Fidéliser sans carte : L’exemple de Franprix

De plus en plus, les experts de la relation client et du CRM estiment qu’il est possible de concevoir un programme de fidélisation sans carte. Depuis la création des premiers programmes de fidélisation, notamment dans la distribution, la carte de fidélité était un must. Elle matérialisait la relation entre un consommateur et sa marque. De plus, l’objet avait une signification : il marquait l’ appartenance à une caste, celle des clients fidéles d’une marque valorisante.

C’est le cas de la carte Fnac. Les possesseurs de cette carte ont une haute estime de cette carte, car elle prouve une certaine culture.

Mais avec la dématérialisation des programmes de marketing direct et du CRM en général, il est de moins en moins évidents que la carte de fidélité reste un outil indispensable dans son CRM. En effet, la première limite du concept est le nombre de carte de fidélité que porte un consommateur sur lui. En effet, en moyenne il en porte 5 sur lui. Au début de ce phénomène de mode, cela n’était pas un problème car peu d’acteurs avaient de carte, donc la concurrence pour rentrer dans le porte feuille du client était faible. Mais aujourd’hui la majorité des grandes enseignes possèdent leurs propres cartes, ce qui rend donc difficile la capacité du client à posséder beaucoup de cartes sur lui.

De plus, le problème de la fréquence intervient. Une enseigne alimentaire a plus de chance de faire partie des cartes retenus car la fréquence d’achat est élevé. Par contre, pour une marque tel que la « Fnac » par exemple, on l’utilise peut être trois fois dans l’année, mais avec des achats importants, ce qui ne nécessite pas de l’avoir à tout moment sur soit (exemple illustratif). Ce que j’essaie de démontrer, c’est que pour certaines marques, faire 3 achats dans l’année, c’est synonyme de clients fidèles, tandis que pour d’autres, le consommateur se déplace une fois par semaine.

Les smartphones peuvent répondre à ce problème. Dernièrement, j’ai vu des applications très intéressantes tels que Cardstar aux Etats-Unis et Fidall en France. L'idée n'est donc plus d'avoir des cartes physiques, mais des comptes fidélités virtuelles qui se retrouvent dans une seule et même application, facilement utilisable et toujours sur soi car dans un portable. Mais ce n'est peut être pas la seule manière de dématérialiser cette fidélisation.


Ainsi, le LSA du 14 octobre 2010 parle du système de fidélisation de Franprix via une boîte noire. Ainsi 10 magasins sont déjà équipés d’une black box en caisse, et ils devraient être près de 250 à la fin de 2011. Les consommateurs passant en caisse donnent leurs numéros de téléphone à la caissière, qui les rentre et grâce à ce boîtier les clients sont immédiatement reconnus et accumulent ainsi à chaque passage en caisse des points transformables ensuite en bons de réduction.

J’aime beaucoup ce système car il me rappelle ce que j’avais vu aux Etats-Unis chez Safeway. En effet, il y a plus de chance que le consommateur se souvienne de son numéro de protable qu’il n’ait sur lui sa carte de fidélité.

De plus, ce système permettrait aussi à des fournisseurs, n'ayant pas de contacts directs avec le client, de monter eux aussi des programmes CRM sans passer par le distributeur.

Je pense que ce type de système va se développer de plus en plus. Et vous, qu’en pensez vous ?

Some Thoughts About Suppliers CRM Strategies

I have seen this past few weeks a bunch of initiatives of brands which are creating their own customer relationship management program. Thanks to Internet and packaging communication, they aim to go around retailers in order to master their CRM directly.

Some of them set great programs. Indeed, large companies like Nestlé, P&G or Dannon can afford to develop this kind of programs. But in my opinion there are two downsides:

• Obviously, results are biased. Indeed, you may boost consumption thanks to vouchers, but you address yourself to a specific type of customer, which does not represent your actual customer base.
• By multiplying the number of customer relationship programs, you tend to find less efficiency.

Let’s take the example of the Coffee market (a very competitive one):

• Nestlé has recently launched a CRM program in Australia for its brand.
• Kraft has spend much effort in developing a e-CRM program, with a great Iphone app and interesting content.
• What about other competitors like Unilever, which has enough power to set a CRM program by their own?
• Also let’s not forget that you are not ONLY a coffee customer, but rather a food customer, which purchases at least a dozen other products meanwhile. Just to remaing concrete and simple, you may get tea, or hot chocolate instead of coffee.

