The Importance of Relevant Recommendations

Imagine this scenario. You’re staying at a hotel, and you visit the concierge for a great dinner recommendation. You give him all sorts of information, including your craving for surf and turf. You tell him about the vintage red wine you like and your wife’s favorite chardonnay. You say you want a relaxed, romantic atmosphere – nothing too loud. After sharing all of those details, the concierge recommends the local sports bar. Wouldn’t you have expected more? Would you think less of the concierge and even the hotel chain as a whole? This same kind of interaction happens between retailers and consumers every day.

Such a disconnect can quickly turn consumers off and send them searching for other options. They are demanding personalized experiences and have come to expect relevant recommendations in exchange for sharing information about themselves. In fact, according to a recent Bronto-commissioned survey of U.S. consumers, 60% of millennials and 45% of Gen Xers expect retailers to make product recommendations based on their past purchases. Yet just 21% of millennials and 9% of Gen Xers are always satisfied with the recommendations they receive. What a major gap between expectation and reality.

When they’re done well, product recommendations are a powerful tool for connecting with consumers and making them feel like you truly understand them. They can be used in virtually any email, from day-to-day promotional emails and automated lifecycle messages, such as post-purchase and browse recovery, to order and shipping confirmations. They can even stand on their own as recommendation-only emails. And the best part is they don’t cause any additional strain for your likely lean email marketing team.

In this article, I’ll discuss:

• The dos and don’ts f using product recommendations

• How to make your product recommendations stand out

• Potential pitfalls to avoid

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Are Loyalty Programs Still Doing Their Job?

It’s a pretty disloyal world out there, but can you really blame the consumer? Online shopping has never been easier, and stores have been stepping over each other to see who can offer the deepest discount. While discounting your way to a one-time purchase might work in the short term, at the end of the day, you need to aim for a higher prize: customer loyalty.

Many retailers attempt to accomplish this with an official loyalty program. There’s just one problem – they rarely work.

In this article, I’ll discuss:

• What makes a good loyalty program

• Why customers don’t feel loyalty to programs

• Examples from Starbucks, Macy’s, Bruegger’s Bagels, and Amazon

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The Threat of Disappearing Brands in the Age of Voice Assistants

When you see a red and white can of soda or a Peter Pan silhouette on a jar, you see a brand. You know the product. But what happens when you don’t have those visual cues to draw you to certain items when you shop?

Brands used to rely on traditional advertising to embed their brand imagery in our minds and remain visible and relevant to their audience. But in today’s digital-first world, consumer attention is more fragmented. Television screen time is declining, while time spent on smartphones and other mediums is increasing. This has created challenges for brands trying to stay in front of consumers.

Voice assistants add an additional layer of uncertainty to the traditional means of keeping us brand loyal. With devices like Siri, Google Home, and Amazon’s Alexa-enabled options, consumers are relying more and more on browserless interactions. In fact, comScore predicts that 50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020. That’s not that far away.

But while performing informational searches is one thing, the idea of searching for products and actually buying them via browserless commerce is quite another. This begs the question: if consumers are searching and buying via voice, will this erode the value of brands as we know them?

The Age of Voice Is Upon Us

Amazon claims it sold millions of Alexa devices over the Black Friday weekend and that the Echo Dot was the top-selling item on the website worldwide during the holiday season. That equates to a lot of people saying, “Hey Alexa, order me batteries.” In this scenario, the first result you get is for Amazon private-label batteries. So how do Duracell and Energizer compete with this? How do their branding efforts influence a consumer’s purchasing decision when those visual brand cues are no longer available? Are either of these two brands stronger than Amazon? Battery sales figures from Amazon indicate they’re not.

And what about those instances when Alexa fails to deliver the brand name you’re looking for and suggests you open a browser to find it? With convenience so in demand, you may opt to purchase the suggested non-branded product just to avoid spending one more second shopping for batteries. If you’re willing to take the extra step to switch devices just to make the purchase, you must really love the brand.

What Do Voice-Assisted Consumers Want?

There is no doubt that the post-Gen Z generation, often referred to as Generation Alpha, will have voice assistants as a part of their everyday life. Gen Z is coming of consumer age during this evolutionary period, and they have the spending power and skills to navigate technology. And what about millennials? According to eMarketer, thirty million were expected to use voice assistants monthly in 2017. So, what do these consumers want from the experience, and how can brands provide it?

Millennials are loyal to strong brands. And they’re drawn to both value and hyper-convenience. What does this have to do with browserless commerce? In a recent conversation with millennial marketing expert Jeff Fromm, he said this age group is loyal to brands when the brand is strong, but will trade down when it is weak. If you pair that idea with the millennial interest in value and convenience, you understand the magnitude of the challenge brands are facing. Voice assistants are the definition of hyper-convenience.

Millennials also appreciate value, which doesn’t always mean the lowest price. Think bang for the buck. It’s one reason millennials often mix brand names and private labels. If we use the Amazon battery example, Amazon hits the trifecta: a strong brand, value, and convenience. How can brand-name battery makers compete?

But millennials are just one example. Other generational groups share many of the same values. In a browserless era, brand-name paper towels, peanut butter, ketchup, underwear, mouthwash, or any other branded basic runs the risk of fading away without the visual cues that advertising built and in-person shopping enhanced.

What Can Marketers Do?

Focus on communicating your value in a way that gives consumers a reason to verbally request your brand. For example. I love Utz’s old-fashioned hard sourdough pretzels. Not pretzel rods, or small twists, but the big ones that crack my teeth! I need to convey to my wife, who does the majority of shopping, why she should specifically request that product and not settle for the recommended sourdough rods.

The same goes for when the household’s usual shopper isn’t the one ordering from the voice assistant. In the store, I might be able to recognize the laundry detergent we use by its color and logo. Without that visual, how do I choose the right one? My instinct might be to order the recommended product or the cheapest one. How you differentiate your product from generic brands is critical.

Voice assistants also change the SEO game. How we speak will become more important than the words we type into a search engine. As a non-SEO expert, I would optimize for voice by writing and producing web content in a conversational style. Consider what consumers might ask when searching for your product and how your product or content might help solve their needs. For example, I might ask, “Hey Google, what’s the best way to keep my toes warm in cold weather?” Would the content you produce or the way you write your sock’s product description be relevant enough to return a query result?

In an age of voice, the potential for brand erosion certainly exists. How far will it go? Frankly, we don’t know yet. This evolution should force existing brands to rethink how they target and interact with their audience. Staying top of mind at a time when consumers are constantly connected, value is weighted, price comparison is commonplace, and convenience is essential is difficult. And it’s especially true when the actual device returning the consumer’s request may be a direct competitor. Will brands as we currently know them be forever changed by this evolution?

In the age of voice, a familiar logo is no longer enough.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

Holiday Predictions Recap: Did I Hit the Mark or Shoot My Eye Out?

The holiday season exploded, much like a shot fired from a Red Rider carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time. Back in October, I laid out my predictions for the 2017 holiday season. Now it’s time to take aim at my predictions and see whether I had Black Bart in the crosshairs or ended up shooting my eye out.

Where I Hit the Mark

Prediction: More Mobile Sales
Last year, mobile accounted for 30% of all online sales. I predicted mobile sales would increase to roughly 35%.

