Stephanie Tilenius from Google

Pretty crazy, right? Well, it’s a reality for Tesco shoppers in South Korea, according to Stephanie Tilenius, Google‘s vice president of commerce and payments, who spoke this morning at the 2011 Shop.org Annual Summit. The act of combining the mobile and bricks-and-mortar experiences resulted in Tesco moving from the No. 2 grocery retailer in South Korea to No. 1. Those results are impossible to ignore. Mobile is the way of the future.

The average mobile phone user checks his or her mobile device 40 times a day and is never more than three feet away from it. These incredible facts underscore the importance of mobile for the next mobile retail generation. These customers are Web-connected and location-aware. However, embracing mobile doesn’t mean the death of bricks-and-mortar, said Tilenius. It’s your job as a retailer to create efficiencies between online and offline so that these customers have an enriching retail experience.

How do you create these efficiencies? Retailers including Home Depot, Walmart and Best Buy already have embraced order online/pick-up in-store strategies, while retailers such as Nordstrom are using iPads to provide sales associates with more information about in-store customers and their latest purchases.

Tilenius stressed the importance of optimizing mobile sites and adding rich content as a sales driver. On-site curators and tastemakers that personalize recommendations help initiate a new dialogue with loyal customers. Retailers also can offer store maps, coupons and recipes via mobile for consumers who are in stores. Better yet, they can offer mobile payment as a self-checkout option, so that customers don’t even have to stand in line when they’re in the stores.

Google’s role in this integration of mobile and bricks-and-mortar comes in the form of Google Wallet, Google Offers and Google + and other platforms. The company also has launched Google Catalogs, a product search that features curated sets of products as an interactive browse-based experience.

One final scenario from Tilenius to consider while you ponder your own role in this new wave of retail features: A customer walks into a Gap seeking a pair of jeans. She finds the right style, but not the correct size. With her mobile device, she scans the NFC tag attached to the garment, selects the correct size and places an order. The next day, the customer’s jeans, in the correct size, is delivered on her doorstep. That’s a win/win for both retailers, who get to keep the sale, and a shopper, who is able to buy the product she wants.

The tips ranged in scope from “duh, I should have thought of that” to “that’s so in the weeds I have no idea what’s going on,” but I’ve condensed many of panelists’ top ideas into a little “Lucky Number Seven” list of how to make more money now. The expansive handout will be available soon on the Summit website.

1. Implement Facebook “Like” and Google+1 buttons. The “Like” buttons can be in more than one place on your site, but should definitely appear above the fold (via ChannelAdvisor’s Scot Wingo).
2. Make your email bullet-proof by making the focal points of your email (including navigation, calls-to-action and borders) visible even if consumers can’t see images. Most e-mails come through with images “turned off.” Outsmart the system (via Bounce Exchange’s Ryan Urban).
3. Watch your mobile speed and make navigation your No. 1 priority. Too much space, meaningless categories and horizontal scrolling are all no-nos. Make checkout simple, offer large search boxes that are front and center (and easy to type in), and provide an embedded call to action for consumers (via Eight by Eight’s Amy Africa).
   
   

   Sheldon Gilbert, Founder and CEO, Proclivity Systems

4. A digital tune-up can go a long way toward improving your conversions. Fix your bounce issues and recommendation engines. Re-examine your “Welcome” series e-mails and make sure they don’t roll out too slowly (via Social Shopping Lab’s Peter Leech).
5. Help customers find what they’re looking for. Incorporate lists of synonyms in case customers aren’t sure how to spell a product time. If you don’t sell something, offer alternative products and consider if the product is worth stocking (via Demandware’s Sue Chapman).
6. Improve your page load time. Ten seconds isn’t good enough. Two seconds is the industry standard, but many major retailers aren’t there yet. Minimize requests, such as downloading images and javascript, and optimize your images. Quick tip: try Pingdom.com to find out what sections of your pages are taking the most time to load (via IMPAQT’s Jamie Keaney).
7. Drop cookies on customers who receive your e-mails. This will work even on customers who look at your e-mail in the preview pane of outlook (via Proclivity Systems’ Sheldon Gilbert).

Now go home, implement a couple of these quick fixes, make more money, and let us know how it goes!

Innovation and technology were the keys to expanding market share and increasing sales, according to Columbia’s Mick McCormick, who delivered his “Gear up for Growth: Innovation in the Outdoor Industry” keynote this morning at the 2011 Shop.org Annual Summit. In an unusual move, the company hired a new team that would function entirely like a start-up and was segmented away from the corporate structure. The team took a hard look at the company’s four brands and made changes that emphasized technology.

Here’s a snapshot:

• Mountain Hard Wear previously was known as a great mountaineering brand, but Columbia redesigned it as a brand for athletes by focusing on innovative lower-weight mountaineering gear.
• Montrail’s focus was all over the map in 2008, so Columbia reinvented it as an all-around running brand and emphasized how its running products differed in terms of technical results. Montrail told the story of its new focus via its website, which offered a sliding bar that customers could use to showcase different types of running products based on their interests.
• Sorel used to be a men’s winter footwear brand with a limited scope. The brand reboot (pun intended) broadened the opportunity by focusing on young, fashion-forward women. These customers are greatly influenced by fashion blogs, brand sites and high-end retailers. So Sorel introduced custom videos targeting this customer and worked with her favorite retailers, such as Neiman Marcus and Barneys, to get Sorel boots in their stores.
• Consumers viewed Columbia’s namesake brand as a value brand, which is a perception the brand has changed by embracing technology in its products as well as via digital means. In less than ten years, Columbia’s number of patents grew from one to 157, allowing the brand to tout its high-tech products, such as its Omni-Heat line. Custom video, strategic online advertising and retail partnerships, and QR codes all play a role in telling the brand’s story to consumers.

