Why AI models and eCommerce/digital best practices - Comma Consulting
Comma Consulting is a specialist in eCommerce consulting services and digital transformations.| Comma Consulting
Comma Consulting is a specialist in eCommerce consulting services and digital transformations.| Comma Consulting
The Science of Motivating People to Engage and Buy Online| Comma Consulting
Greg Randall, founder of Comma Consulting, is THE eCommerce Consultant. He has 25 years of experience in (UX) user experience design.World leader in this field.| Comma Consulting
Greg Randall founder of Comma Consulting, is THE eCommerce Consultant. He has 25 years of experience in eCommerce strategic planning.World leader in this field.| Comma Consulting
Comma Consulting is a specialist in eCommerce consulting services and digital transformations.| Comma Consulting
B2B eCommerce Consulting Services| Comma Consulting
Comma Consulting is a specialist in eCommerce consulting services and digital transformations.| Comma Consulting
Can AI add value and scale to B2B business models? The short answer is a resounding “Yes”! One recent innovation has been how AI systems can automatically enrich product master data for large, complex product B2B databases. Why is this exciting for B2Bs? The construction of rich product master data forms the foundation for B2B growth. What is Product Master Data? And why is it important? Product master data comprises all the information about a product necessary to present to a reseller n...| Comma Consulting
AI has produced an abundance of hype that has Retailers and B2Bs scrambling to find ways for it to add value. A common use of AI is powering live chat systems to automate user interactions. While it broadens the capability to engage, this has yet to produce concrete wins simply because PEOPLE want to speak with PEOPLE when they need help or want a service. A great example of this can be seen with McDonalds. McDonalds Example: After three years of planning to use AI to take drive-thru orders, ...| Comma Consulting
All service-based businesses NEED to harness the power of the digital channel to produce new leads and acquire new customers. Customer Experience Design is a discipline that plans and constructs intuitive experiences that drive engagement and nurture people to take specific actions. This discipline is commonly applied in retail and B2B digital channels but is just as decisive for service-based businesses. The term "service-based" can apply to any business whose core offering is service-focuse...| Comma Consulting
Pedders Case Study – From Digital Laggard to Leader Below is a concise summary of how Comma Consulting worked with the Pedders business to evolve them from a Digital Laggard to a Digital Leader in one Digital/eCommerce project. Company Situation: Pedders is a family business that has flourished due to its strong physical footprint and passion for innovation. It offers after-market vehicle parts and technical systems to enhance vehicle performance in suspension, braking, and steering. Pedder...| Comma Consulting
Research in 2024 has come forward proving the top-performing online retailers worldwide average 5.1 Checkout Steps and have less than 11 form fields for first-time purchasers. New research has shown these two characteristics are consistent across all of the top-performing checkouts in the world. If you are in the process of re-platforming and need to reconsider how your checkout should look and behave, this research will help. This research contradicts the 1 to 2 step checkout flows, which ma...| Comma Consulting
Starting July 2024, Google is deleting your first-party data. Your GA Universal account will cease to exist. Decades of insights are about to be eliminated, yet the business community is not talking about Google's significant move. To help unpack what is happening and explain the impacts on your business, this article addresses three topics… What is Google doing? What are the risks of losing access to this data? What can you do to prevent the loss of this data? #1. What is Google doing? Goo...| Comma Consulting
Is this you? You sit in a company meeting where your CEO says, “We are a Customer Centric Organisation” And then…. Do you enforce policies or ways of working that frustrate your existing customers and potential new customers who have never purchased from you before? Do not fret; you are not alone. This common predicament stimulates three questions… Why is it so hard for businesses to be customer-centric? Why do these businesses have such poor-performing online channels?* What are the ...| Comma Consulting
Fluent Commerce, an international organisation with an impressive Order Management System that powers brands such as L'Oreal and LVMH, asked me to speak on the nature of Business Transformation and how it needs to be approached to drive business evolution and enable business-wide growth. The podcast is 30 minutes long. Thanks to Jamie Cairns, Senior Strategist from Fluent (who interviewed me), the conversation is fluid, and we cover many interesting topics. The content below is how Fluent has...| Comma Consulting
An eCommerce Replatform project is a long winding perilous road that needs to be carefully navigated. One wrong turn can spell trouble. There are many reasons for eCommerce Replatform failure, but one of the most common is the standard of Project Management on the client side ("client-side" = the Retailer or B2B organisation). Consider this common scenario.... A business decides to replatform their eCommerce technology. They select a new eCommerce Platform and Agency. The business agrees on s...| Comma Consulting
The start of the new year always brings a healthy exuberance for what's ahead. When it comes to retail and B2B websites, this enthusiasm is hindered by three questions that become difficult to answer... Where do we start? What is the primary focus? What do we invest in? There is a strong desire to apply change, but due to the unknown, a business becomes paralysed in decision-making. Hence, the halt in exuberance and in the evolution of this channel. These tips will provide you with the answer...| Comma Consulting