Result: We all saw this coming. Mobile accounted for 40% of online purchases, 33% of online revenue, and 56% of traffic, according to Adobe. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times; if you’re not optimized for mobile, you’re not optimized.

Prediction: Early Sales

Online holiday sales will start in October.

Result: Seeing as every day in November drove $1 billion in online sales, we know people were shopping the deals early. From my personal inbox, the incentives offered by retailers during the final week in October were right in line with those offered in November.

Prediction: Exclusions Apply

You will see fewer “off everything” promotions and an increase in discounts on “select items.”

Result: I did notice an uptick in select categories of sale items, such as discounts on pajamas one day and sweaters the next. While I did see exclusionary sales, I think they were handled much better than last year. Last year, in many instances, I would cart items only to find out at checkout that they were not discounted. This year, I noticed the sales having their own sections on websites and emails clearly defining which categories of products were on sale.

Prediction: Black Friday and Cyber Monday

I predicted both days would drive over $1 billion in mobile commerce and that the promotions for these days would start on Sunday or Monday prior.

Result: Black Friday raked in nearly $1.9 billion in mobile revenue, nearly 37% of all of Black Friday’s online revenue. Cyber Monday became the first day ever to reach $2 billion in mobile revenue, setting a new mobile benchmark.

Black Friday wasn’t just a day – it was a weeklong event. Even though Gray November was in full effect, many retailers started their Black Friday earlier that week. I made 92% of my purchases prior to Black Friday, and the other 8% on Black Friday itself. The deals were out early.

Prediction: Thanksgiving Day

I predicted that Thanksgiving Day would cross $2 billion in online sales for the first time ever.

Result: Online sales clocked in at $2.87 billion for the day. This day keeps growing as a critical online shopping day.

Prediction: Browserless Commerce

I predicted voice assistants would be the hottest sellers of the season, with Amazon devices being the No. 1 sellers in this group.

Result: Well, Apple’s HomePod was delayed until 2018, handing market share to Google and Amazon, and Google did not disclose how many devices were sold during the holidays.

But does it even matter? Amazon appears to be the big winner here. Amazon’s David Limp, head of devices, said that millions of Alexa-enabled devices were sold over Black Friday weekend. Amazon later said the Echo Dot was the top-selling item on the website worldwide during the holiday season, while the Fire TV Stick was runner-up. Can households claim Alexa as a dependent?

Prediction: Amazon’s Take

Amazon captured 38% of the online holiday sales in 2016, and I predicted this figure would inch up to the 45% mark.

Result: Amazon is king. GBH Insights estimated Amazon accounted for between 45% and 50% of online sales during the holidays. On Thanksgiving and Black Friday, Amazon accounted for 45% of online transactions among the 50 top retailers, according to Hitwise. Amazon also announced Cyber Monday was its best day ever, surpassing even Prime Day. Considering they were responsible for 44% of all online sales in 2017, this all sounds like just another day in Amazon-land.

A Few Half-Baked Holiday Results

Prediction: Even More Mobile Clicks
In Q4 2016, mobile accounted for nearly 57% of paid search clicks, with 47% coming from smartphones. I predicted we would see continued increases.

Result: At the time of writing, the data is not yet available. However, with 56% of holiday traffic coming from mobile, I would expect this prediction to be a successful one.

Prediction: In-Store Exclusives

In an attempt to drive in-store traffic, I predicted you might see a rise in brick-and-mortar retailers offering “off everything” or deeper discount sales for in-store only.

Result: There was a noticeable increase in retailers offering an additional discount, on top of the online discount, for shopping in-store. However, a relatively small number offered store-only discounts. In fact, I was astounded to see some omnichannel retailers make specific mention of the discounts being for online purchases only. Why would they not want their customers to come into the store? If anything, make it available in both places.

Prediction: Re-engineering the Brick-and-Mortar Experience
I predicted we’d see a lot of in-store-only Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, as well as some in-store price-matching.

Result: While there was a noticeable rise in extra in-store incentives, there seemed to be relatively few in-store-only sales for these signature days. This might be why Shopertrak reported that foot traffic to physical retail stores was down 1% on Black Friday.

And to no one’s surprise, Black Friday deals were widely available for the entire week (and weekend) of Thanksgiving. Looking at my own inbox, more than 20% of all email subject lines contained the term “Black Friday” on the Monday before.

And yes, price-matching was seemingly everywhere. Stores like Dick’s, Walmart, Best Buy, Sears, Newegg, and even Amazon, in some cases, all deployed price-matching strategies during the holidays.

Prediction: Email Marketing Will Continue to Dominate

Result: This one is still pending, as complete data is still being analyzed. Adobe did report that on Cyber Monday, email drove 24.9% of sales, closely followed by the 22.9% from paid search. My inbox was extremely busy. In November, I received almost 25% more emails this year than last year. Year over year, Bronto sent more than 25% more emails on both Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Email continues to be a highly effective marketing tool for retailers.

Where I Shot My Eye Out

Prediction: More Billion Dollar Days.

I predicted we’d see 60 of the 61 days in November and December rake in $1 billion in online sales, up from the 57 days in 2017.

Result: 58 of 61 days topped the $1 billion mark. Every day in November reached this milestone, further reinforcing Gray November as a mainstay, not a trend. While improving upon last year, December let me down. Come on, December!

Prediction: The largest online shopping day of the year

I predicted that for the first time, Black Friday – not Cyber Monday – would be the largest online shopping day of the year.

Result: Here’s the big one. I predicted Black Friday to be the online king of the year. My reasoning was based on the industry-accepted benchmark of 2016 Black Friday and Cyber Monday online sales of $3.34 and $3.45 billion, respectively. We have been seeing this gap seemingly close year over year. Inexplicably, when the 2016 baselines were referenced, these numbers were surprisingly different, at over $4.3 and $5.65 billion each day, respectively. What a difference! While the industry thought Black Friday was about to catch Cyber Monday in sales, these adjusted numbers show that this wasn’t quite the case.

All in all, this year’s Cyber Monday reportedly clocked in at $6.59 billion, and outperformed Black Friday by $1.5 billion. Although Cyber Monday has some breathing room as king of online sales, Black Friday, at over $5 billion, is no day to smirk at.

And What About My “Bold” Predictions?

Predictions:

• Starbucks will take flak over its holiday cup design. ‘Tis the season!

• I will once again purchase my tree on Black Friday.

• Fruitcake, while good in theory, will continue to be a poor party dessert.

Results: A little, yes, and yes!

The Starbucks cup design faced only minor controversy this year. Hey, someone has to complain, right?

I again purchased my tree on Black Friday, but not from the usual store. Upon arriving at my usual retailer, I was greeted with a ghost town. My local fire department’s tree lot was the winner this year. I absolutely loved my tree, and that usual retailer may have just lost my tree business forever.

And no, I did not serve fruitcake at my holiday party.