This is the reason why I am wondering if those CRM programs will be able to exist by themselves. You may have a strong interaction with your customers as a coffee producer, but is it enough?

What I mean is that I believe a multi brand loyalty reward program would probably make more sense. It might be more convenient for several brands to join their effort and propose a program which would allow the customer to access all the vouchers they deserve. It will ease the process of coupon seeking. But it will also help to convince people to join these programs.

Some brands like Procter & Gamble or Unilever are already owning different brands for different purposes, and therefore could join all the business units in the same program. But also we may image third parties like Catalina trying to create this joint venture for the customers’ benefits.

What do you think about it?

Twitter To Be Added To Google News

Google news is a reliable source of information which gather all the different online information websites news, and rank them in order to have a clear news feed. I use it often, as it allows me to view quickly the most interesting headlines, and while I pick one, I have several valuable articles added to it.

The CEO of Google announced it will add a Twitter feature to Google News.

The feature adds a small box to the right-hand side of the page that allows users to login with their Twitter credentials and then “see when people you follow are talking about the news.” Search Engine Land even found a help page about the experiment. The description of the feature says that it will allow users to “find news articles that your friends are sharing on Twitter,” but notes that the new Friends section will only show articles that can be found in Google News.

It adds to Google News a social layer which is very interesting. Also, it is very interesting to see that Twitter is becoming a reliable source of information, as blogs became couple of years ago.

Facebook Creates The Future Of Video Advertising

Check out this video that has been released by Ikea for an ad.
The action is taking place during a party, and all the furnitures that compose the backstage are Ikea's products.

The downside is the information linked to the ad. Hence, if you click on a product, you go on a youtube video which only shows you a picture and the price of the item. I believe it would be smarter to have either the exhaustive production information page, or a video showing how to use the product.

Also, it remains difficult to select an item during the video. I have tried to click on some furnitures and I could not. But the potential remains very interesting.

Nevertheless, I believe the use of this online video is very smart.

Etude sur l'usage des réseaux sociaux en France

Intéressante étude de Mediamétrie sur l'utilisation des réseaux sociaux en France. On y voit que les réseaux sociaux deviennent de plus en plus importants en France, et que les inscrits sont très nombreux à utiliser ces médias (8 sur 20 millions utilisent les réseaux sociaux quotidiennement).

Il est intéressant de voir dans le classement la présence de 2 sites français, comme quoi il reste de la place pour les sociétés nationales dans le web 2.0. Encore plus intéressant: où est Twitter?

Au global, plus de 20 millions (20,3 millions) d'internautes sont inscrits sur un site communautaire et plus de 8 millions s'y rendent quotidiennement. Les adeptes des sites communautaires sont toujours plus nombreux : en un an, leur population a augmenté de 4,2 millions de personnes. Sans grande surprise, ce sont les jeunes qui s'inscrivent le plus sur les sites communautaires. Les moins de 24 ans représentent plus du tiers des inscrits (36,9%) alors qu'ils représentent à peine plus de 25% (26,3%) des internautes.
Ce trimestre, les 11-15 ans font une poussée remarquée sur les sites communautaires avec une augmentation de 63% : ils sont plus de 2,1 millions de jeunes adeptes. Moins attendus, les 35-49 ans se font également une place de choix sur les sites communautaires. Ils sont 5 millions à être inscrits, soit 28% de plus en un an. 2010 voit également une plus grande féminisation des sites communautaires : 10 millions des internautes inscrits sont des femmes, soit 49% contre 46,5% en 2009. Des inscrits de plus en plus actifs Les inscrits à un site communautaire se connectent de plus en plus fréquemment : près de 4 sur 10 s'y rendent plus d'une fois par semaine.
Ils ne s'en tiennent pas uniquement à se connecter fréquemment, ils utilisent également les différentes fonctionnalités de ces sites : près de 4 millions de ces inscrits déclarent, par exemple, mettre à jour leur profil régulièrement. La répartition selon les différents réseaux sociaux s’établit de la manière suivante (un personne peut être membre de plusieurs réseaux sociaux) :
- Facebook : 16,6 millions
- Copain d'avant : 7,5 millions
- Youtube : 5,3 millions
- Dailymotion : 2,9 millions
- Trombi.com : 1,7 million

