eBusiness Strategy

Selling Luxury Goods To Online Shoppers In China

Zia Daniell Wigder — Tue, 22 May 2012 14:11:39 +0000

We just published a report on the online luxury shopper in China, Selling Luxury Goods To Online Shoppers In China. The report looks at the demographic of the online luxury shopper in China and the nature of the online luxury marketplace in China -- it also provides advice for brands looking to succeed in this rapidly evolving market.

In this report we note that:

Like all categories online in China, luxury is growing rapidly. According to the World Luxury Association, China is currently the second largest luxury market in the world -- it is already clear that part of the demand is coming from online shoppers. In the past few years, a number of the world's most elite brands have gone online in China. Going online now with a strategic approach will be key to securing long-term market share.

There are many types of luxury shoppers in China. The online luxury shopper in China spans multiple income brackets and age ranges and lives in both tier 1 and tier 2 cities. Success in this space will mean being considerate of what each of these shoppers is looking for.

The needs of the luxury shoppers with the most purchasing power are not being met.While a handful of luxury brands have gone live in China with localized sites, today's online luxury experience is rarely compelling. Additionally, domestic online retailers primarily target online shoppers looking for a deal, with few websites offering sophisticated interfaces. In this report, we look at what is and isn't being done and what changes will offer the luxury shopper a satisfying online experience.

Where Does Commerce Technology Investment Stand Today?

Brian Walker — Mon, 21 May 2012 18:43:14 +0000

As customer behavior continues to evolve, and digital channels become ever more important to businesses, eBusiness budgets have been steadily rising since 2008. In 2010, the average company invested $34.4 million on their customer-facing online presence, and the average mobile and social spending both passed the $2 million per year mark. There has also strong growth is spending in eCommerce technology, with nearly two-thirds of eBusiness professionals citing an increase in eCommerce technology investment in 2011.

So where do firms stand today? Help us find out by taking our latest eBusiness & Channel Strategy Panel Survey on eBusiness budgets and commerce technology investment. It will take only about 10-15 minutes to complete. We invite Forrester clients and non-clients alike to participate in the survey. For non-clients, as a thank you for completing the survey you will be given a choice of one of three complimentary Forrester reports.

I really appreciate your help in understanding the state of eBusiness budgets and spending and we look forward to putting that research together for you.

We're Hiring: Analyst Serving eBusiness & Channel Strategy, Amsterdam Or London

Benjamin Ensor — Mon, 21 May 2012 13:19:33 +0000

We're looking for a new analyst or senior analyst to join our eBusiness and channel strategy team, based in either Amsterdam or London. We're looking for someone with an analytical mind, good communication skills (listening, not just talking!), strong views on the impact of digital technologies on eBusiness and channel strategy, and experience of the complexities of retail financial services and of different European markets to help our clients make great business decisions and shape their firms' strategies.

If this sounds like you, or like someone you know, please contact me at bensor@forrester.com or see the full details in the job description.

What Can Bank eBusiness Executives Do About The Euro Crisis?

Benjamin Ensor — Sat, 19 May 2012 09:47:26 +0000

These are worrying times for people across Europe as the euro lurches towards another crisis, with leaders talking openly about the possibility of Greece leaving the euro and reports of customers starting to withdraw deposits from banks in Greece and Bankia in Spain.

It's easy to feel powerless in the face of such powerful forces, but fundamentally the repeated euro crises are about two things: debt and confidence. Lots of individuals, small companies, banks and governments across Europe have a large amount of debt, and lenders -- depositors, investors and other banks -- aren't completely confident that all of them will be able to pay it back. It's critical to avoid a vicious spiral of declining confidence that will harm Europe's economic prospects and the livelihoods of its peoples.

What can bank eBusiness executives do about it? Remember that you control two of your bank's critical communication channels: the website and email. Use them to reassure customers. How?

How to Start Your eCommerce Business in China

Brian Walker — Fri, 18 May 2012 22:49:21 +0000

China has become the leading emerging market for many Western brands and retailers. For many businesses, the growing spending power of high-income consumers and the middle class in China has become a compelling growth engine. For luxury brands, China is already a huge growth market, and many Western companies have had a brand presence in China for many years, albeit often with counterfeit products and even whole counterfeit stores. But as the economy grows in China and consumer thirst for foreign brands increases, companies will be compelled to consider an online direct-to-consumer presence due in-part to the following factors:

Adobe Partners With hybris: What It Means

Brian Walker — Tue, 15 May 2012 20:25:30 +0000

Adobe recently announced its partnership with hybris. This deal has been a poorly kept secret as Adobe waited to make public announcements at its customer summit even after it has been out selling the joint solution and working with partners. Adobe is integrating the hybris commerce platform with Adobe's Web Experience Management (WEM) solutions, an artist formerly known as Day CQ5. This is intended to add commerce capabilities to the CMS/CXM solution represented by WEM. Companies should consider a number of things when evaluating this product relationship between hybris and Adobe, including:

Online Marketplaces Set To Proliferate

Brian Walker — Tue, 15 May 2012 15:52:33 +0000

It seems online marketplaces are cropping up everywhere. Retailers, software companies, media companies, and consumer electronics makers are using marketplaces as a means to enhance and augment their own offerings with products made, owned, and distributed by third-party retailers, distributors, developers, and brands. The most successful examples of these today are of course Amazon's Marketplace, eBay, Apple's App Store, and Valve's Steamworks. But based on numerous inquiries of late, soon we will see many, many more marketplaces online. Key reasons why we are seeing the proliferation of marketplaces in the next 18-24 months:

Measuring Mobile Success . . . How Is Real-Time Data Making Your Customers Healthier And Happier?

