eTailers Should Use Business Intelligence to Capture Market Share
Companies serious about selling and capturing market share should be using Business Intelligence (BI) solutions. Today only about 10% of total retail sales in the U.S. are conducted online. That means there’s a lot of online retail real estate ready for the taking. To capture this unclaimed market share, you need to have an in-depth knowledge of the market, consumers, their needs and expectations, the competition and your own capabilities.
Business intelligence is the solution to understanding your market, so that you can win. (more…)
The 5 Best Magento Extensions of 2014
image via magento
“Magento” is more popular than the term “eCommerce”, and searched for twice as often as its competitor Shopify. Magento also powers more than 26 percent of all eCommerce sites in the Alexa top one million sites list. Magento is rapidly becoming the face of eCommerce, because of two reasons: it’s free and it’s open source. Like many open source platforms, the list of extensions can be overwhelming. So, we narrowed it down for you.
These are our top 5 Magento extensions to consider for your eCommerce business. (more…)
What We’re Reading: Customer Care for the Holidays, Big Data Analytics, and Taking Down Giants
Here are a few articles I found interesting this week!
How Retailers Can Ensure Winning Customer Care this Holiday Season Multichannel Merchant performed the study linked here. Internet Retailer also conducted a study last holiday season. Both came to the same conclusion: in order to win loyalty, you MUST provide stellar customer service. That means everything from responding to customer inquiries effectively to meeting order delivery expectations. What I like about this article is the emphasis on the customer’s emotional state. If you please a customer during the holiday season, you will likely win them over for life. This article provides some sound suggestions on how to do that.
What the F&#$ Is Big Data Analytics Anyway? The best part about this article is that it addresses big data for the little (or middle) guys. Most people think big data is an enterprise problem, but “big” is relative. The amount of data, speed at which it changes and variety of sources can all cause huge barriers to success for companies of any size. What matters is how those factors compare to the amount of staff you have to work through it, the technology you have available and its quality. In the multichannel space, addressing big data properly can lead to better insight through business intelligence and better merchandising through improved product information management.
Three Guys, A Poker Game And A Plan To Take Down Teleflora I love this article! This company took a creative angle on an industry “standard,” found the technology and business process to execute it, and got noticed. This is what nChannel is all about. This is why we are in business! We want to help sellers find ways to stand out in otherwise crowded markets – to win more market share and grow faster than their competitors.
Customer Experience Management Isn’t Just a Touchpoint Problem
If customer experience management (CXM) was just a touchpoint problem, we’d be pretty good at solving it by now. Innovation has bred a bevy of content management, mobile app platforms, and eCommerce solutions (everything from Square to Hybris). You create a customer experience a thousand different ways. Those technologies available to manage direct customer touchpoints are incredible. Yet, they are arguably underutilized in terms of potential, because of one reason.
Customer experience management isn’t just a customer touchpoint problem. (more…)
How Retailers Can Improve Return Policies to Enhance Customer Experience
A good return policy can change an unhappy customer into a repeat buyer. In a study conducted by the European Commission, when online consumers were asked what drives them to make repeat purchases, around 90% stated a user-friendly return procedure. Companies should view returns as an opportunity to prove their worth, not as a necessary evil. No one expects you to be perfect. But if you do mess up, you better take responsibility.