Des inscrits toujours plus en contact et toujours plus intéressés par les commentaires
Dans le peloton de tête des inscriptions aux sites communautaires, près de 8 sur 10 avancent la volonté de rester en contact avec des amis, suivi de près par le fait de reprendre contact avec d'anciennes connaissances (76%). Ces principales motivations sont les mêmes que l'an passé. Les inscrits sur des sites communautaires sont logiquement influencés par les commentaires, puisqu'il peut s'agir de ceux de leurs amis. Plus de la moitié d'entre eux (54%) lisent l'avis d'internautes pour préparer leur achat et 22% le font même systématiquement avant chaque achat, plus donc que les internautes en général (19%).Loin de s'en tenir là, ces inscrits poussent l'influence des commentaires jusqu'à déclarer pouvoir décider d'effectuer ou non un achat en raison d'un commentaire positif ou négatif d'un internaute sur un produit. Ainsi, près de 6,9 millions d'entre eux déclarent acheter un produit suite aux recommandations des internautes. A l'inverse, plus de 7,5 millions d'inscrits affirment pouvoir renoncer à un achat suite à des avis négatifs d'autres inscrits.

Will Android Be The Microsoft Of the Iphone?

Androïd took the 3rd rank of the mobile phone operating system market over Apple. Android’s market share sprung from 1,8% to 17,2% in a year! Mobile manufacturer like HTP, Motorola and Samsung plebiscite the OS, which counts more than 7000 apps in its store. Hence, Android might be even more important for brands than Iphone’s as it is counting more users.

It is funny because it reminds me of what happened in the 80s while Apple owned the best computers and operating system, but Bill Gates has been able to enter its market and to dominate it in couple of years. Will the same thing happen to Android?

Microsoft has set its supremacy by promosing a way cheaper operating system which had the same kind of performance though, and to propose it to already large and existing hardware corporations. If you really think about it, what is going on with Android is somehow the same.

What do you think about it?

Ebay Launch Ebay Selling In The UK To Speed Up Sales Process

Ebay has recently bought Redlaser, which was the first company to own a bar code scanning tool on a mobile device. They have decided to make a step further in using Redlaser’s abilities by launching in the UK Ebay Selling. Thanks to the bar code of the product you want to sell, you will be able to launch a product to sell within a minute versus 12 minutes on average with the regular system. You simply scan the bar code of the product and it will automatically find information and customer reviews linked to it.

In the UK, the mobile application is used every two seconds to launch a new product for sales.

Nestlé Decides To Create Its Own CRM Program

CRM For Suppliers: A Hard Task

This is a great example of a customer relationship management program established by a supplier in order to get rid of the retailer’s mastery. Indeed, suppliers spend a lot of effort trying to retain customer loyalty, but they don’t have a direct link with customers. They must go through a retailer to get customers data and to be able to set efficient promotions.

More and more, thanks to vouchers and coupons, either distributed on pack or via Internet, they succeed in triggering sales from loyal customers. But the concept is biased, and online coupons are targeted to a very specific type of clientele.

This is the reason why Nespresso has such a strong CRM program: they master the whole distribution channel, which gives them an exhaustive picture of their customers. A highly valuable asset.

I have helped a friend of mine with the Shisheido reward program, which actually find it pretty well done (I don’t have inside data if it works or not though).

Nestlé, A Cup Of Rewards
In Australia, Nestlé has created a new program named Cup Of Rewards, which goals is to reward loyal customers with everything from discounts in toys stores, to movie theater tickets and so on.

When you purchase a pack, you log on the website, and type the code in. Then it gives you points, which allow you to pick a gift.

It reminds me of what Carrefour has implemented not so long ago. Thanks to its wide range of loyalty card holders, Carrefour has negotiated from external partners discounts. The idea is to go beyond rewards simply based on your products. Hence, Nestlé owns more than 65% of market share on the instant coffee market.

It is a very interesting idea. Now, I believe it is also very important to remain focused on your positioning, in order to propose some gifts which make sense. Now Internet gives a fantastic opportunity for suppliers to create their own customer relationship management program, and by it, to get some leverage out of the retailers, even though retailers' customer data base remain the best customer data available.