Julie Ask — Mon, 14 May 2012 23:02:13 +0000

One of the key things that differentiates mobile phones from any other device is their ability to deliver a constant stream of real time data coupled with the processing capability to help consumers make a wealth of decisions based on this information. Tablets -- we're going to leave home without them, and the majority of connections are over Wi-Fi. Wearable technology collects real-time information and may have applications/display, but we aren't yet seeing devices with the same flexibilty as the phone. The highly anticipated Pebble may yet be the device, but for today, it is the phone. (My colleague Sarah Rotman Epps writes a lot on these devices -- see the rest of her research for more information).

With that fact established, my open question is, "Who is making my life better with this ability to process information near instantaneously to help me live a better, healthier life . . . or at least how I choose to define it?" I think the key to measuring mobile success must lie here -- from the perspective of the consumer first before mobile will deliver huge returns in the form of revenue or lower operating costs.

Finovate Spring 2012: Digital Financial Services Innovation

Tiffani Montez — Fri, 11 May 2012 00:15:07 +0000

I attended Finovatethis week to get a preview of new financial services digital technology vendors. I say preview because if you have ever been to Finovate, you know it's a little like speed dating, where 63 vendors have 7 minutes each to show you their best moves. The themes at Finovate this year were not much different as previous years with the focus being on mobile banking, personal financial management, and payments. However, this year, a few new topics emerged: rewards, coupons, and mobile banking services for Pre-Paid Visas customers. Apparently, Pre-Paid Visas are the new black.

While there was plenty of interesting and innovative demonstrations, Forrester attended the conference to identify trends and solutions relevant for our retail digital financial services clients. Specifically, we looked at innovative solutions for our clients related to mobile banking, personal financial management, and payments. The following vendors stood out as innovative solutions for mobile banking, personal financial management, and payments:

Discover Offers Best-In-Class Secure Site Features For Cardholders: Forrester’s 2012 US Credit Card Secure Website Rankings

Peter Wannemacher — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:39:24 +0000

Websites are the most widely used touchpoint for credit cardholders interacting with their providers. The quality of a credit card company's secure website impacts the relationship that firm has with its customers. To understand the state of card issuers' digital services, Forrester has just released our 2012 US Credit Card Secure Website Rankings. We found that:

Discover leads the pack with exceptional service features and valuable transactional functionality. With a score of 80 out of 100, Discover received the highest overall score among the six credit card issuers whose websites we evaluated. The firm earned a whopping 91 in our online servicing category, as well as an impressive 84 in our transactional content and functionality category.
eBusiness teams at card issuers have room to improve in cross-selling and usability. Although the websites we looked at revealed strong digital services among credit card issuers overall, our benchmark also uncovered opportunities for improvement, specifically in the areas of user experience design and secure website cross-selling. eBusiness teams need to enhance their websites' navigation, task flow efficiency, and location cues while improving the contextual cross-selling & upselling on the secure site.
Digital rewards management tools and merchant-funded rewards will be critical to future success. Today, pure-play card brands like American Express and Discover lead in terms of innovative partnerships and cross-touchpoint offers for cardholders. American Express offers exclusive options to clients via partnerships with Twitter and foursquare, as well as the ability to "share" rewards points digitally with other users. As eBusiness teams at other card companies move toward next-generation digital initiatives, they will begin to roll out their own innovative rewards options.
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Lessons Learned: What B2C eCommerce Can Teach B2B

Andy Hoar — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:11:17 +0000

In our new report, B2B eCommerce: Going from Surviving to Thriving By Adopting Proven B2C Principles, we assess the current state of B2B eCommerce, what impact B2C has had on customers' expectations for B2B eCommerce, and how B2B eCommerce professionals are leveraging lessons learned from B2C to drive more business online.

We conclude that B2B eCommerce enterprises have something to learn from their more experienced B2C brethren who have set a standard for customer expectations and established a series of eCommerce best practices. A few key findings:

A Week Of eCommerce In Brazil

Zia Daniell Wigder — Wed, 02 May 2012 13:40:16 +0000

I was thrilled to be back in São Paulo last week visiting with different companies in the eCommerce space. I met with over a half dozen online retailers, as well as other players in the industry including payment providers and market entry specialists. It was also great to have the opportunity to speak at Rakuten's event on April 24th announcing their official launch in the country.