The digital experience is much more than e-commerce, said McCormick. Customers want customized video and Web content to learn about your brand’s story. So get away from the idea that your business is all about transactions. The best way to influence customers is to be present throughout their shopping experiences online and in stores with more information – whether it’s via a QR code or a sleek online video.

Gniwisch and Jacob Hawkins of Overstock.com took a look at some of their favorite “A-Ha Moments” using a classic ranking scale of 1 to 5 stars. Here were a few of them:

- The next time you’re standing in line at airport security, take a moment to examine the security buckets. Zappos is putting marketing messages in the buckets that you deposit your shoes and bags in for the X-ray machine. While the idea is innovative and new, one session participant noted that she would probably forget to order shoes once she reached her destination and got on a computer.

- Southwest Airlines held a contest called “Are you Nutty Enough to be Southwest’s Next Blog Star?” Gniwisch thought that the blogging medium is well-suited to the personality-filled, casual brand, but Jacobs was curious about the ROI on blogging.

- Green done right. Patagonia let users explore the roots of its products virtually. The company knows it has passionate customers who care about the environment, and it allowed them to trace the origins of a shirt from the cotton sourced abroad to the finished product.

One “A-Ha Moment” that didn’t fare so well in today’s ranking systems? Putting a variety of logos and brand messages on eggs in a carton. The main complaint from Jacobs? “You don’t want people smashing your brand!”

What ads have stopped you in your tracks lately?

1. Listen to your customers. Customers are quick to block out retailers, so make sure that you are actively engaging them with email. Try hosting a poll, adjusting the frequency of your messages or see if you can help subscribers network amongst themselves.

2. Get relevancy right through testing. Try different types of subject lines or target customers using segmentation. Whatever you do, make sure you have a way to measure the success of the test.

3. Grow a profitable list, not just a large one. Be clear at the sign-up stage about what you will be offering customers and state all the benefits. Include sign-up forms everywhere you can. Also, if you have bricks-and-mortar stores, make sure employees are capturing email addresses there too.

4. Break through the clutter of the Web 2.0 world. There are tons of Web 2.0 opportunities for Web marketers. Use Facebook or other social networks to invite customers to subscribe. Maximize your use of blogs. And remember the power of video.

5. Measure the right things. Make sure you’re measuring the right metrics. Some specifics to look out for? Click-through rates, click to open rates, subscribe and unsubscribe rates, bounce rates and conversion rates, to name only a few.

6. Reach the inbox. A good reputation is invaluable. Make sure your file is clean, that way you don’t risk emailing people who don’t want messages and may label you as spam. You want to keep complaints to a minimum.

7. Keep the offer fresh. Test triggered messages after a purchase is made or if there has been a lapse in activity. Make sure you’re sending relevant messages at timely intervals — but don’t overdo it.

The critiques ranged depending on the site, but Africa and Spencer offered some good tips that all retailers should consider.

- Keep track of the top failed searches performed on your site. This data is invaluable.

- Prominently feature “Buy now” and/or “Shopping Cart” several times on each product page for visibility.

- Keep the navigation consistent from page to page. Consumers like online stores to stay similar — like going to a grocery store, where products are universally in the same places.

- Beware of splash pages. They often do not contain enough content for search engines.

- Pay attention to your pagination. How many products do you show on each page? How many pages are shown in the navigation? These decisions affect where your site gets ranked in search.

The packed session was filled with retailers volunteering their Web sites for Africa and Spencer’s no-holds-barred approach, which was at times humorous and humbling, but always informative.

When you, as a shopper, are seeking out a product, such as a new laptop or pair of running shoes, who do you turn to for advice? Maybe your favorite retailer or a review site. But whose advice are you most likely to take? Your friends’ advice.

Joel’s session, entitled “Social Media and the Reluctant Retailer,” showed the retailers in the audience that people are connecting to their friends online via a number of social networking sites: flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, to name a few. People are using these sites to recommend products, to “friend” their favorite brands and to conduct research. The social shopper is, in fact, a social researcher.

What is the retailer’s role in this equation? Retailers need to ensure that customer trusts them. How do they do that? By using social communities to build that trust.

Some food for thought from Joel’s session:

- Give the customer a reason to connect to you. Provoke a reaction: laughter, surprise, excitement. You’ve got to keep it fresh to keep the customer from moving onto something else on the Web.

- Be authentic. If you want people to trust you, give them a reason.

- Find a wizard. A wizard is someone in your company with the expertise and personal interest to help you enter a particular social networking arena. Got a person on staff keeping a personal blog or with journalism experience? See if he or she is interested in blogging for the company. One of your marketing pros is almost always the wrong person to be your wizard.

- Start on the inside. Before trying to convince your CEO that you need $100k to invest in social networking, start an internal podcast or blog as a pilot project. Then you extend appropriately.

Joel touched on a number of other tips and topics through the session, and the overall message was crystal clear: Join the community. Use reviews, ratings, feedback, conversation and community to engage your customers. Think outside text — explore video, audio and images. Remember that when you are connected to your customers in a community, they are also connected to each other — and they are happy to help you spread your message.