User research data proves when people complete an action on a website, such as a purchase, only 40% to 50% of these people complete this buying journey in their first session with a retailer. This means approximately 50% to 60% of people complete multiple visits to site before purchasing online (or in store). This multi-visit buying behaviour has come from my direct analysis of hundreds of millions of datasets across hundreds of retailer's sites around the world. Understanding this common con...| Comma Consulting
Every Retailer and B2B business needs to plan how replicate GA Universal's "Page Value" metrics in GA4. What is "Page Value" and why is it important? Page Value metrics allow businesses to see the pages on a site that contribute to a consumer completing an action that is of commercial benefit: buying a product or service. This method of measurement enables a business to determine which pages are of both high and low "value". While this will be represented in a monetary value (in the data), th...| Comma Consulting
When it comes time to prepare Retailers and B2B's for the necessary change needed for a new eCommerce Channel, one of the most common questions I receive is... Where should the Customer Support team sit within the business structure and who should they report to? It's a valid question and becomes a hot topic due to the necessity to wrap "employee accessibility" around the new eCommerce Channel: "employee accessibility" is all about making employees accessible to people while they are engaging...| Comma Consulting
When businesses work through an eCommerce replatform project, or investment is put into fixing the existing eCommerce channel, there are teams of people dedicated to the digital tasks at hand. However, fixing/replacing/enhancing the eCommerce channel is only part of what needs to be done to fully leverage the opportunity. The other "part" is preparing the business: "business preparedness". This "business preparedness" is called many things, most commonly "Business Transformation" but let's do...| Comma Consulting
Most businesses are terrified to go through a process of going to market and asking multiple eCommerce Platforms and Agencies to respond with proposals. The result of this fear is decision-making-paralysis in this context. This sense of paralysis has grown since COVID because all businesses have seen, firsthand, the shortcomings of their online channel and its inability to drive growth for the wider business. The purpose of this article is to break down how this process needs to run to enable...| Comma Consulting
Every retailer drives focus to capitalize on Black Friday and the Christmas season. This focus centres on two specific outcomes for the business… Outcome #1. Drive retention (repeat buying) behaviours from an existing customers base (this includes reactivating “dormant” customers). Outcome #2. Acquire new customers who have never purchased from the retailer previously (customer acquisition). While both are equally important and strategic, the brief article unpacks the function of Outcom...| Comma Consulting
Retailers who are "Listening" ARE winning. Many retailers say they are "Customer Centric" but that term can be translated in so many ways. To be truly "Customer Centric" is to... 1. Take various forms of customer centric data 2. Extract insights that represent what the customer wants from you 3. Activate change or enhance experiences to build your alignment to customer needs/wants A recent example of this can be found with Vibe Coffee. A boutique Coffee pod, Chai pod, and Coffee bean retailer...| Comma Consulting
Activating a dedicated strategic planning process for the wider business (which includes the online channel) is a crucial ingredient to the long term health and success of any business. While it may be "political" to say the ideation and/or strategic vision come from the Executive team, the source of information for much of the decision making needs to come from the bottom up ("bottom up" - the coalface layer of a business). Change is driven from the top down because the Exec team controls re...| Comma Consulting
Every organization has a fiduciary responsibility to undertake a considered approach to selecting new eCommerce platforms and new eCommerce Agency partnerships. The purpose of an eCommerce Platform selection process (known as an “RFP Process”) is to have multiple vendors present a solution designed to meet your own business needs. And from the multiple selections, the business is to select the best fit for purpose solution. In reality, many eCommerce replatform projects fail because of th...| Comma Consulting
BIG Data is a BIG Problem but not for the reasons you might think. Pulling in a high volume of first party data is a good thing, but throughout the business community Big Data continues to have a negative connotation. Let’s look at why. Big Data is defined as a business having a high volume of data in various forms (structured/unstructured) making it hard to process, analyse and create insights needed to activate future decision making. BIG Data drives efficiencies and improves agility but ...| Comma Consulting
This week's "Thought Provoker" is about the power and importance of a principle I call "Narrative Matching". Attention Business Leaders, when it comes to driving growth via your online channel you are not in the business of selling products/services. You are in the business of MATCHING NARRATIVES: a consumer's narrative to your own. You will never achieve engagement if what you say, does not match what consumers expect to read/see/watch/hear. Engagement = Buying This is why price-driven retai...| Comma Consulting
Within any single organisation (regardless of size) a single individual is handed the task of managing and executing an eCommerce replatform project. When it comes to diagnosing the critical streams of work in play for an eCommerce Replatform project, best practice suggests two figureheads are required (not one): one for each stream of work. These are individuals who take a hands on role to execute tasks, manage the various teams and lead critical decision making throughout. The science prove...| Comma Consulting