Don't Cut Your Advertizing Budget During Recession

If you are a marketing or an advertising manager, you have probably experienced cuts in your marketing budget. Obviously, when there is a decrease in sales or an economical downturn, the first expenses to be cut are marketing’s and advertising’s. As a matter of fact, once I had a business to business class, where the professor explained it was always doubtful when a company is used to advertise constantly and at some point stop it. You may be suspicious that something goes wrong while a company don’t advertise anymore while it was used to.

A new study by Thinkvine analyzed the effects of turning off all advertising entirely for a year on one unnamed brand. It then studied the effects of turning it back on the next year at prior levels. Here’s what they found:

• For about 16 weeks, sales volume was about the same.
• By the end of year one, however, sales volume was about 20% lower without advertising than with it.
• Turning the advertising back on in year two, reversed the sales decline as the brand began growing again at the same rate before the advertising was stopped.
• However, the advertising was not able to close the gap in sales compared with what it would have achieved had it maintained media spending for both years.

Different brands respond differently to media cuts, but for many – getting back sales and share lost from cutting budgets can be a lengthy and an expensive process.
ThinkVine CEO, Damon Ragusa, said it best:

“The cost of getting back what you lose is often greater than the savings of not advertising.”

Of course, it is important to cut some of your budget as company is experiencing trouble. Nevertheless, keeping a high advertising pressures allow you to get a great start while the economical signs are back in the green. This study materialize the fact it is hard to build brand equity, and if you have built it, you may loose it fast. This is the reason why Coca Cola spends so much money in advertizing even though they have been for decades the highest equity in brands.

Ikea To Launch Customer to Customer (C2C) Activities In Sweden

Customer to customer activities is a lucrative activity on line. Ebay has experienced a huge success thanks to its activities. Priceminister in France is also doing good with a similar concept.

Facing this success retailers which sales are dropping are looking after this main consumer trend. In France, leading electronics and cultural products retailer Fnac has launched its second video game sales activities. If you are struggling to grow a market, you may get extra money from the second hand market.

Ikea has launched a new website reporting classified ads for Ikea products.

Peter Agnefäll explained that the reason which led to this decision is to make sure their products are used in a sustainable way on the long run.

Instead of blinding themselves, Ikea aknowledge that a secondary market exists where products are traded. And instead of trying to block it, they decided to help it.

Mobile Marketing Outperforming In Europe

I have found an awesome study about mobile marketing. Indeed, if properly managed, mobile marketing is going to be a high efficiency marketing tool, with great return on investment rate. New media like social media and mobile Internet are by nature great customer relationship management tools. Social media empower the customer to be active in the conversation with a brand, whereas mobile allows companies to be personal with customers.

Mobile communication is the closest it may get from the marketing one to one concept.

­Research, commissioned by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) shows that, on average, 45% of European consumers noticed mobile advertising and of these, 29% responded to it. The research also showed that once people have responded to a mobile advert over a third (39%) continued on to make a purchase. These stats show well how interesting mobile advertizing will get.


German consumers who responded to mobile adverts emerged as the most likely to go on to make a purchase, at 49%, compared to 47% of UK and 22% of French consumers. Of the consumers that purchased products or services, 39% (47% UK, 49% Germany and 30% France) spent between 5 and 20 Euros or British Pounds.

The study asked respondents about their awareness, response and purchasing habits as a result of advertising delivered on mobile devices.

The report also found that in the UK and France, opted-in SMS advertising proved most effective at soliciting consumer response at 40% and 21% respectively. These figures are pretty high, even for opt in media. In Germany on the other hand, an advert delivered on a website accessed on a mobile device proved to be the most effective, with 27% of respondents stating banner adverts as preferable.

Mobile advertising that included time sensitive special offers or discounts was cited as the most important factor leading to a purchase (35% UK, 31% Germany and 27% France). Mobile coupons accessible from phones also proved to be highly popular (34% UK, 29% Germany and 24% France).

In terms of the types of products or services likely to lead to a purchase, content for mobile devices such as applications, music and games emerged as the most popular (23% UK, 28% France and 19% Germany).

Unsurprisingly, younger people emerged as the most likely to notice, respond and purchase content or products as a result of mobile advertising.

