Designated Editor

MITX event 2/28/10 at Microsoft NERD Center

What Will “E-Commerce 2.0″ Look Like in the Next Few Years?

Speaker bios

• Jeff Bussgang – General Partner, Flybridge Capital Partners (moderator)
• Tom Beecher -President and CEO, Mall Networks
• Brian Eberman – CEO, Avenue 100 Media Solutions
• Scott Savitz – CEO and Co-Founder, Shoebuy
• Niraj Shah – CEO and Co-Founder, CSN Stores

Intro From MITX site“Retailers who leverage the power of online commerce,communities, personalization, and other online strategies … e-commerce is the one positive story from the2009 holiday season: According to ComScore, online retailing grew 4%(from the beginning of November through December 18) to $24.8 billion,while sales conducted in stores fell flat in comparison to 2008.”

E-commerce developments

Scott Savitz

• Shoebuy complements not competes against stores: buy at home after shopping, look online then go to store
• Have to listen to the customers to see what they want

Brian Eberman New developments include real-time bidding for banner ads. Can select preferences and bid only on profiles that fit the demographic. Not enough data yet, soon hold for now

Scott Important part of the internet is to leverage in multiple platforms, affiliate marketing part of that

Niraj Shah Amazon’s competitiveness has raised the bar but also made e-commerce an everyday activity

Scott

• Need to focus on value proposition, grow and evolve, keep ear to consumer and keep adding value
• Put more money into customer retention than new customer acquisition
• Lowest level of marketing since 2002 but still growing
• Convinced it’s because Shoebuy customers know Shoebuy is listening

Niraj

• Re-targeting: After someone visits site, partner with ad networks to show ads to that prior visitor.
• Email better ROI

Social Media

Scott

• Shoebuy doesn’t have a social media “leader” (exec/pro) because it goes against what social media is all about
• One of best marketing tools is usability.
• When you listen to customers and they know you really care about them, they become advocates.

Niraj CSN continues to experiment and find interesting things to do. Contest: why living room needed a rescue, send photos, description, picked 100 finalists and then put to a vote. Finalists became ambassadors. Fantastic ROI also building who they are as a company, newsworthy, doing something interesting. Local papers did stories about finalists from their towns

Brian

• Advertising within social media vs building community: It’s about demand-generation vs search, which is really demand satisfaction
• Now exploring how to build community

Mobile & shifting rapidly across marketing channels

Brian

• Make daily overall marketing decisions, based on prediction tools
• Example: iPhone app take photo of barcoded item, do self-checkout, show rcpt on phone when walk out
• Opt-in for geo-based offers. Allow geo-location to be exposed

Niraj Apps are just making the carrier richer, still unclear about how it will play out

Scott Amazing what you learn from the customer, read every feedback form. Help you lead the way.

Other e-commerce innovations

• Everyone in the company takes customer service calls on a rotation
• Everyone can access data, their close rates, etc. Empowering smart people to see how they’re doing
• When customer svs sends response, offer the email for sr mgt and offer to consumer to contact them directly
• Customer svs enthusiastic and supportive, gave more ideas to help stay connected
• Have query day where people job-swap: marketing gets to train in database management

Related posts:

1. “E-Commerce Differentiation: The Use of Content in the E-Commerce Environment” With Lee Bissonnette – FAO Schwartz @ eComXpo

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