The human body is an amazing thing. It is intricately innervated with nerve endings designed to let you know when your body is under various forms of stress or localised pain. The brain (or spinal cord) receives a signal then instantly responds by sending messages to the body to react accordingly. This reaction is typically a rapid movement away from a pain source. This evolutionary role of nerves and the brain play a role in human survival and has done so for centuries. This physiological ph...| Comma Consulting
Australia is blessed with a number of great eCommerce Agencies. These are organisations who work with a Retailer/B2B and plan, design, and build a new eCommerce platform which slots into existing business systems. These Agencies, come in various shapes and sizes, but their ability to run and lead a replatform project is to a high standard. I have had the good fortune of working with these Australian Agencies and many perform better than Agencies based in Europe and the US! But why is the repl...| Comma Consulting
A common buzzword creeping into a Retailer’s vernacular is “Marketplace” and how launching one should be part of a retailer’s overall growth plan. It’s no wonder it’s a hot topic, 63% of global online spending in 2020 took place on online marketplaces (includes Amazon sales data). According to Forbes, B2C marketplace sales worldwide could reach an estimated $3.5 trillion by 2024. Defining "Marketplace": By way of definition, a “Retail Marketplace” takes on two different forms...| Comma Consulting
Some may consider the term “Headless Commerce” a buzzword, but the term and the solution behind the term, continues to gain momentum for good reason. To understand why this is the case, non-technical Executives need to gain an appreciation for what Headless Commerce means, how it can translate to business value, and how it differs from the other eCommerce platform solutions in the market. This article is designed to unpack the meaning of Headless and talk specifically on how it supports r...| Comma Consulting
When a business looks to improve the online (and in store) experiences the phrase “Customer Experience Design Planning” creeps into the conversation. And if it doesn’t, it should. The good news is, this conversation is now being had at the Executive level. The bad news is, there is confusion as to where the Customer Experience Design Planning process starts/stops and who should lead it. Put simply, it's a special planning process (for Retail, B2B, Finance, Travel etc…) designed to con...| Comma Consulting
The most common questions that come forward when talking about the Online Customer Experience Design process can be summarised in three... "What is Customer Experience Design and why is it important?” "What does the Customer Experience Design process look like?" and, "Explain this process in a way I can understand" #1. "What is the Online Customer Experience Design Process and why is it important?" Answering the “What”: In the physical retail world where "face to face" selling converts ...| Comma Consulting
For Retailers and B2B’s to leverage the power of the online channel, evolving the eCommerce technology is one piece of a bigger puzzle. It’s not just a channel evolution, it’s a business-wide evolution. And believe it or not, businesses are commonly structured in a way that sets the online channel up for failure. Businesses can spend literally millions on a fully capable eCommerce channel but IF the business structure and processes, which wrap around the eCommerce channel, are not set i...| Comma Consulting
Large retailers/brands have evolved their Digital Marketing Strategy for three reasons.... COVID has shown the centre point of strategic promotion needs to reside online. Retailers understand that business-wide growth starts with digital promotion. Digital Marketing is the most transparent and scalable method to grow. This new realisation is a double-edged sword simply because of the high volume of options retailers have to advertise in the digital space. Some examples... Paid Search - Tradit...| Comma Consulting
Over the last 20 years, the world of advertising has grown in complexity due to the number of methods and channels to be visible. This complexity increases the pressure for businesses to find effective and efficient ways to acquire new customers at scale, delivering ROI. This complexity behind advertising has amplified over the last 14 years because of the smartphone and even more so with the pandemic. As soon as a consumer identifies a need, he/she immediately investigates with the supercomp...| Comma Consulting
There is a new coffee retailer in town! Vibe Coffee, is an “eco-centric” Australian based retailer that sources high-grade coffee beans from around the world producing café quality coffee in coffee pods for your office or home. This is an example of a retailer passionate about the right things: local company - locally focussed, customer experiences, environmentally responsible, end to end focussed, quality product. This retailer’s brand ethos is to execute three things to a high standa...| Comma Consulting
Many businesses find eCommerce challenging because of the dependencies on a number of different technologies, teams and third-party vendors who must do their part to make this channel sing. Some examples... Design teams to construct the right presentation layer (Customer Experience Design) Technology (eCommerce) Platforms to enable the design (to enable experiences) Technology Agencies to build and configure the design to the eCommerce Platforms Advertising Agencies to target the right type o...| Comma Consulting
One of the biggest challenges retailers face is trying to drive growth with less inventory. This has been a challenge since COVID began. When looking at the bigger picture, US consumers spent a record $204.5 billion online throughout the 2021 holiday shopping period: November to December 2021. A 9% increase from the previous year. Figure 1 This increase could have been arguably larger when analyzing the breakdown of sales over this two-month period… The early weeks in November (1st to 24th)...| Comma Consulting