"The findings are extremely significant as they indicate a high awareness and efficacy of mobile advertising among European consumers," said Peter A. Johnson, vice president of market intelligence, MMA, and author of the study. "This latest research demonstrates that Europe's mobile consumers have transformed mobile advertising from last year's marketing prophecy into this year's required marketing practice. But getting mobile advertising right requires researching the unique opportunity offered by the different mobile media. For example, an advert delivered via the under-hyped opted-in SMS turns out to be the most likely to open a consumer's wallet."

"These findings are made even more interesting when viewed in conjunction with our previous research demonstrating that a quarter of Europeans were likely to respond to advertising if a mobile response mechanism was included," stated Ralph Risk, Lightspeed Research Marketing Director EMEA. "By delivering advertising directly into the hand of consumers, brands can engage consumers on the go, increasing the likelihood of interaction. The challenge for brands is to ensure that their adverts are relevant and allows consumers to easily respond"

Amazon Launches A Facebook Store For Procter & Gamble

People are looking with envy Facebook as a great way to give a lift to their business. Leveraging 300 million users of course is appealing. Some previous “social commerce” initiatives have been undertaken, but so far, results remained confidentials.

E commerce tycoon Amazon has set a joint venuture with Procter & Gamble to set their first Facebook store. Indeed P&G has a strong legitimacy on the baby care market, throught their Pampers brand. The Pampers’ Facebook page counts over 300 000 people, which are seeking for information and voucher on diapers and babies in general.

Amazon has created a new tab on the page, called “buy now”, which leads to a mini store where you will find Pampers products.

This is very interesting because the activity seems to be promise to blossom over the next few months. Amazon is dominating the Internet commerce industry, and now is aiming to pursue its supremacy by setting Facebook presence. Amazon has developed for years a service which allows brand to create their own Internet store thanks to Amazon’s expertise and technology. But it is the first time it is applied to Facebook.

Buying diapers via a P&G-owned Facebook page is only the beginning. Although Amazon spokeswoman Tracy Ogden told TechFlash that the company "wouldn't discuss future plans" when asked if Amazon would be powering more storefronts in the future, we imagine it will. Facebook now has half a billion users, and many of them have opted into relationships with companies, brands and products through the use Facebook likes. These are a company's best customers - the ones who are willing to watch the ads, share their opinions and check out the latest deals and discounts. It only goes to reason that they will buy the products, too.
Or so you would think. Interestingly enough, social commerce hasn't yet led to a large volume of sales, Forrester Research e-commerce analyst Brian Walker told TechFlash.
That broad statement seems to discount the successes some savvy brands have already seen leveraging social networks, though. Take Best Buy, for example. It, too, has an integrated shopping tab on its fan page. Only six weeks after its late 2009 launch, it helped the company grow its fan base from 27,000 users to 900,000 and sent traffic to its official website.
On a customer relationship management point of view, of course it makes sense. You allow loyal customer which have already embraced the brand to purchase right on Facebook. I am sure that the activity will boom soon.

Now it is difficult to see what kind of specificities a Facebook store should own.

And you what do you think about it?

Marks & Spencer Mobile Commerce Strategy

Marks & Spencer is a famous department store located in London. They have been very successful over the years, but had experienced trouble over the past decades. Hence, it lost its leadership over other stores. Also, Mark & Spencer has been for a long time struggling with its E commerce strategy.

What is very interesting is that they have taken advantage of the new mobile commerce market to take the leadership over its competitors. Mobile commerce might be a niche, but it is called to strike within the next few years.

It is interesting to see how this company which failed in taking the Internet trend.