While not all of my predictions for 2017 hit the target, coming up with them is always fun. And by all accounts, this holiday season was great for consumers looking for a deal. Although retailer margins may have been squeezed, retailers certainly benefited from the high shopping turnout. This year, I look forward to seeing who Amazon acquires (I have my thoughts), how consumer behaviors will shift, and how retailers will adapt to meet their needs. These will, of course, all affect my predictions. Hopefully, next year, my predictions will be more like a Red Rider and less like pink bunny pajamas. Only time will tell.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

2017 Email Marketing Report Card: Did Your Program Make the Grade?

As 2017 finds itself in your rearview mirror, ask yourself a question. What changes did I make to my email program in 2017 that had a significant impact? It’s a simple question, but I bet many of you won’t have a good answer. Some of you are likely doing the same thing now at the end of the year that you were at the start of it, possibly due to the rush of day-to-day execution or limited internal resources.

But email continues to be a powerful marketing tool. According to Econsultancy, 73% of in-house marketers worldwide said that email marketing provided a strong ROI, the most of any marketing channel. Yet, it’s too often overlooked or taken for granted.

While you may be planning to grow your email ROI in 2018, it will require some reflection and careful planning. Take a good hard look at where your program started and ended the year, and why you did or did not accomplish your goals.

Here’s a checklist to help you plan for 2018:

Review your previous goals. What were your 2017 email marketing initiatives? If you didn’t commit to any specific goals in 2017, keep reading. Now’s the time to start planning and setting goals for the coming year.

Document major accomplishments. Look at your program from the top down. What were your major accomplishments from this past year? Did you implement any new email programs, such as browse recovery? If so, how are they performing?

Optimize your messages. If you made an effort to optimize your messaging in 2017, how has it performed? Did the changes work as intended? If not, why? If so, how can you apply these principles to other messages in 2018? Don’t stop there. How can you further optimize your messages in 2018?

Assess incomplete goals. Which initiatives are left undone, and why? What roadblocks prevented you from accomplishing your goals, and how will you overcome them in 2018? And here’s another question. How much revenue did you leave on the table by not reaching these goals?

Plan for 2018. What key initiatives do you want to achieve in 2018? How much will each help your overall email program?

Analyze your resources. If you realize that you simply can’t get things done, ask for help. Find someone internally who can lend a hand. Look for partners, such as your email provider, who might be able to guide and assist you with executing your vision. Find outside third parties who may be able to help. There’s no shortage of help out here.

Don’t set it and forget it. Always look at the numbers and identify areas for improvement. If you don’t change the oil in your car, it will eventually stop working. The same goes for your automated messages. Consider editing subject lines, freshening up hero images, changing verbiage, updating template layouts, and split-testing multiple versions of your messages. What looked good two years ago may be stale and out of date today.

Don’t stop with best practices. Just because you implemented new programs this year doesn’t mean they can’t be improved. Remember: Best practices are not the endpoint, but rather the starting point. How can you make these messages more relevant for your subscribers?

Doing the same thing and hoping for better results is not only impractical, but it’s not a sustainable model for success, particularly now that consumers are more in control and expect more from retailers. If you haven’t done so yet, it’s time to come up with your roadmap for improvement. Perhaps you’ll focus on product recommendations, behavioral segmentation, optimized automated messages, user-generated content, or a combination of them all. I recently wrote about several strategies for doing just that.

With so much available out there to help you improve your email ROI, you should be asking yourself not “What can we do?” but “How much can we do?”

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

New Year, New Emails, No More Excuses

With email continuing to be one of the top-performing online marketing channels, I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise that my inbox is overrun with bland, generic emails. Why change what seems to be working? But change is inevitable. If you don’t believe me, just look at what evolving consumer expectations have done to many legacy retailers.

First, a look at some numbers. The Relevancy Group reports that U.S. marketing executives attribute 23% of total revenue in Q2 2017 to email, a 21% year-over-year increase. But other research suggests consumers expect more. A Flagship Research report from 2016 showed that 62% of consumers expect website browsing behavior to be used to personalize emails, and 76% expect the same with purchase history. Relevance matters to consumers, especially when it comes to marketing emails.

Traditional promotional emails can still deliver revenue, but relevant, personalized emails can deliver much more. I know, you don’t have a lot of resources at your disposal. I know, it’s only you running the show. And yes, I know you already have a welcome series (well, really, I hope you do). But I also know an excuse when I hear one.

The fact is, while some strategies require larger resources or investments, many do not – and those that don’t can pay huge dividends. Make 2018 excuse-free. Roll up your sleeves and improve your email program. Here are three ways to get started.

Step 1: Reassess Your Welcome Series

If a 60-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman sign up to receive your emails, will they receive the same welcome series? If the answer is yes, you need to make adjustments. Consumers expect relevance. Sending the same message to both subscribers is not that.

There are a couple of ways to do this. Look at what page, or category, the sign-up came from, and deliver specific messaging based on the acquisition source. If they signed up from the maternity category, customize their messaging to match. If they signed up on the men’s swim trunks page, do the same. Apply this strategy not only to the first message, but the entire series as well. Tracking the source is easy to do with a simple piece of source code, a field identifier or by using a unique sign-up form. The best part is that you can implement this tracking before any messages are even created, which gives you valuable segmentation information on your subscribers before new welcome messages start sending.

In lieu of this tactic, or in addition to it, determine the welcome series based on the actual clicks inside of your welcome email. If a subscriber receives a generic welcome message and clicks on the maternity navigation bar link, the next message should be maternity-focused. The same goes for other clicks. This allows subscribers to control their own onboarding experience. One company that tried this saw increases in every email metric for the customized message versus the generic one. The personalized message generated 140% more revenue than the generic version, while making up only 3% of the volume of sends.

In both instances, setting up the automation and tracking the data are extremely easy to do. And messages can be created and implemented one at a time. Gradually implementing new messages will require fewer resources for execution because it’s not an all-at-once strategy. As a bonus, think about all of the segmentation data you’ll capture with this click behavior while implementing your plan.

Step 2: Personalize Your Cart Recovery Strategy

Should a customer abandoning $800 worth of products receive the same message as the customer who abandoned one $50 item? Their obstacles to conversion and motivations for purchase are likely very different. Yet, in most cases, each gets the same message.

Why not customize the message to overcome potential hurdles? You have a lot of cart data readily available that can help you make these messages more relevant. For products themselves, look at things like cart total, SKUs, product category, margin of products, sale price, what gender would likely use it and/or sale end date. Consider the actual shopper by looking at their purchase history, such as recency of last purchase, lifetime AOV or total number of orders.

Such data can help you determine how to overcome conversion obstacles and what types of messages to communicate to the would-be buyer, including when to send them, how many to send, and what types of incentives to offer, if any. Addressing the shoppers’ needs – for example, communicating about installation and haul-away services for specific cart SKUs – can be a great way to address the individual shopper. Personalizing messages in a meaningful way, while protecting margins, lets both customers and retailers win.

Step 3: Think About What They Want

While relevant lifecycle messages can drive significant revenue, so too can your promotional messages. Crafting 50 segments to use in daily promotional emails isn’t realistic for most retailers, but you don’t have to settle for generic batch-and-blast messaging either. Inserting intuitive product recommendations into your emails is an excellent way to make emails more relevant.