Welcome to "A Retailer's Replaform Journey", a 4 episode webinar series designed for Retailers and B2B's! Why is this Webinar Series important for Retailers and B2B's? The pandemic has applied pressure on the ability of retailers and B2B's to perform in three ways… The ways consumers want to engage with retailers have rapidly evolved meaning, they need to be prepared to pivot when customers do. Put simply, when the customers change, retailers need to change just as quickly. The decimation o...| Comma Consulting
New Zealand Post is struggling to cope with the online order volumes, so to partly resolve this, they are asking consumers to buy online differently to make the life of NZ Post easier!!! This is from Inside Retail.... "The business (NZ Post) is asking Aucklanders to shop in a way that makes life easier for the retailers and delivery firms struggling under the load." "Customers are being urged to plan their purchases, make fewer, but larger orders to reduce shipping costs and time, and to use ...| Comma Consulting
Click and collect popularity is here to stay. New research proves click and collect increased in popularity during the Pandemic, and as restrictions ease, this pick-up service will remain a popular choice for consumers. Last year I wrote a research paper on the new shopping habits of the “Covid Consumer”. This research found consumers were forced to take on new shopping behaviours out of necessity, however, due to the prolonged need to adopt these behaviours, new habits and routines were ...| Comma Consulting
The Pandemic has made a significant impact (and continues to have an impact) on the order management business function for retail business models. It's OK to say the order management function needs to improve, but the more important question is, what does this business function need to look like in the future? How is it to evolve? What defines its evolution? What guides can be applied to effectively define its future? These and other questions are tackled in this article. First a definition: ...| Comma Consulting
What do you get when you mix…. Consumers who want to engage and buy online with, Average online experiences – retailers are not doing a good enough job to meet engagement needs with, A Pandemic forcing people away from a physical retail You get explosive growth of “Livestreamed Retail”! Translation: the new generation of TV Shopping Channels minus the TV, with effective and easy online buying methods. This is nothing new, the concept of TV Shopping Channels has been around for decades...| Comma Consulting
Question: What is the one thing separating physical retail from online retail. This is looking from the consumer's perspective in the type of experiences they are presented with. This one thing is the reason why physical retail converts considerably higher (20% to 40% range) than online retail (1% to 4%). Answer: Rules! The rules (or the "rules of engagement") governing how a retailer should be engaging with a consumer are exponentially different online to in-store because eCommerce technolog...| Comma Consulting
New Forrester/Google Research: Consumers are deciding which businesses to engage with based on their communication channels: how easy is it for consumers to connect with staff when engaging online. 68% say they are more likely to engage with a business that offers convenient communication options. This supports the power of Live Chat where employees are ready to engage and immediately respond. This research talks about “asynchronous messaging” as a new emerging method of communication. It...| Comma Consulting
Retailers understand the importance and power of perfecting mobile experiences. With this realization, retailers invest heavily in mobile-specific content and functionality to improve engagement on the small screen however, the mobile checkout experiences continue to perform to a low standard. This statement is backed by research that came out in 2020 where the add-to-cart rates ("add to cart rate" = the ratio of total visits to the number of consumers adding a product to a shopping cart) for...| Comma Consulting
A recent conference has come and gone, but in preparation for this conference, Greg Randall was asked to respond to a series of questions that will be used for a Panel Discussion. There were three questions the conference organisers felt retailers wanted to no more about... What are the technology priorities for a retail business? What key problems are retailers trying to solve? Which technologies are you watching? And which are, at this stage, more hype? How are you helping retailers develop...| Comma Consulting
To truly leverage the online channel, it needs to be treated "Strategically". But what does this actually mean?? It is the act of taking your wider business strategy and translating it in a way that defines how the online channel is to look, behave, and operate, to support wider business goals. This precise alignment of the online channel to the wider business is how the online channel impacts total business growth. The purpose of this article is to explain how to plan and achieve this alignm...| Comma Consulting
46% of UK consumers purchased online for the first time. But will these “first-timers” continue to buy online? As COVID was impacting the entire world, one of the more interesting trends of 2020 was the high volume of consumers who began to purchase online for the first time ever. For those retailers who were prepared, it became the ideal opportunity to acquire new customers. In 2021 the research now turns to look at this trend differently: will these “first-timers” continue buying on...| Comma Consulting
Attention Retailers! Get your “COVID Content Army” ready for the next shutdown. The recent shutdowns of Melbourne and Auckland are reminders of the volatility the Pandemic has on people and businesses. The NEW reality all businesses need to face is a “Plan B” life with COVID. “Plan A” is where Vaccines decimate the virus, however, this is not likely for all the reasons we know: anti-vaxxers, mutations etc… Businesses need to plan an existence with COVID-19 being around for years...| Comma Consulting