Below are a handful of takeaways from the trip:

Online momentum is building in categories such as apparel and beauty. In markets like the US and the UK, apparel represents a significant percentage of total online sales. In Brazil, by contrast, this category is just starting to take off, with online sales currently representing a very small percentage of the total market. As issues such as inconsistent sizing are increasingly addressed, however, and new entrants boost the market, the online apparel sector is set to grow substantially. Likewise, there's much talk of growing beauty sales in Brazil (the country is set to surpass Japan to become the world's second largest beauty market) - as with apparel, online beauty sales are a tiny fraction of the total today, suggesting substantial growth opportunities going forward.

Mobile Chat Will Widen The Gap Between Overlooked And Innovative Mobile Customer Support

Diane Clarkson — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:20:28 +0000

Mobile remains a fragmented strategy in many companies. Ownership is not always clear. And customer service is commonly -- woefully -- overlooked.

The gap between overlooked mobile customer service and innovative mobile customer support will widen. And those innovative eBusiness leaders will increasingly look to mobile chat.

Website chat has revolutionized how customers and eBusinesses engage with one another, and it has quickly grown into one of the most satisfying channels among online customer service options. In the last two years, consumer's adoption of website chat has nearly doubled; at 62%, it has the highest satisfaction rating among all online customer support channels. In fact, Generations Z and X have higher satisfaction chatting with a live agent than speaking on the telephone with a live agent. (See my the January 23, 2012, "Understanding Customer Service Satisfaction To Inform Your 2012 eBusiness Strategy" report.)

Mobile chat can do the same for mobile offerings.

Today's innovative mobile features offer consumers wide-ranging functionality, such as making access to reviews and product specs as easy as scanning a QR code, turning passive catalogs into interactive style guides, and proactively sending mobile coupons. Mobile chat will increasingly enhance these mobile offerings, making them even more interactive and engaging while also supporting revenue goals.

Take Aveda's mobile app, for example. Consumers can have a chat session to get product recommendations from an expert. This is a quick, engaging interaction -- one that may never inspire a telephone call, but the convenience of a mobile chat could easily support a sale while also extending Aveda's ability to engage customers.

When Will You Become An Internet Bank?

Auke Douwe Veenstra — Tue, 01 May 2012 08:23:56 +0000

Last week I visited the Dutch SNS Bank because it has an interesting story to tell. It is one of the few banks that have radically changed their behavior toward digital channels. Instead of reasoning, like the majority of banks are doing, that the Internet is about adding another sales channel in addition to branches, SNS Bank has changed its way of thinking fundamentally: "We are an Internet bank with shops that are an outbound extension of our Internet value proposition." The bank understood two things: 1) The digital revolution is not only limited to the younger, tech-savvy generations, and 2) digital is affecting every aspect of the banking operation regarding product and processes. I haven't seen many retail banks that truly sense the pace of digital change. As always, financial services companies don't necessarily feel the sense of urgency to make radical changes in their distribution methods. A lot of times, we see an attitude like "OK, let's try digital and see what happens, and if it proves itself after one year we have plenty of time and our pockets are deep enough, to respond." This might not be true in the coming years. In a time where digital touch points are growing quickly, this attitude won't work and companies have to make the adjustments earlier and faster. It's good to see that some banks are appointing mobile directors of heads of digital channels; this illustrates that they take digital seriously.Read more

AmazonSupply . . . Amazon's Camel's Nose Under The B2B eCommerce Tent?

Andy Hoar — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 22:12:26 +0000

For years the cognoscenti have speculated that Amazon would make an official move into B2B eCommerce. Well . . . they're finally right. Just a few days ago, Amazon launched their first purpose-built B2B eCommerce site called AmazonSupply.

And yes . . . the entrenched and established e-distributers in the B2B space should be worried. Here's why:

eBusiness Strategy

Selling Luxury Goods To Online Shoppers In China

Where Does Commerce Technology Investment Stand Today?

Categories:

We're Hiring: Analyst Serving eBusiness & Channel Strategy, Amsterdam Or London

Categories:

What Can Bank eBusiness Executives Do About The Euro Crisis?

Categories:

How to Start Your eCommerce Business in China

Categories:

Adobe Partners With hybris: What It Means

Online Marketplaces Set To Proliferate

Categories:

Measuring Mobile Success . . . How Is Real-Time Data Making Your Customers Healthier And Happier?

Categories:

Finovate Spring 2012: Digital Financial Services Innovation

Categories:

Discover Offers Best-In-Class Secure Site Features For Cardholders: Forrester’s 2012 US Credit Card Secure Website Rankings

Categories:

Lessons Learned: What B2C eCommerce Can Teach B2B

A Week Of eCommerce In Brazil

Categories:

Mobile Chat Will Widen The Gap Between Overlooked And Innovative Mobile Customer Support

Categories:

When Will You Become An Internet Bank?

Categories:

AmazonSupply . . . Amazon's Camel's Nose Under The B2B eCommerce Tent?