Online Marketing - Marketing Don

Summary of 2009 Channel Advisor Catalyst Conference Raleigh, NC

I really liked this years conference.  I think the panels were set up well and on target. 

The first panel was very interesting.  It started off with 8 or 9 random people that they picked and the moderator asked questions about how they search and buy online.

Most stated:

1. They use shopping engines and Google to search for the best deal, price.
2. Free Shipping is very important. Most expected it. One said it was more important than the price. If he didn’t see free shipping, even if price was a little less, he would leave the site.
3. Some would search for a product, put it in the shopping cart, open another browser and search for promo codes to use before they would check out. Some would abandon the cart if none found.
4. If they were unfamiliar with the company they would search the company name and look for bad reviews. Trust came up a lot. If they do not feel the site is secure, they will immediately leave.
5. All stated they do not opt-in emails at checkout unless there was some type of offer or stating they would get great offers. The offer should have a coupon valid for at least 30 days because they just bought and will not buy again so soon.
6. They stated a discount or sale of 10% or less is not enticing.

Summary of the rest of the conference:

Some areas of online sales are increasing
Sports and fitness up 16%
Video games up 10%
Electronics 3%
Apparel 2%

Also pet supplies and personal health predicting to increase.

Worst, music and dvd’s down 30%

Asia and China growing online sales

Online Shopping Engines (CSE) use and searching for products online is growing.  CSE’s use up 2% year over year and increasing, direct traffic down 2% year over year

Google market share in the US is about 60% and about 80% in UK

Most shopping engines used: Yahoo Shopping, Shopzilla, Shop.com, Pronto, Valueclick, Google Base, Nextag, MSN Shopping, Shoplocal, AOL, Pricegrabber, and Become.com

Amazon ecommerce growing at 20%. Cause- Prime Shipping membership and adding the Seller Services.

List of Recession Techniques:
Spend time on growth and efficiency
Smart sourcing
Accelerate turns strategy. Act like you just bought the place and need cash. Don’t get too attached to inventory.
Add channels
Avoid debt
Use google base
Improve conversions
Use surveys (will help improve conversions)
Customer retention is the new acquisition

Use www.google.com/domorewithless

Email segmenting- It is great IF you have a broad segment of buyers. Do not segment such a small group that your return will not pay for the design and development of the campaign.

Add an occasional survey banner to an email, with a prize, to get feedback.

Monitor and respond to bad reviews on all social media and other channels.  Each owner stated hands on customer service was one of the main actions that was helping them stay in business. A couple of the owners/CEO’s would call the person personally if it was really bad.  Bad rep on social media sites if horrible for business, a great rep is huge.

Ebay rep stated their philosophy is Selection, Value, and Trust in that order.  He stressed having a huge selection is the most important factor.  *Note: according to panel, this might not be the correct order. Yes, you need to have the product to sell, but according to the panel, if the product is not a “value” they will not even check to see if you have the product.

Looking forward to next year!