New research from Bazaarvoice has proven 36% of global consumers say visual customer reviews are influential on apparel purchases. One of the most common traps retailers get into is, once they set up a high-value part of their online retail experiences (such as online customer reviews) they forget about it and move on to the next thing. It almost is like ticking off a task. When in fact the right approach is to be constantly reviewing those high-value contributors to online customer experienc...| Comma Consulting
Google is constantly working to apply enhancements to its organic ranking algorithms which are designed to present the most relevant businesses to a consumer, based on the keywords he/she uses. This comes as no surprise and is common knowledge. However, in May of 2020, Google announced big changes are coming but due to COVID, the changes will be activated in early 2021. This was also done to give businesses time to prepare. What is the change? Put simply, organic rankings will be based on the...| Comma Consulting
For retailers, the months of November, December, and January is where heavy investment is given to Google Paid Search campaigns. As this is occurring, common questions come to me from retailers around the world. These questions are summarised below.... What type of reporting should a business look at to understand paid search campaign performance? Where does attribution reporting fit into the diagnosis of campaign performance? How can data indicate if paid search is supporting wider business ...| Comma Consulting
Ikea has ended production on its bible-sized catalogue after 70 years. It’s official, the eCommerce/Digital channel has taken over as the primary revenue channel for businesses and is now the center of the business universe to drive growth. If a business wishes to drive wider business growth, it starts by growing the online channel and builds out. What does this announcement from Ikea mean for retailers who have a blinded dependency on print catalogues? It’s simple, get rid of it and prop...| Comma Consulting
The Pandemic has stimulated many research companies to bring forward their predictions of what businesses around the world should be prioritising in 2021. After auditing the predictions from the top 10 research organisations in the world, Forrester got it right. This short research paper summarises the Forrester predictions and unpacks some of its generic statements for the purpose of delivering a greater layer of clarity for people interested in seeing if the recommended changes will work fo...| Comma Consulting
To understand what loyalty needs to look like, B2B organisations need to pause and first consider their customers. In “Pre COVID” times, B2B organisations had to accommodate what research calls the “Consumerized Buyer”. These are people within procurement teams who are essentially people first! In their own personal lives, these buying teams experience Amazon, Apple, and other retailers who do a great job. The result is these people demand the same intuitive experiences with business ...| Comma Consulting
The new Consumer mindset is shaping. Since March 2020, retailers have been working hard trying to predict what the new consumer motivations will be. Now that COVID is shaping the new normal, research companies, such as Global Web Index (GWI), are working hard to identify the new trends that reflect the new mindset. Global Web Index has recently come forward with new research showing the top motivators driving engagement and online buying behaviours. They are… Easy, relevant and intuitive ex...| Comma Consulting
If done right, physical retail can benefit from the growth seen in online retail. One of the more common projects I am leading is auditing and improving end to end click and collect experiences. I recently wrote an article on what best practice looks like. This has been a popular focus for many retailers because this is clearly becoming a preferred option to shopping in store. Consumers want to buy online to secure a product, and then have a look at the product in store to ensure its right be...| Comma Consulting
Introduction It’s official, the world has changed and has done so at an alarming rate. Many retailers are finding this change difficult because of the pace at which it’s occurring. Retailers around the world are seeking advice and guidance as to what the future consumer will look like, what changes are required to survive and grow in this new world which continues to evolve at pace. The biggest issue at present is, all the published material being presented on a daily basis is fragmented ...| Comma Consulting
When I work for my clients, I am actually working for their customer. It's my job to find out what my client's customers want from my client then design experiences and leverage technology to bring it to life. So when I recently completed a large click and collect project for a client and they showed me the feedback they are receiving from their customers, like the one below, all the hard work is worth it. Feedback from a customer.... The whole process from start to finish was simple and easy...| Comma Consulting
How many times have you visited a site, you head to a product detail page and see the following phrase prominently displayed... No reviews for this product...be the first to review this product! In this situation where there are no reviews for a specific product, there are a variety of ways this is presented on product pages: none of which are flattering for the product. Some examples... Adore Beauty displays "No reviews yet"... Figure 1 Supercheap Auto displays "Write a review"... Figure 2 M...| Comma Consulting