Using product recommendations that take into account individual browsing and purchase history, email content, and even your select business rules can deliver powerful results. Think about your everyday promotional email sends. With a batch-and-blast strategy, each message is relevant to only a portion of the audience at any one time. With individual recommendations, some part of that message will be relevant at all times.

Include recommendations not only in your promotional messages but also in any triggered message, such as order and shipping confirmations, birthday messages, post-purchase messages, and even cart abandonment emails. You can even use recommendations as stand-alone email content. In addition to being relevant, these types of emails provide a nice change of pace from the standard promotional messages.

The best thing about using product recommendations is that they don’t require extra resources, so you can still focus on growing your email ROI. How does generating 33% more revenue from your emails sound? That’s what one company saw from emails sent with recommendations versus those without. People like personalization.

“Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying”

This line is from one of my favorite movies, and it sums up email marketing perfectly. Being complacent with your email program in 2018 is not the key to success. In fact, it may be the ticket to gradual failure. With competition coming from every direction, consumers are quick to tune it out. Personalization can help you cut through the noise. Are your emails differentiating you from your competitors? Do they give consumers what they want? If not, 2018 is a perfect time to ditch the monotonous one-size-fits-all messaging and get personal.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

Eggnog and Fruitcake: Holiday Predictions That You Can Stomach

With the holiday shopping season about to begin, I thought this would be the perfect time to share my expectations for the end of the year. After all, planning is all about anticipation, and knowing what to anticipate will help you better prepare for the holidays. Here goes:

More Billion Dollar Days. 2016 saw 57 of 61 days in November and December rake in $1 billion in online sales. This year, I expect to see 60 of 61 days hit that mark. Why not all 61? Everyone needs a day to rest.

More Mobile Sales. Last year, mobile commerce grew nearly 54% during the holidays and accounted for 30% of all online sales. Mobile sales have been increasing year over year, and this trend will continue. Be sure you’re optimized for mobile because I expect it will account for roughly 35% of all online holiday sales.

And Even More Mobile Clicks. In Q4 2016, mobile accounted for nearly 57% of paid search clicks, with 47% coming from smartphones. Expect this to continue. Mobile is no longer a trend; it’s the way most consumers shop – at least some of the time. The smartphone is now the primary device that the majority of internet visitors use to access the internet. And in the not-so-distant future, it’ll be their primary device for buying online.

Promotions and In-Store Sales

Early Sales. Online holiday sales will start in October. Retailers have been discounting earlier and earlier to get a jump-start on their competition, turning Cyber Weekend into a month-long event that I like to call Gray November. But with Amazon taking in nearly 40% of all online sales last holiday season, and Prime memberships continuing to rise, retailers have even more to lose by not getting an early start.

Exclusions Apply. For the past several years, especially last year, I saw a noticeable trend in holiday sales having mass exclusions. As a heavy shopper during this period of time, I found myself frustrated. But frustrated or not, I expect this trend to continue. You will see fewer “off everything” promotions and an increase in discounts on “select items.” If you plan to restrict sales, be clear as to what is – and isn’t – included.

In-Store Exclusives. You may see a rise in brick-and-mortar retailers offering “off everything” or deeper discount sales for in-store only. This allows a retailer to drive that sought-after in-store traffic, while offering shoppers deeper discounts and no shipping fees. Seems like an obvious win-win.

Re-engineering the Brick-and-Mortar Experience. I expect in-store sales to increase from last year, but not as much as ecommerce sales. You’ll see a large push from multichannel merchants to drive in-store traffic, touting extra incentives for shopping in-store and even discounts for in-store pickup. As 65% of consumers make additional purchases when going in to pick up items, the tactic makes a lot of sense. Expect to see in-store-only Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales (likely all weekend long), as well as some in-store price-matching. While never a long-term model for success, many retailers may find it worthwhile during the holidays.

The Big Shopping Days

Black Friday and Cyber Monday. While no longer the start of the shopping season, these days are still known as deep discount days. Shoppers oblige and spend more online on these two marquee days than any others during the year. But which day is bigger?

• Both days will drive over $1 billion in mobile commerce.

• For the first time, Black Friday –not Cyber Monday – will be the largest online shopping day of the year.

• Of course, the marketing and promotions for these days will start on the Sunday or Monday prior.

Thanksgiving Day. This will continue its growth as an online shopping day and cross $2 billion in online sales for the first time ever.

Marketing Tools, Top Gifts and the Obligatory Amazon Mention

Browserless Commerce. Speaking of the Echo, voice assistants will be the hottest sellers of the season. While I predict Amazon devices to be the number-one sellers in this group, Google and Apple will see significant sales in this arena. The age of voice is upon us. “Hey Santa, bring me a new train set.”

Email Marketing. Email will continue to dominate as an online marketing tool during the holidays. Last year, Bronto sent 50% more messages than they did during Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2015, sending more messages in November than ever before in company history. I know my inbox will be busy.

Amazon’s Take. Amazon captured 38% of the online holiday sales last year, and it will once again own a substantial portion of the holiday ecommerce space. With the rise in Prime memberships and adoption of the Echo, I would not be surprised to see this figure inch up to the 45% mark.

Three Even Bolder Predictions:

• Starbucks will take flack over its holiday cup design. ‘Tis the season!

• I will once again purchase my tree on Black Friday.

• Fruitcake, while good in theory, will continue to be a poor party dessert.

What could go wrong? Apart from the hostility of rogue nation states, what else could throw holiday shopping into a tailspin? How about fallout from the Equifax data breach? Potential widespread credit card fraud resulting from this breach could put a major wrench in holiday spending and shopping habits. Credit cards could be frozen due to fraud, consumers could lose trust in online security when purchasing, and it could over-inflate online sales data if fraudulent sales are racked up. There have already been reports of a 15% increase in fraud as early as August of this year. This lack of trust in security might wind up benefiting major, name-brand retailers, as many consumers tend to put more trust in them.

What do you think you’ll see this holiday season? I plan to watch my inbox, shop my exclusionary sales online, and sip my coffee from a ridiculed Starbuck’s cup, all from the comfort of my living room. Just don’t be a Scrooge and charge me for shipping!

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

3 Holiday Trends: Prepare for the Marathon, Not a Sprint

The holiday shopping season is the ecommerce version of the Boston Marathon’s Heartbreak Hill. It’s a season that will challenge retailers, stress them, push them to their limits and, many times, either make or break them. Effectively planning for the final stretch requires not only looking at last year’s results, but considering what went well for your peers. Let’s look at three trends from last year that will keep you from hitting the wall this year.

Every Day Is a Holiday

Last year, 57 of the 61 days in November and December generated over $1 billion in online sales. In November, 29 of 30 days reached this major milestone. The rise of consumer self-gifting and the tendency of retailers to offer earlier and deeper discounts have contributed to this trend. Premier stand-alone days like Black Friday and Cyber Monday have increasingly given way to Gray November, a month-long discounting period, and consumers have quickly bought into it.

When preparing for the holiday season, don’t wait until Black Friday week. Treat the season as a marathon, not a sprint. Many of your competitors will begin their holiday marketing when the calendar flips to November, if not sooner. Planning for an extended holiday season will allow you to better balance the types of promotions and discounts you offer.

