision-making process, helping a shopper confirm that he or she is making the right product selection.” Baird goes on to say, “Too often, the mix of content, community and commerce is driven by enterprise silos, siloed content within siloed channels.”

At DecisionStep we’ve considered the difficulties of e-commerce sites in weighing the right mix of commerce, content and community, and in what context that mix is most effective. With ShopTogether, consumers can choose at which point in the purchase decision to access the community, whether that community be friends, family or other consumers shopping on a site at the same time.  Rather than siloing a community on a microsite or away from the product pages and “add-to-cart” button, ShopTogether is accessible whenever and wherever the shopper wants to get real-time answers to questions directly on the brand’s site, near real-time feedback from their friends on Facebook or Twitter, or just to see what other shoppers in the store are looking at and talking about to generate purchase ideas.

No matter what step a shopper is in when deciding on a product or service to buy, ShopTogether integrates the 3C’s by connecting shoppers to their community of choice, on the retailer’s site where they can access brand-provided content and ultimately make a purchase.

JCPenney: The department store is offering free shipping and screenbusters which highlight high-quality gifts at sharp price points. The retailer also announced it will offer its Cyber Monday promotions a day earlier this year on Sunday, November 29. The two-day online sale will feature special offers exclusive to jcp.com on more than 30,000 items.

Blue Nile: The jewelry retailer will offer free overnight shipping on all orders placed on Monday, November 30 and premiere holiday exclusives at midnight including limited edition jewelry items that will be offered at a significant discount and only available for 24 hours or while supplies last.

Walmart: The big box retailer is offering free shipping for home, electronics and baby items as well as 80 percent off select clearance orders. The retailer also is offering major discounts on popular gift items including Guitar Hero, Nintendo and the Garmin GPS.

Undoubtedly the lure of 80 percent off and free shipping is tough to resist, and disseminating the news about these deals through both traditional and new media campaigns is a key component of retailers’ strategy to get customers into their virtual “doors.” 

But once customers go online on Monday, it’s important they stay in the store, shop, and buy…and keep coming back.

Customer reviews, blogs and online video have gone a long way in connecting brands to their fans and improving their online experience. But pioneering brands like Mattel, Charlotte Russe and more are taking it to the next level this holiday season using social shopping tools like ShopTogether.

When a shopper sees a new toy they think would be perfect for their nephew, or a pair of flats that would look great on their best friend, ShopTogether can move that person from the spark of inspiration to action, by letting them chat and browse products, in real-time, with someone that can give their instant “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” on the purchase, or recommend alternatives.

The purchase process, which, without ShopTogether, otherwise may be a time-consuming hassle, can now be a fun way to reach a decision while introducing the brand to new customers.  Whereas deals and promotions will likely drive millions of customers online on Cyber Monday, social commerce tools like ShopTogether will go a long way to ensuring those customers come back on Tuesday, Wednesday and into 2010.

In a tight retail environment and tough economy, businesses are looking for more ways to deliver a competitive advantage and a strong return. Real-time social shopping technologies cost a fraction of a typical retailer’s marketing budget and only take a couple of days or weeks to deploy. And retailers like Charlotte Russe that are using the technology have seen significant increases in unit lift, average order values and time spent on site, while seeing decreases in returns.

Another reason more retailers are deploying social shopping applications is because consumers are becoming exposed to real-time and near real-time communication on the Web with friends and family through sites like Twitter and Facebook. A telling sign of how far these networking tools have reached came from Facebook, which reported earlier in the year that the fastest growing segment of users was women over the age of 55. Online retailers realize they can now influence word of mouth – which has been shown in study-after-study to be the biggest influence on a consumer’s purchase decision – much more effectively by tapping into these vast networks.

Finally, real-time technologies have received high-profile attention lately thanks to Google. First, the company announced YouTube RealTime in April, which lets people interact on YouTube to see what their friends are watching, see a history of their friends’ recent activities and get notifications in real time when friends perform an activity like adding a comment or a favorite. Then, in May the company announced Google Wave, a real-time communication platform that combines email, instant messaging, wikis, social networking and project management. With the implicit “thumbs up” Google has given to real-time communications, more online businesses, both in the retail and other sectors, will likely begin to adopt these technologies on their site.

Given the clear benefits real-time shopping can deliver, coupled with the current state of the market and adoption of high-profile real-time technologies in other categories, it looks like 2010 will be the year that a whole host of retailers will follow the lead of some of the trailblazers like Mattel, Charlotte Russe and Buy.com.