“Slow Fashion” is here to stay and the demise of fast fashion is imminent. New research defining the “COVID Consumer” talks about the new motivations and decision-making biases. One big adjustment is around environmental empathy and the ethical behaviours of retailers. This perspective was gaining momentum pre COVID, but it has amplified because of the pandemic. The result is a growing desire to purchase garments that have “permanence”. Consumers see this type of purchasing will l...| Comma Consulting
Worldwide searches for products/services that include the word “best” has outpaced searches where the word “cheap” is being used. COVID-19 has accelerated online buying, but there are still questions marks on what the new “COVID-consumer” looks like. This new research from Google provides good insights. The precise value of “cheap” will vary between individuals but does carry a singular meaning. “Best” also has scope in meaning but it reflects a growing need to find produc...| Comma Consulting
A common issue in organisations who struggle to leverage the digital channel to drive growth is the absence of a "Head of eCom/Digital" role. In fact there is research proving when this role is operating with the right individual, it drives overall business growth. When I explain the importance of this individual and this role to organisations around the world, I use the "Race Car" analogy (see below): Firstly, consider the eCommerce technology (and other supporting technologies) as a high-pe...| Comma Consulting
New research shows 40% of consumers who returned to a physical retail store after restrictions eased are having "less than enjoyable" experiences. Research into the new "COVID consumer" proves the move back to physical retail is going to be slow. However, those who are heading back to retail stores are not having the great experiences they had before the pandemic. This makes sense when considering what the new retail experience is comprised of... Consumers wait in a queue before entering a st...| Comma Consulting
Organisations invest heavily in content strategies, creating content to assist in information gathering and online buying. However, over 95% of businesses forget a critical part of the content plan: error messaging. An error message can occupy an entire page (such as page not found) or it can be a small subtle message relating to the incorrect entry of information (such as in the shopping cart). Remember who has written these messages: Developers! Please do not misinterpret this statement, so...| Comma Consulting
Power Retail's "Ask the Experts": evaluating popular Beauty retailers on how they are performing on mobile. Power Retail asked me to critique three beauty retailers on how they are performing in the context of eCommerce best practice: Adore Beauty, Sephora, and Lush. I only looked at mobile screens because of the sheer dominance this device type has compared to the other two (desktop and tablet). Due to the heavy reliance consumers have with their own smartphone, online retail success is depe...| Comma Consulting
The use of ad blockers is popular because people have had enough of their exposure to irrelevant and visually jarring advertisements which reduce their positive experiences when trying to engage with sites. This lowering of tolerance for banner advertising has come as a result of COVID-19, which has increased peoples dependency of the digital channel. This dependency will continue to grow, and so to will the use of ad blockers. This makes the topic of ad blockers an important conversation spe...| Comma Consulting
Due to recently joining the B2B eCommerce Association of Australia (B2BEAA), combined with the large number of B2B clients I regularly work with, I decided to embark on a research project to explain what COVID-19 has done to the B2B model and what changes are required of this business type and how it needs to effectively evolve in order to survive now and thrive later. To see the full research, click here to be taken to the B2EAA site. For those of you who only wish to see a high-level summar...| Comma Consulting
When constructing the customer experience design plan for the online retail channel, or just trying to improve existing experiences, a common activity is the act of interviewing customers to form the basis of insight gathering. Put simply, speaking to customers does not work: it's listening to customers that matters. There is a difference between talking and listening. Before explaining in detail why the interview process does not add value, first a definition of the customer experience desig...| Comma Consulting
55% of emotions are expressed nonverbally! So why is this important to retailers? When consumers are in "buying mode" their underlying emotions subconsciously take over decision making explaining why physical retail converts higher than online. Good salespeople read these nonverbal cues and react. People struggle to hide these nonverbal emotions when they have a need to fulfil. The "COVID Consumer" (as I call them) now have a greater dependency on the online channel when they want to engage. ...| Comma Consulting
There is no denying the value click and collect brings when delivered to a best practice standard, but what does "best practice" look like to customers? Though click and collect has now been around for some time, the wide array of experiences customers are being presented with is astounding. This is due to the significant volume of moving parts that must elegantly come together to get this service right... Online experiences - making it easy to select the click and collect option and a store ...| Comma Consulting
Why are businesses struggling to change during these crazy times? This comes down to the design of traditional businesses. In the “old days”… #1. Systems were first established and would dictate what information is captured and how it needs to be processed. Think of the outdated ERP systems currently in play. #2. Processes then reflect the needs of the systems and in turn dictates the conduct of employees and how they treat and serve customers. Together, systems and processes become the...| Comma Consulting