Mobile Is King

We all know mobile shopping is growing, and last holiday season really proved that. Mobile accounted for 30% of all online holiday sales, growing nearly 54% and outpacing that of not only retail (4.8%), but also ecommerce (17.8%). Mobile purchasing is becoming more prevalent each year. Expect this trend to continue.

If people are searching more via mobile devices, you would expect paid ad results to follow a similar trend. Predictably, they did. The percentage of paid search clicks on mobile devices has been steadily rising year over year. In Q4, it accounted for nearly 57% of all paid search clicks, with 47% coming from mobile phones. In 2015, those numbers were 48% and 32.6% respectively. When planning your paid search spend this holiday season, factor in which devices you are targeting with that budget.

The Resurgence of Black Friday … Online

Everyone knows Black Friday and Cyber Monday have historically been premier seasonal shopping days. But with the emergence of Gray November, they are no longer the “start” of the shopping season – they’re merely a part of it. In some respects, they even mark the final days before gift-giving and stocking stuffers become the major marketing theme.

As we know that promotions and consumer shopping now starts at the beginning of November, it’s important to plan your special sales around these key dates. Let’s look at what we’re seeing play out between these two premier days.

Last year, Black Friday online sales totaled $3.34 billion. At that time, it was the largest online shopping day in history. Not only that, but this was the first day ever to see $1 billion in mobile commerce.

The title of history’s largest online sales day lasted only a couple of days, however, as Cyber Monday edged it out with $3.45 billion in online sales. Online retailers might expect Cyber Monday to be the prime promotional day of the year, but I believe this is a mistake. Remember: While Cyber Monday is commonly regarded as an online retailer sales day, almost everyone is online nowadays. Cyber Monday is no longer the online version of Black Friday. Black Friday is.

Black Friday has been growing as an online sale day year after year. In fact, it’s growing faster than Cyber Monday. Even as close as they were in online sales last year, Black Friday grew nearly 22% year over year, whereas Cyber Monday grew only 12%. Expect Black Friday to be the biggest online shopping day of 2017.

If you are planning your peak sales or promotions around these mid-season days, I would make Black Friday the pinnacle. You don’t want to be late to the party and miss out because customers shopped other Black Friday deals. And don’t forget that many retailers will start their Black Friday deals prior to Black Friday. Welcome to Gray November!

Plan for Success

Even the best planning won’t guarantee success. The season is long, and the hill is steep. But we know consumers will shop – and shop early. We know they will browse and buy on mobile devices. And we know every day will be its own little holiday. A bit of internal analysis and time spent planning for these trends will give you the best chance of crossing the holiday finish line with ease.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

Greg Zakowicz is a eCommerce and retail marketing speaker, analyst, strategist, and award-winning podcaster whose experience spans email, mobile, and social media marketing. More about Greg here.

Alexa, Order Me Browserless Commerce

My five-year-old son recently uttered the phrase, “Why don’t you just ask Siri?” This was in response to my wife asking me a question. Even though my answer, “because I am smarter than Siri,” wasn’t fully accepted, something occurred to me. This is his normal.

Voice assistants appear to be poised to be the next big thing. After all, outside of emojis, speech is the most natural way to communicate. While assistants like Siri have been adopted for things like answering questions, texting, or setting reminders, the commerce capabilities are emerging. Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Alibaba are all in, or getting into, the voice assistant market. While home voice-controlled devices are still new, consumers are showing their willingness to adopt this evolving technology.

What does this mean for online retailers and brands that are accustomed to consumers navigating browsers rather than barking voice commands?

Browserless commerce, or conversational commerce, is still in its infancy. No one really knows what it will look like for sure. I have no doubt that ordering items in bulk, such as diapers and wipes together, will become a reality sooner rather than later. Once that’s tackled, what’s next?

How do Brands and Retailers Fit Into Browserless Commerce?

The first company people think of when it comes to voice ordering is Amazon – and with good reason. But if voice control becomes a major part of people’s daily experience, how will traditional online retailers adapt? Will retailers and brands be forced to sell on Amazon or Jet to have product exposure to customers? Will they be able to create their own browserless commerce “site,” and if so, how will consumers navigate it? Or will more marketplace competitors spring up to compete with Amazon, Jet, and eBay?

There are hurdles. Comparison shoppers and those who use reviews aren’t necessarily going to trust the voice assistant to deliver the right product at the right price. This may be less of an issue for those growing up with these tools. But for today’s shoppers, there needs to be a high level of trust in the device and company.

And how will we browse the internet via voice? Can the voice assistant search reviews and read them to us when we are shopping for a refrigerator? What does this do to advertisements and retargeting strategies?

And more importantly, who controls all of this data, and what will they do with it? If browserless shopping and voice search become an everyday reality, could this lead to the resurgence of offline marketing, like direct mail? Think about it. The data needed by retailers to narrowly target customers will be owned by whatever company is collecting it through their device. Retailers could easily purchase/rent targeted data from these companies (hello revenue stream) for direct-mail or other types of advertising techniques. Theoretically, they would even be able to fine-tune the types of customers they are targeting, from location, lifestyle, and real-time browsing history, just to name a few.

What Does This Mean for Brand Value?

Hey voice assistant, order me glass cleaner. Does it send me Windex or generic glass cleaner? Interestingly, voice-assisted shopping could erode name brands. Voice-ordering glass cleaner from Amazon means you may be automatically shipped a private label brand versus a name brand. Or what if a user uses laundry detergent for sensitive skin, but tires of the price of the brand-name “free and clear” detergent? If they order another detergent for sensitive skin, who makes the decision of which one to send?

As this way of shopping becomes more common, this issue has the potential to expand even further than just these examples. How will retailers react? Will the consumer care, and if so, should they? Remember, older generations might have stronger brand loyalties, but consumers growing up when this is the norm may not. Ordering name brands may be a break from the norm, especially if they are more expensive.

What about searching for other goods, like clothing? How can the browserless experience incorporate visuals? A spoken command could open a synced TV (through a device like a fire stick) or the Echo Show. This would allow consumers to visually browse products initiated by speech. Your voice could control the navigation, allowing you to choose the brand-name product you want. This would allow a site, such as Amazon, to avoid alienating its marketplace sellers, continue to collect ad revenue for higher displayed products, and provide the consumer with a transparent purchase process.

Could Households Be Branded?

Voice assistants are designed to make life “easier.” But connectivity to other electronics in the house is what will truly make life easier.  We may be looking at a future where homes are dominated by one brand, like Amazon, Google, or Apple. In this situation, you may have a Google Home device synced with your Nest and Chromecast devices. Intermixing Amazon or Apple products could potentially cause a disruption to your user experience, although a little competitive partnership will almost certainly be required. We may see a day when there are branded homes, with all household devices being synced and owned by one main company.

If there is consolidation around one company’s devices, will these companies go on a spending spree to purchase complementary systems to integrate, like alarm, appliance, or heating and air to provide an all-in-one home solution? I don’t think this will be the case, as fostering integrations seems the likeliest path to consumer adoption, but I wouldn’t be surprised to one day see companies experiment with a one-stop home connectivity approach.