Marks & Spencer claims that to date the site has delivered results that outstripped its initial key performance indicators:
• 1.2 million unique visitors since launch
• More than 10 million page views
• More than 13,000 orders from the mobile site since launch
• £3,280 ($5,195 USD) for two sofas is the single largest value order
Step by stepConsultancy for the development of the mobile site between M&S and MIG, in conjunction with Usablenet, commenced in early April this year and took a phased approach.
Phase one was “Discovery and definition,” moving through to “Concept look and feel,” “Design refinement and approval” to “Making sure the site worked on multiple handsets.”
Throughout all phases, user experience, design and usability were core to the discussions.
Features on the site include a store finder to locate the nearest M&S outlet, the ability to search by product and then to refine these searches to a specific item.
The site features a full product range for categories such as Women’s, Men’s, Kids Clothing, Home and Furniture and Technology.
Ms. Veit said that for M&S the mobile commerce site is all about getting products quickly and easily to consumers via mobile and letting them pay for products on their mobile device.
M&S’s aim is to integrate mobile as a channel to stand alongside the PC Web, to increase basket size and drive sales.
The retailer has also incorporated a customer feedback facility to enable customer reviews, and it has given consumers their choice of delivery method.
The M&S mobile commerce site can be accessed via any Web-enabled phone, and the device will know to redirect the user to the mobile commerce site. Or users can manually type in http://m.marksandspencer.com/
To get the word out about the mobile site, M&S is using its online channels such as Facebook and Twitter, established M&S channels such as product catalogues and Your M&S magazine, its email and SMS databases and a mobile display ad campaign.
M&S customers are accustomed to shopping wherever they want, whenever they want.
“Even before we launched the mobile-optimized site, over 800,000 customers were already shopping with us on their mobile phones and we had over 600,000 customers opted-in to receive text-message updates and promotions from us,” Ms. Veit said.
“The average age of mobile phone customers on unlimited Web packages—no cost for surfing the Internet—is 33, which mirrors our core customer online and demand will only grow as smartphones become more commonplace,” she said. “And as traditional online retail matures, mobile is expected to become the growth area for Internet retailing.
“One in ten of all Internet pages viewed in the UK are viewed on a mobile device and the number of adults using the mobile Internet is expected to double in the next two years.”


You may visite the mobile website here.

Lorsque la marque est victime de son succès.

Posséder une marque forte est bien sûr un atout compétitif indéniable. C’est d’ailleurs pour cela que des marques tels que Coca Cola dépensent des millions de dollars pour protéger leur marque.

Certaines marques sont devenus de tels références que leur nom est synonyme de la catégorie auxquelles elles appartiennent.Ainsi, un frigidaire est synonyme de réfrigérateur. Plus récemment, un Ipod désigne d’une manière générique un balladeur mp3.

La marque a une valeur marchande importante. C’est par exemple le cas de la marque « Orange », que France télécom a racheté à prix d’or à une société de télécom britannique pour rajeunir son image de marque.

L’un des plus beaux exemples est celui de Sopalin, qui a inventé et démocratisé l’essuie tout. Cependant, cette marque est restée dormante pendant de nombreuses années, et aujourd’hui son usage par le détenteur des droits et remis en question.

En effet, un article de LSA explique qu’un texte de loi prévoit la déchéance d’un nom de marque si ce dernier est passé dans le langage commun. Pour le prouver, il faut que la marque n’ait pas suffisament protégé son nom. Cela signifie que le groupe à qui appartient la marque doit intenter des actions à l’encontre des utilisateurs à chaque fois qu’elle est mentionnée comme synonyme d’une catégorie de produits par un tiers dans un film, un livre ou sur une affiche. A la base, une marque n’évoque pas un produit, elle permet juste de le distinguer dans une catégorie.
Quand cette dernière tombe dans le langage commun, elle perd son caractère distinctif et n’est plus apte à identifier le produit pour lequel elle est associée. Si une marque est déchue de son nom, elle doit abandonner le monopole de cette appellation, qui peut donc être utilisée par les tiers.

Ainsi, cela peut être un force de devenir le référent de sa catégorie, mais il est tout aussi important d’être acteur de la défense de cette marque. Ainsi, Caddie® est un très bon exemple de marque proprement défendue.

Audio Enhanced Newspaper Ad

The newspapers industry might be going in limbo due to the Internet competition, but what if it was innovating with paper? Some newspaper ads have already used mobile tags to go beyond simply displaying a printed ad.

I found this very interesting video on a blog:



Thanks to this tool, you may add audio content to your newspaper ad. It of course makes your commercial stand out. Also, it could be pretty pricy. In this particular example, the brand is BMW, a premium car manufacturer, so the quality of the medium is related to the high standard of the brand.

Product Pages Are Key To Turn Prospects Into Customers

Internet merchandising techniques are crucial in order to turn Internet viewers into customers. Indeed, retailers generate a high volume of traffic, but an important part of it will never buy on the site. Some of them are going to switch to a competitor's website, or they are just there to get information to buy in a store.

Hence, I found a very interesting article about product pages.