Amazon to invest $4 billion into COVID-19 specific initiatives. Bezos has informed investors $4 billion in profits will be reinvested into multiple areas of the business, but all had one common theme: COVID-19. There is a long and wide list of ways Amazon will be investing in the Pandemic which will take years for the business to benefit from. One of the most notable investments will be in the creation of a “near-virus-free supply chain”. Amazon will work towards ensuring consumers that e...| Comma Consulting
I have written an article for Ragtrader Magazine which is featured in their May print publication and is now also available digitally. It's a concise piece that talks about what consumers are expecting of retailers while the world is undertaking this rapid rate of change. Though retailers are working through a highly complex and never seen before environment, I summarise how retailers should be approaching customers (and the target consumer) via four primary activities. You can either seek ou...| Comma Consulting
As the consumer's needs continue to rapidly change, retailers are seeking predictions of the future. Many businesses come forward asking me to gaze into a pretend crystal ball and construct a future that cannot yet be determined. For businesses seeking answers, there is no need to predict the future, the customer does all that for you. Your existence is based on satisfying the customer, so what can a business do to enable the customer to help predict the future?! This is done by activating wh...| Comma Consulting
Ever wonder why your cart abandonment emails are converting poorly? It’s because your mobile checkout experience is poor. Everyone talks about the importance of having great shopping cart abandonment emails running because it has the potential to bring consumers back to purchase. This is true! However, no one pays attention to the steps the consumer must take once they come back to the shopping cart page. The assumption is they will buy. Not true. Much of the data states these emails can co...| Comma Consulting
There is a strong correlation between great customer service and online conversion rates! During this time of non-physical retail, the necessity to find new ways to create meaningful methods to engage with consumers, when in "buying mode", is now more important than ever before. Before COVID-19, great physical retail experiences would compensate for average online experiences. This "crutch" is no longer there and is now exposing those retailers who are doing a poor job online (refer to my las...| Comma Consulting
As retailers are driving change internally so as to evolve, they work hard to communicate internally to employees: a key part in driving change. This inward focus is important. But what about the outward focus? How is customer anxiety being addressed and managed? Retailers have never faced this form of change before, but your customers are also facing the same degree of change. An article was recently published on how retailers need to respond internally so they can pivot and meet the changin...| Comma Consulting
Kmart is forcing consumers into an online queue when traffic volumes to the Kmart site reach certain levels to avoid the risk of affecting site performance. Picture this, a consumer has a need to purchase a product online, they go to the Kmart site where his/her journey is halted with a message stating they need to wait (see image below). Kmart says… "New measures had been created to minimise the effect of the customer journey." Kmart thinks forcing consumers to wait will enhance journeys. ...| Comma Consulting
Consumers are looking to engage with companies they "know and trust" while in self-isolation. A retail brand may respond with silence while their business is temporarily shut down, but new data proves customers want to hear from you. New research has proven the following... 43% of consumers find it "reassuring" to hear from brands they "know and trust" 40% want to know how companies are responding Just 15% do not want to hear from companies There are three tips to help with your communication...| Comma Consulting
With COVID-19, retailers are confronted with store closures and consumers being told to stay at home. Global business disruption has been predicted to extend beyond 12 months (Source: Imperial College London). This is relevant in the business context because it will force consumers to adopt new habits. It takes 66 days for new behaviours to be automatic (Source: European Journal of Social Psychology). The “new habits” of high interest is the increased dependency being seen in online retai...| Comma Consulting
Over the last few days, I have been posting how retailers need to pivot and introduce new services in order to capitalise on the imminent increase in online buying activity for consumers at home. New research is proving this to be coming true. 50% of Chinese and 31% of Italian consumers say they’re using eCommerce "more frequently". People in affect areas of the world have revealed their lifestyle changes are forcing new habits and as a result, they are now buying things online they would n...| Comma Consulting
Retailers need to activate "Contact-less Click and Collect"! Uber Eats has "contact-less delivery" and most other courier services are now offering the same. For those retailers who wish to continue to keep their stores operating and offer a service which is in line with the changing needs of the consumer, "contact-less click and collect" adds value. For most retailers, this would not require much change to their eCommerce technology... Its a change on the front end of the site communicating ...| Comma Consulting
The business approach of offering a huge range of products (or services) is an outdated strategy and no longer in line with what consumers want. Having too much choice is NOW a tax on a consumer's time and attention. Consumers don't want more choice, they want an increase in confidence the fewer choices they have will fulfil a need. Google has found keyword search terms incorporating the term "best.....for me" has grown by 80% on mobile devices in the last two years. Consumers want retailers ...| Comma Consulting