While I may be living through the start of the spoken assistance era, my children will grow up with browserless commerce as the norm. Shopping via voice may seem unnatural for most of us, but it won’t be for them. I look back on pay phones as an example of something that was common when I grew up. Now, if I see one, I am startled at the sight. Ten years from now, my children may look back at smartphones in the same light.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

Email Expectations vs. Reality: Are You Letting Your Customers Down?

Consumer expectations versus reality. It is a complex topic for all retailers, but especially for those who sell online. Look at how Amazon has raised the bar on consumer expectations, such as with fast and free shipping. Consider how accessible mobile phones are, allowing consumers to find any product they are searching for, regardless of where they or the product is located. Social media, and its integration into the shopping experience, is providing a direct connection between brand and consumer.

The best way to meet consumer expectations is to develop a more robust personalization program, especially when it comes to email marketing. According to a 2016 Flagship Research survey, nearly 60% of consumers expect gender to be used to make email messages more relevant. More than 60% of consumers expect emails to be personalized based on interests they gave in their profile, their birthday, purchases they made online, and what they looked at on their website. While these figures are telling, what is even more daunting for retailers is that 40% of consumers expect offline purchases to be used to make email marketing more relevant. I repeat, offline purchases!

The good news is that many of the necessary data points are already being collected by retailers. When it comes to email marketing, retailers often ask for this data at signup or inside of messaging itself. Consumers who provide this information do so willingly, but expect something in return: relevance.

Perception is Reality

Retailers aren’t meeting that expectation. Instead, consumers find marketing emails consistently useful only 15% of the time, and at the same time, consistently find emails not useful nearly 60% of the time. This is a drastic difference between expectations and reality.

The primary reason for this gap is the prevalence of batch-and-blast messaging. Too often, retailers have limited internal resources that prevent them from sending deeply segmented emails to their subscribers. The result is generic messaging aimed at the masses rather than the individual. Whether a subscriber purchased yesterday, last month, or never, they get the same message.

Retailers can upend that habit by honing in on those data points that can make their email marketing more relevant. For instance, retailers can look at the source of the email subscriber. The person signing up from the maternity section of the website is likely much different than the one signing up from the men’s clothing section. The same holds true for those clicking inside emails. The person clicking on maternity links in a message should receive different messaging than the men looking at button-down shirts. After all, they have different needs from your store.

Sixty-two percent of consumers expect their website browsing data to be used to personalize the emails they receive. Give them what they expect by implementing a browse recovery strategy. These messages can be a significant revenue driver for any email program. While these messages are generally clothed as promotional messages (pun intended), they are immediately relevant to the recent online window shopper. 

What’s It All Worth?

At the end of the day, does this all really matter? The answer is yes! One retailer did just this and implemented a unique second welcome series message based only on a specific link click in the first message. This targeted message was sent to just 3% of the new subscribers, but generated a 140% lift in total message revenue, compared to the generic second welcome series message. This is the power of relevance!

Only 15% of consumers say that marketing emails are consistently relevant. Your competitors likely know this. Take the initiative to meet consumer expectations before they do.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

Why Mobile Payments Are Killing the Checkout Form

A colleague recently told me over lunch how much he loves pizza apps. “They’re just so easy.” When I asked him what was so easy, he said that while picking from the menu is part of the ease, the bigger part has to do with paying. It’s one touch.

Now, before you run out and hire a team to create an app for your brand, let’s think about how to make paying easier – whether someone visits your website from a desktop or wants to take advantage of email offers directly from their mobile device.

We talk a lot about omnichannel and the customer experience – making sure the cart is available, regardless of device, and providing a seamless shopping experience. But simply making shopping easy is just step one. Making it easier to pay is the key to conversion.

Mobile Shopping Is Here to Stay

According to eMarketer, 58% of mobile sales came from smartphones in 2016, and that number is expected to grow. Overall, mobile made up 29% of all ecommerce sales. But by 2021, it’s predicted that mobile will make up more than half of all ecommerce sales.

Retailers need to consider what this means for their sales. When consumers are looking to purchase on their devices, they expect a frictionless experience. And what provides more friction than being asked to enter an endless stream of billing and shipping details, often moving manually from box to box, all while on a small mobile screen?

Another colleague tells me she frequently abandons items at checkout when trying to buy on her mobile device. “Those forms are better than a strict budget for keeping my spending in check.’’ She recently recounted how she suffered through one form on a national retailer’s site solely because her too-busy-to-shop teenage daughter actually liked one of the dresses she had selected, and she couldn’t bear to abandon the shopping trip after thumbing through 120 sleeveless mini-dresses. She completed her purchase out of necessity, not convenience. If she could have found that baby blue skater dress on Amazon, she might have been tempted to bail altogether.

If your competitor offers a frictionless purchase experience and you do not, you may not only lose a sale now, but customers may remember this and bypass you altogether the next time they shop.

Security Plays a Key Role In Mobile Payment Behavior

The counter-argument is that most retailers allow users to save their credit card information on their site to make future checkouts easier. However, online security issues have minimized the usage of this tool. In fact, due to hacking concerns, 33% of consumers never save their credit card information, and 30% only use trusted payment methods, such as PayPal.

The result? More and more consumers are storing their payment information in their phones. There are one million Apple Pay accounts being activated weekly worldwide. As consumers continue to adopt mobile payments on their primary connected device, creating an easy way to allow consumers to check out will be an essential requirement in the very near future.

An intriguing facet to mobile payments is that Amazon’s U.S. patent for one-click payment technology expires this year, leaving the door open for other retailers to implement their own one-click solutions without licensing the technology from Amazon. Google is reportedly working on a one-click payment system that integrates with the Chrome browser.

This integration with Chrome goes beyond just mobile, and that itself is telling of the power that mobile payment options hold. The purchase process between an app, a laptop, and a mobile version of a site is almost always different from one another, but the goal is symmetry. As mobile purchasing becomes the standard, non-mobile devices will be forced to match that experience. Storing payment info in Chrome will allow users to easily check out regardless of the device they are on. Creating a symmetrical experience not only allows for a quicker checkout (which should decrease abandonment), but also improves the customer’s overall experience with your brand.

The time is right for retailers to provide a more simplified, convenient checkout experience. Don’t think of it as simply a way to optimize for mobile. It’s not. Mobile is the norm. Think of it in terms of giving your customers what they want. Long checkout forms on mobile devices are a thing of the past. Don’t believe it? Ask 100 people if they’d rather fill out a long form on their phone or make their next mobile purchase with the simple touch of a thumb.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

Stop Slashing Prices, Start Connecting With Your Customers

The retail sector is going through drastic changes. Established names like The Limited are closing or filing for bankruptcy. Amazon and Walmart squeeze everyone’s margins. Special discount shopping days like Black Friday have morphed into Gray November, a month-long deep discounting period. As brands fight to keep up with competitor discounts, profits and customer loyalty are harder to earn.

It is unrealistic for retailers to continue to increasingly discount and remain viable. After all, if a retailer offers 50% off, they’ll need double the sales to reach the same margins. And, oftentimes, the unit sales immediately after the promotion ends suffer as a result. But with global competition increasing, what are retailers to do? Keep up with the Joneses and hope to remain viable, or take a risk and go against the grain to try to increase profits? While some retailers need to rely on discounting, I’d argue that most don’t.