"Another mistake some retailers make is to omit key information from pages. For example, the product page for this toy kitchen on the Early Learning Centre website simply doesn't give enough detail. Lack of information on delivery charges is a common problem, as is quality and choice of product images, while many sites are simply not making use of effective sales features like videos and product reviews."

Suppliers Website To Have Key Roles In Buying Process

Suppliers, especially electronics brands have a strong impact in customers decision making process.
According to studies, 9% of online shoppers log on manufacturer to research information on products (+6% compared to last year).

Hence it implies 2 very important focus:

• Provide as much information as possible on your information. It should be extensive technical information, video, questions and answer features, customers comments… It is important to remain a reliable source of information, and also to become the leader in the market in terms of information. And I believe it would go through social media and community management, as you may become a great information place.
• Provide information about where to buy. It implies to set partnership with retailers to have information about where stores are located and the stock status. Also, I believe it would be a great idea to add a price comparator on the website by setting a partnership with a leader in the market. Also, it could become a revenue stream as you may get paid by offering a spot on your website.

Best Buy To Emphasize Its Multi Channel Solutions

Best Buy has always been a trailblazer when it comes to the Internet and also customer relationship management. Hence, its CRM strategy has been applauded for leveraging customers data to adapt their store concept to local specificities.

It is common for electronics retailers to have both a brick & mortar presence while owning a e commerce website. Nevertheless, most of the time, it is hard to make both entities coexist. Especially while a brick & mortar company is entering the e commerce sphere.

Best Buy has been able to make the best out of it, and for this new holiday season, it is going a step further. Best Buy is planning on improving its “buying on line, picking up in store” option. The product will be available in store 45 minutes after it has been purchased on the website.

Implementing such a concept requires perfect mastery of the stocks and supply chain. It implies Best Buy will be able to have an accurate knowledge of store’s stocks, warehouse ones and logistics schedule.

Prior to Best Buy, Circuit City had released the 24 minutes guarantee, shortly before filing for bankruptcy (I don’t know if there is any link between both statements).

A new idea is also the fact they’ll let customer pick up their goods right from the warehouse! Once again, this idea implies to design desks in the warehouse.

The idea is smart and great. They are making the best out of multichannel retailing. I believe that some French retailers should think about it.

Online RetailersInterested In Facebook Virtual Money

This blog post will probably interest Christophe Ducamp, our French expert in virtual money. You can speak for hours with Christophe about this interesting topic. Facebook has recently released its “Facebook Credit” virtual money. It allows you to buy some gifts to your friends.

Some brick & mortar retailers are already selling Facebook credits in their stores, thanks to gift cards, but some online retailers are also very interested by this new money. Hence, some companies like 1800 flowers in the US is already generating substantial revenues thanks to their Facebook page.

Actually, online retailers are thinking about using Facebook credits as incentives for their loyalty reward programs. This is smart to leverage the great potential of Facebook in terms of customer relationship management. Hence, instead of giving actual cash back, they can give credits for their Facebook contacts.

As a real community, Facebook has added a money, which will also help Facebook to retain their users. It is very interesting to see how people will adopt this new feature. Especially, it will be great to see the versatility of Facebook credits, meaning the range of products or service you may acquire with it.

Google Impressed By Twitter’s Results

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt was at a Techcrunch conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. He declared he was impressed about Twitter growth: “Twitter should be able to come up with advertising and monetization products that in our opinion are highly lucrative” according to Schmidt.

You may know how skeptical I am about Twitter’s strategy: not to worry about revenues, but focus on growth. Of course it is important to have the largest number of users to get the largest audience as possible. I believe it is important though to think fast how to get the platform profitable to secure revenues and hence long term growth (even if it affects the user growth).

However, Twitter is right now impressive. In the very same article you will learn that Twitter has passed My Space in terms of users. While MySpace audience is falling by 17% (which shows how sad it is for a social media company which is already decreasing), whereas Twitter gained 76% in the same time.

As Eric Schmidt say, of course that thanks to Twitter’s concept combined with the number of users it has, monetization potential is phenomenal. But it needs to become true. Twitter has already launched several potential revenue streams, as the promoted tweets feature, which is already experiencing great success, but some others haven’t the same results. The early bird initiative, a Twitter account which was proposing some discounts and special offers to its followers, have been abandoned fast.


Twitter reached 160 million users around the world, which is a security. Now I really hope Twitter is going to start generating high revenues.