What can retailers do to prepare for the shift in consumer buying behaviours as a result of the coronavirus? Retailers are about to venture into a unique business climate which could see consumers spending less time in malls and more time at home shopping online? One change which will make an impact is to bolster the support function: improve processes and increase the allocation of resources to improve end to end online experiences. If you predict you will have extra/unneeded resource sittin...| Comma Consulting
"Google is not built for SEOs; it’s built for people": MOZ. SEO’s around the world are having minor heart attacks with the recent changes Google has made to its algorithm which effectively removed “spot zero” (don’t worry for those who don’t know what this means – there are many articles on it). While this is a big deal for SEO’s, it’s not for the consumer. SEO agencies are feeling the pain because this change is affecting their clients which reflects poorly on their service...| Comma Consulting
Every year I am asked by the Power Retail team to conduct experience design audits on large Australian retailers. This "Road Test", as they call it, is meant to show other retailers that just because these retailers are large and well-known does not imply they are delivering amazing online experiences to consumers. This article conducts a high level experience design audit on Myer Department Store and calls out the issues and provides tips on how to make the right changes. Smartphone Screens:...| Comma Consulting
Greg Randall, one of only 2 retail experts to take part in Power Retail's "Road Test", a critique of online experiences for three large Australian retailers in Power Retail's "2020 eCommerce Leaders' Playbook". It's an honour to be asked back by Power Retail to conduct an experience design audit on three large retailers: Myers BCF (Boating-Camping-Fishing) Pet Circle This section of Power Retail's book is important because retailers need to understand the risks and pitfalls in copying the onl...| Comma Consulting
Online retail sales as a proportion of total retail sales is now 19%* (in the UK) (source: National Statistics UK). Remember back in the good old days when this percentage was under 10% and the so-called experts said online retail sales would never surpass 10%? Where are those experts now? Even though online retail sales as part of total retail is lower in other regions around the world, this is a signal as to what’s coming everywhere! Executive teams who are not investing and driving chang...| Comma Consulting
One of the most common fallacies in digital is, if you are a big retailer you must know what your doing. This could not be further from the truth. To illustrate this, there will be a series of upcoming articles which will conduct a deep dive into large well known retailers and providing specific examples as to why they are underperforming in the delivery of creating amazing online experiences in various contexts. This has already started with an article written in the demise of Jeanswest (cli...| Comma Consulting
One of the most common strategic initiatives seen in recent years for retailers who have a physical footprint, is the activation of Click and Collect pickup options: also referred to as "BOPIS" - buy online pickup in store. There are benefits to introducing this pick up service, however, many retailers think by purely offering this option, consumers will use it. The result is a poorly planned offering.... The online experience to select a store is confusing and clunky The in store experience ...| Comma Consulting
New research states 54% of consumers will leave a site because it was too difficult to find the right product. Having too much choice becomes less desirable when retailer sites do not deliver elegant and intuitive methods to refine large volumes of product down to a select few. My recent post on Jeanswest illustrated this with examples (click here to read). Due to the confusing nature of filtering tools on subcategory pages, 64% of consumers prefer to use Live Chat or speak to an employee to ...| Comma Consulting
Do you have multiple sites which share the same products and potentially the same product content? Do you sell products from a wholesaler/supplier who publishes the same product content online as what you use to sell their products? Are you concerned Google will apply a penalty if you use duplicate content on your site? If any of the above applies, read on. Google is aware of the vast array of business applications where the need for duplicate content cannot be avoided (or is difficult to avo...| Comma Consulting
Jeanswest has recently announced they are in trouble. It’s never great to hear of any organisation going through this potential end of life, however, when this happens, other organisations should pause and take the opportunity to check oneself. This is done by understanding what happened to the failing organisation to determine if similar business characteristics exist. And if there are, leap into action to make corrections so as not to share the same fate. This is the purpose of this artic...| Comma Consulting
Hinge, a dating APP who understands its purpose - to be deleted. I am always on the lookout for organisations who appear to exist to meet the needs of their target customer. Hinge is one such example. This is a dating APP with a tagline of "Designed to be deleted". Aside from delivering all the important features to connect with other people, they made this process fun through the use of a mascot named "Hingie". The goal is to celebrate the demise of "Hingie" by deleting the APP. Hinge took t...| Comma Consulting
It's easy to become lost in the published opinions from self-imposed "Experts" on what organisations should be doing to their online channel to deliver and drive success. The issue however is, these are just that, opinions. This article comprises a list of the top 5 tips organisations should focus on to drive online growth, however what makes this article different is, each tip has come from actual "doing" ("doing" = I implemented the tip for a client) and monitoring the outcomes to determine...| Comma Consulting