I recently spoke with a fashion retailer who recognized the endless discount cycle dilemma. They had been stuck in this discounting rut, but did not want to be known as a discount brand. They prided themselves on making quality products at a reasonable price, and this constant discounting was bad for their brand and devalued their product. This past holiday season, they made a straightforward business decision: No guts, no glory. At their busiest time of the year, they chose not to discount.

Hello Guts, Meet Glory

While their competitors were running 30%, 40% and even 50% off specials during the busiest shopping period of the year, this retailer resisted the urge. As the season played out, they saw a 10% growth in total revenue until the last week of December (more on that below). On top of the 10% growth, their margins were protected. They generated 30% to 40% greater profits for those units sold.

This retailer also runs an annual day-after-Christmas and clearance sale. This year was no exception. But how would the previous non-discounting impact this sale? As it turns out, one side effect of the non-discounting strategy was that it created and satisfied the demand for a discount. This year’s clearance sale set records in volume of units sold, selling 10 times more year over year. It satisfied the demand of those looking for a deal while not taking away from their traditional after-Christmas strategy.

Having this conversation can be scary. Before you pull the ditch-the-discounts ripcord, first look at ways to strengthen your current brand positioning.

Focus on Your Brand

What does the brand stand for? How consumers perceive your brand can ultimately determine whether they will purchase from you without a discount, much less become a loyal customer. Consider brands that have a cause, like TOMS Shoes. Consumers connect with their cause and, because of that, they are generally willing to spend more on a product.

Does your brand focus on quality, value, customer service, personalized services, etc.? Do you have social causes? Do you convey this within your messaging on your website, email, and social profiles? If you remove or lessen discounts, consider whether you offer customers enough value-adds to purchase from you and not a competitor.

Planning for The Long Haul

Since you will no longer be relying on sending a generic 30% off promotion to drive sales, your general batch and blast email strategy will likely need to become a little more refined. You’ll need to maintain a more relevant customer experience. Focus on segmenting where you can. Include intuitive product recommendations inside your emails and on your website. Analyze your lifecycle messaging and determine how you can redesign them to provide the most value to the end user. Engage, I mean really engage, with your audience on social media. Ask questions, proactively comment, and deploy user-generated content to make the site and email experience better.

Evaluate Your Automated Marketing Strategy

When making the decision to pull back on promotions, the next step is to evaluate this strategy with your automated messages. If you have discounts in your welcome, post-purchase, shopping cart, or other automated message series, determine whether you want to maintain this strategy. In some cases, you may, as these messages are triggered from user actions. Since these messages are sent to single contacts, you may decide it is worth “rewarding” subscribers for engaging.

The Aftermath

Just because you no longer set the expectations of continuous discounting doesn’t mean you have to end discounting altogether. Occasional sales may ultimately carry more weight with consumers as they know deals are few and far between with your brand. This will also appeal to those consumers who specifically look for deals.

By avoiding blanket price discounts, you can experiment in configuring promotions. Consider free or expedited shipping promotions, for instance. These carry weight with consumers while protecting margins. Retailers can run promotions on grouped items instead of single SKUs, therefore increasing average order value while still protecting margins.

There is no one strategy for fighting back against deep discounting. Retailers will need to determine how far they are willing to commit to the strategy, and to what extent their customers are willing to tolerate the pullback. While the retailer I mentioned earlier plans on enhancing their overall strategy by refining their segmentation and timing of messages, I did ask him if there was anything he would do over again based on his experience. His answer, “Not really.” That answer is quite telling. Whether the success of this strategy is sustainable, only time will tell. But right now, this retailer is enjoying the glory.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

Crafting A More Robust Cart Recovery Strategy

Common industry statistics indicate that more than 70% of all online shopping carts are abandoned. Yet retailers generally treat all shoppers who abandon carts the same, regardless of what items they were shopping for. While this one-size-fits-all approach may work for many, it doesn’t work for everyone. The reasons for abandoning a cart tend to vary based on cart total, and the needs of the shopper also tend to change as the cost increases. So, using a blanket approach for cart recovery emails is likely costing retailers valuable sales.

Here’s an example: I was recently in the market for a dishwasher and began by shopping online. I browsed via laptop and smartphone, read reviews, carted (and abandoned) products, and viewed products in stores. In the midst of my journey, I started receiving abandoned cart emails. What stood out to me is that they were not at all helpful. As close as I was to making a purchase, none of these messages helped convince me to do so. They failed.

Failure to Launch

These messages failed because they did not consider the buyer’s motivation and obstacles to conversion. Someone shopping for a $30 item likely has different needs and hesitations than someone considering a $700 item. Higher priced items typically generate more comparison shopping and a longer buying cycle, and they might need services attached to their purchase, such as delivery, installation and haul-away. For consumers that have filled a cart with items that equal a high-dollar figure, there often comes the natural hesitation of, “Do I really need all of this?”

Knowing Your Buyer

Consider these two cart recovery emails. They were sent from the same retailer, but the price points of the abandoned products are vastly different.

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The abandoned products should have determined not only the main messaging but also the recommendations inside the emails. The free shipping callout in the example with the $30 EarPods works well, as my cart total is less than the required threshold. However, the recommended products feature items that cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. These recommendations simply don’t make sense.

In the dishwasher example, however, the prominently displayed free shipping callout is not appropriate for this message. And while the recommendations are more in line with what I am actually shopping for, they don’t help convert me on the dishwasher purchase.

And in both cases, the main messaging tells me they can help, but they fail to mention exactly how. What’s my next step?

This is just one retailer of many whose messaging strategy could use refining. Had any of these companies considered the product I was shopping for or my cart total, they may have directly addressed the obstacles that caused me to abandon my purchase in the first place. In the case of the Earpods, give me some logical product recommendations to bump me over the free shipping threshold. With the dishwasher, include information about how their staff could help me decide on the perfect model, or give me more information on their haul-away and installation services. Without meaningful supporting content, the brand turned these highly relevant messages into something that was mostly useless.

Optimizing Your Cart Recovery Strategy

Abandoned cart messaging should be used to remove conversion obstacles and encourage the customer to purchase. By factoring in details such as cart total, carted items, and their categories and/or the number of items in the cart, you can begin to customize messaging that better targets the individual shopper. Your messaging can reinforce appropriate value-adds, such as free shipping or links to resources, that can be used to determine how many messages should be sent, the timing of those message,s and if or when an incentive should be included.

Retailers today should be focused on providing the right kind of messaging based on the kinds of products left in the cart. For smaller items, the options are simpler – recommendations to help reach a free shipping threshold or maybe even a discount. For larger, non-impulse purchases, focus on information that encourages shoppers to choose your store over the competitors. By overcoming obstacles and encouraging purchases at this final stage of the online checkout process, you can take the most effective approach to recovering those abandoned carts and converting the shoppers behind them.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

How Retailers Are Redefining the Shopping Experience

I recently found myself popping in and out of stores in the SoHo section of New York City, and one thing stood out to me – the in-store experience left a lot to be desired. Too many times, I walked into a store only to be greeted with a very passive “Hello,” at which point the store associates turned back to whatever they were doing before. To maximize space, stocked items were often jammed together from floor to ceiling, making me feel like I was in some claustrophobic cave of color palettes. The experience wasn’t enjoyable; in fact, it felt more like an exercise in futility.

