Comment Engaging the next generation

Engaging the next generation

Ian Jindal, Editor of InternetRetailing.net

Ian Jindal is Editor-in-Chief at InternetRetailing.net, a news and analysis site for internet retailers. Ian is also an e-commerce consultant in retail and publishing. His presentation – of which we offer a summary below – offered a ‘quick romp’ through the repercussions of Web 2.0. For a better idea of the work Ian has done, visit Ian's website. 

 
Summary of presentation

Ian began with a stark truth: your customers do not care about you. However flash or colourful your web site is, it really does not matter – you need to think about what your customers actually want. Ian illustrated this position using the following examples:

• Amazon.com Diamond Search  – a new interface available on the US version of Amazon to counter the quite difficult real-life experience of shopping for diamonds. Its non-patronising user interface educates customers at the same time as acting as an innovative sales tool.
  
  
• Google Finance – in Ian’s opinion, the world’s best finance site, this Google interface helps readers navigate through swathes of financial information by educating users about how to read a financial histogram. It supplements the information with relevant, interactive data and links to news, updated in real-time.

The 3 elements of a successful web site

Ian went on to describe the three key tenets for what works on a web site:

• Clarity
  
  
• Relevance
  
  
• Sufficiency

To demonstrate these he compared two camera web sites. The first, Amateur Photographer, contained a lengthy article about a new camera model. In contrast, Flickr provided key data only, with a link to photos taken by users of the camera, peer reviews and links to where to buy the camera – all ‘actionable information’ instead of ‘digital dead tree’! Ian encouraged the audience to think about usng short bursts of text rather than long wordy pieces.

Turning to look at how we engage in conversation with our customers, Ian then asked the audience to think carefully about how we start and manage our conversations. He pointed out that organisations do not own the conversation anymore, with sites like Skype, Twitter and TripAdvisor offering us all the opportunity to publish information and opinions ourselves. Sites like Twitter allow individuals to publish real-time information – perhaps about a delay on the tube system in London – often more quickly than the official information sites do. In this new world of ‘present-ism’, if you fail to tell people where you are on the grid, then you don’t exist – a sobering thought indeed.

Ian went on to point out that adding an element of play and discovery to online retail and merchandising is appealing to customers. Ian referred to this as 'searchandising’ and gave the example of Amazon.com-owned endless.com, an online shoe shop that allows customers to browse through a range of merchandise easily from just one page. The page also offers real-time stock and delivery information.

Behavioural analytics and personas

Using the analogy of a submarine operating without sonar, Ian stressed the importance of real-time behavioural analytics. Looking beyond the sophisticated analytics available today Ian outlined moves towards Attention Profiling Markup Language (APML) - the best example of which is, presently, Amazon’s "people who looked at this also looked at…". This mechanism is used as a merchandising tool to market other items in stock. It might even be possible to make APML profiles portable between applications. As consumers, Ian reminded us that we need to take more responsibility for our own profiles because they are marketing gold dust. And as businesses we need to understand profiles better, and, consequently, how to exploit them.

According to Ian, getting your organisation to invest in initiatives like this does require a solid business case. But it is one that will involve thinking differently to that usually underpinning the funding of marketing budgets. Ian warned companies against simply buying into ‘shiny new things’, urging them instead to challenge their ideas commercially.

Many companies today have 'second mover advantage’. They can follow in the footsteps of competitors who have gone before them and leap ahead of them at a much cheaper price. For companies that already have a web site, Ian recommends putting in small improvements that will not sink the ship. Companies doing this well tend to have a two-year plan with small monthly or quarterly updates and releases rather than big annual planning and implementation cycles.

Ian concluded by emphasising the need for simplicity and the removal of things that are either non-profit-making or absorbing the customer’s attention without moving towards a sale. Ian recommends building in tests and analyses so you know what works and what does not on your site. By being ruthless and keeping things simple Ian believes that you can understand your customers’ needs and use appropriate tools to satisfy them with the minimum of fuss.

Contact cScape's Customer Engagement Unit for more details:

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