Years ago, shoppers might have expected a grumpy sales associate and a cluttered sales floor. But as ecommerce and technology have evolved, the consumer has come to expect convenience, both online and in-store. We are increasingly less tolerant of experiences like the one I had in SoHo.

Technology has changed the face of retail. It has affected how consumers shop and interact with brands. Yet, even though ecommerce is growing, a TimeTrade survey revealed that 85% of U.S. consumers say they still prefer to buy from physical stores even if the same products are available online.

In an age where retailers can easily compete with other brands from every corner of the world, customer experience is more important than ever. Technology helped create this expectation for convenience, but it has also provided a means to deliver it. And forward-thinking retailers are really using it to their advantage.

Brick-and-Mortar

According to BloomReach, 88% of shoppers will use a smartphone to assist them when they shop in a physical store. The first instinct for many retailers is to remove the technology for fear of losing sales to competitors. But smartphone-browsing shoppers will spend 20% more than those not browsing online, according to InMoment. So instead of fretting about what customers are doing on their smartphones, give them something positive to do that enhances the shopping experience.

For example, Rebecca Minkoff’s New York location has smart dressing rooms that allow shoppers to interact with a display screen. They can customize their experience by viewing other sizes or colors of available products, adjusting the lighting, requesting assistance, and even saving the session information to their personal profile, which they can conveniently store on their smartphone. In this example, the associate is not driving the interaction but rather ensuring the shopper’s requests are met.

Lowes Home Improvement launched the HaloRoom Experience in some of its US stores, where customers can use a mixed reality environment to plan their kitchen remodel, select cabinetry, hardware, countertops, and appliances, and view what it will all look like in the end. This technology can eliminate some of the uncertainty many shoppers face when planning their new dream kitchen and help overcome obstacles to purchasing such a high-ticket project.

These are only two examples of how retailers are redefining the shopping experience. Retailers such as Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale’s, Ralph Lauren, Kate Spade and Topshop are also offering, or at least testing, in-store technology.

But we’ve only scratched the surface of how in-store technology will revolutionize the in-store experience. As this technology develops and becomes easier to implement and maintain, it will become more commonplace, and retailers who hold back now will be playing catch-up for a long time to come.

Online Shopping Experience

Enhancing the in-person experience is one thing. Enhancing the online experience is another, especially given that users are ultimately in control and can leave or get distracted at a moment’s notice. While online shopping is as convenient for consumers as a few clicks on a smartphone, it has caused headaches for retailers, from increased global competition to processing returns. According to Shotfarm, 42% of customers returned something they bought online. These returns are costing retailers millions each year and can present logistical inventory and accounting nightmares.

But online shopping lends itself to uncertainty in knowing if an article of clothing will fit just right, or a piece of furniture will look good in the living room, which is precisely why consumers expect hassle-free returns. Retailers must look for ways to redefine the online shopping experience to reduce return costs and also provide customers with an experience that encourages customer loyalty.

Some retailers have begun experimenting with a variety of technologies to provide an easier and more reliable online shopping experience.

FitAnalytics provides a size recommendation engine that uses only a few pieces of information to recommend the perfect size for clothing. It also lets shoppers know how many people eventually returned the product in that size due to improper fit. This reassurance, much like a collection of customer reviews, can help offset any hesitation the buyer may feel when deciding which size to order.

Fashion Metric also offers a virtual sizer, both online and in-store via an app. Online, it allows users to input a few basic measurements, such as waist size for men, and delivers custom suit sizing in just moments. This eliminates the need for tape measures or for customers to keep up with fairly uncommon measurements, like chest size. I own suits but haven’t the slightest idea of my chest size. The entire process took me less than one minute to complete. For a complete suit, that’s pretty remarkable.

Zugara offers a technology that allows a user to virtually try on clothes using their webcam. Customers can select a garment and resize, reposition or change the color of the item they’re “wearing,” giving them a much better idea of how it will look on them.

One complication with these technologies is the disparity of the experience across devices. The shopping experience on a desktop or laptop easily accommodates these webcam features, but those may not be accessible on a smartphone or tablet. While shopping on mobile, from browsing to checkout, has become relatively easy, improving the experience to allow for such technology seems a bit far off yet.

The Good News and The Bad News

At the end of the day, ease of use will be the critical factor in determining whether users will accept or reject shopping technology. If it is easy to use and provides real value to the customer, they will flock to it. If it’s cumbersome or doesn’t significantly improve the shopping experience, they will quickly move on.

The good and bad news is the same, and that is we have only just begun with this retail technology arms race. Personally, I look forward to one day walking into a store and having everything I know about shopping completely turned upside down.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.

The Next Generation of Batch-and-Blast Email Marketing

Miami-dwelling Joe likes the colorful Bermuda shorts and green boat shoes he found on your website. But when he gets the email promotion featuring the black winter jacket? Not so much.

Today’s consumers expect relevant communication from retailers, and in this example, Joe’s expectations were not met. It’s also the kind of example that’s been used to knock batch-and-blast emails as an ineffective strategy. But what if you could still batch-and-blast – and personalize?

With segmentation tools, recommendation engines, and easy-to-use lifecycle messaging automation, you can actually make batch-and-blast emails relevant to the individual consumer. Let’s explore how you can use these tools to revive your batch-and-blast messaging.

Segmentation Tools

Tools for segmentation are now built into most marketing automation platforms and make audience segmentation easier than ever. They also put the data, such as web browsing, email, and purchase activity, along with information provided by the consumer, in the hands of the actual marketer, not the IT department. This immediate access to data can be used to seriously enhance the overall user experience in a variety of ways. For instance, location data can be used to insert local store information into emails or target customers in the area when a new store is opening.

Product Recommendations

Once you’ve gathered segmentation data, you can use it to determine which products to display to the individual user. Using product recommendations based on subscriber data as secondary content in batch-and-blast emails increases the relevance of your message, and it can all be done without developing multiple variations of the message. You can use them to recommend similar products, upsell products, suggest accessories, or increase average order value, among other things.

Lifecycle Messages

Lifecycle messaging automation is an extremely effective strategy for retailers and can be a great way to augment batch-and-blast messages. Lifecycle messages, such as a welcome series, post-purchase series, and shopping cart abandonment, are high-revenue drivers, and retailers now have the ability to automate these messages with ease. They’re already very relevant to your audience, but you can enhance the experience for your customers even further with meaningful product recommendations.

Since crafting unique versions of day-to-day emails is no longer required, consider spending that saved time on creating more specific messaging for these series based on other factors, such as the source of acquisition or the category of products purchased. For instance, a post-purchase series for my new television should be different than the one for my new headphones. Combining this unique messaging with recommendations can be a significant win-win.

Having these tools readily available gives you the ability to take a one-size-fits-all email message and make it increasingly relevant. Since that winter jacket email to Joe now also highlights the latest tropical warm-weather items he’s sure to love, he doesn’t have to worry about being left out in the cold by an irrelevant email.

Batch and blast isn’t dead. It’s just growing up.

This was originally published on Multichannel Merchant.