Retailers Fight Showrooming

Critics and stockholders of Best Buy have complained that Best Buy has become a showroom for Amazon.com Inc and other online retailers, with shoppers going to its stores to check out electronics like high-definition televisions and then buying them elsewhere for less. This has become known as "showrooming" and it is creating staggering revenue drains for brick and mortar stores to the point of putting Best Buy nearly out of business. Retailers are looking for smart strategies to combat showrooming and a few are beginning to emerge. For example,

• A start-up Nearbuy Systems of Menlo Park, Calif., offers software that will let retailers track which websites a shopper visits when using a store's Wi-Fi network and then overlay that information with data showing where the shopper is in the store. The resulting "heat maps" could show which products are most vulnerable to being tried out in the store but ultimately bought for less online. Once retailers find shoppers are navigating to a particular e-commerce website they could buy additional advertising on that website. Also, a department store that learns many of its customers log on to Amazon.com while in the electronics department could move additional store employees to that area to engage the customer.

It appears an arm race is beginning between online retailers and physical stores. Like all arms races, there will be new technology, escalations, and recriminations. The question is who will get hurt and who will win- my bet is the consumer will benefit while the mutual destruction of online and offline retailers rages on. What are your thoughts and do you have any ideas for combating showrooming?

An Important Ecommerce Think Tank Launches

Center for Ecommerce Excellence, Think Tank for Ecommerce, Launches

WESTPORT, Conn., Jun 11, 2012 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) -- via PRWEB - Responding to the rapid growth of ecommerce, sometimes known as "etailing" among consumer goods brands and the strategic importance CPG companies are placing on optimizing sales and marketing efforts in this space, ecommerce consultancy etailing solutions has announced the formation of the Center for Ecommerce Excellence (CEE) to help advance the shared interests of all players across the ecommerce ecosystem.

CEE (ceeportal.com) will serve as the first-of-its-kind repository of insight reports, best practices and events aimed to inform and create interaction among retailers, brands and service providers spanning the burgeoning ecommerce sector. CEE members have access to an insights portal that features proprietary research, the latest industry trends and opportunities to interact with other industry professionals through conferences, webinars, share groups and steering committees.
"Despite all the buzz and traction that etailing is gaining among CPG brands, retailers and suppliers, eCommerce is relatively immature in the U.S. in terms of adoption and best practices," says Jason Katz, EVP and General Manager of etailing solutions. "CEE breaks new ground as the first singular organization dedicated to advancing the learnings and shared interests of all players within eCommerce."

CEE unfurled its inaugural event, the Etailing Leadership Conference, in mid-March in Chicago which attracted representatives from more than 30 leading consumer packaged goods companies. The event, hosted by etailing solutions and CMS Consulting, drew an array of innovative brand marketers as well as guest speakers from etailing giants Amazon and Peapod. A fall conference is in the works.

Specific benefits for CEE members include access to leadership networking events and steering committees; research reports on retail trends, shopper insights and category growth opportunities; access to eLab(TM) Shopper Panels; white papers on the state of the industry and best practices; monthly webinars and Webexes; and discounts to conferences, share groups and research studies.

About Center for Ecommerce Excellence
The Center for Ecommerce Excellence is an organization dedicated to global learnings, collaboration and best-practice development in ecommerce for consumer goods and related industries. Via CEEportal.com, members can access information and proprietary research, and discover opportunities to interact with other ecommerce professionals at conferences, webinars, share groups and committee meetings. To learn more, contact Evelyn Warren, CEE Executive Director of Membership at 203.210.4233 (4CEE) or visit http://www.ceeportal.com

About etailing solutions
Etailing solutions is an integrated online sales and marketing consultancy providing consumer goods companies with a distinctive suite of services, including data services/insights, strategy development, sales support and virtual merchandising. The company combines a deep understanding of online shoppers, brands and the digital sales route to market to offer clients solutions that drive faster growth and profitability through online sales. Etailing Solutions is part of the Hyper Marketing, Inc. network. To learn more, contact Jason Katz at jasonkatz@etailing-solutions.com or visit http://www.etailing-solutions.com

About Hyper Marketing Inc.
Hyper Marketing is the largest independent marketing-services network in North America. The newly formed company has 1,300 employees in 24 offices across the country, with expertise in digital, direct, data, promotion, shopper marketing, Hispanic, and media buying and planning. At Hyper Marketing, everything revolves around changing consumer behavior and driving transactions in a hyper connected world. The companies in Hyper Marketing's portfolio partner with CMOs of many of the world's most well-known brands including Dell, eBay, Kellogg's, Office Depot, The Home Depot and Unilever to develop integrated programs that deliver profitable results.

Shopmuting Goes Mobile

Shop From the Convenience of the Side of a Truck.

Following in the footsteps of Tesco (South Korea) and Peapod (Philadelphia, Chicago), Procter & Gamble is partnering with Walmart to promote shopmuting (online mobile shopping) combined with Walmart's free delivery service. Now, urban dwellers can order from Walmart without a brick-and-mortar store within sight.

The @PGMobile initiative centers on a truck that will visit a dozen popular locations around New York during June. It features QR codes for several P&G /Walmart products, including Bounty paper towel, Head & Shoulders shampoo and Iams dog food on one side. Just as Peapod does in train stations, passersby are invited to use their mobile phones to scan the codes to instantly buy the products for home delivery at Walmart’s “everyday low prices.”

“We truly believe that’s the future. But people have yet to really adopt buying consumables online,” he said. “We think having free delivery, and getting this message out to urban shoppers who don’t have access to Walmart stores, is a great first start.”

Walmart.com introduced free home shipping for purchases of $45 or more last year to better compete with online retail powerhouse Amazon. It is also taking other steps to ramp up e-commerce and m-commerce efforts, including selling big-ticket items like Sony and Samsung HDTVs exclusively online, allowing customers to order out-of-stock items from their smartphones, and launching an app for in-store aisle search.

Online sales accounted for only about 2% of Walmart’s revenue last year, while overall growth was about 8%. Amazon, by contrast, had 41% growth. P&G has its own online store, but Marrin didn’t disclose what proportion of the company’s sales are online.

In addition to QR code-scanning, the @PGMobile promotion -- as the name would imply -- also includes a Twitter component that enables people to get information and request the truck comes to their neighborhood. “On the days we don’t have a fixed location, then we’ll go visit other neighborhoods,” said Marrin. The Fashion District, Union Square Park and the Big Apple Barbeque Block Party are among the upcoming stops.

Along with New York, P&G and Walmart are running a similar promotion in Chicago focused on bus shelters on Michigan Avenue that feature QR codes for mobile shoppers and enlarged images of Olympic athletes, including swimmer Michael Phelps.

Shopmuting is only in its infancy however, recent successful implementation by Peaod and Walmart indicate a quick growth spurt. What are your thoughts- would you like the P&G truck to visit your neighborhood?

Tablets Are Exploding (In Number of Users)

ComScore reports, one in every four smartphone owners -- i.e., connected, higher-income consumers -- reported using tablets during the three-month average period ending April 2012- tablets have officially reached a critical mass in the United States! Tablets are one of the most rapidly adopted consumer technologies in history and are poised to fundamentally disrupt the way people engage with the digital world both on-the-go and perhaps most notably, in the home,” said Mark Donovan, comScore SVP, mobile. “It’s not surprising to see that once consumers get their hands on their first tablet, they are using them for any number of media habits, including TV viewing," he adds.

The study also found:

• Tablet users were nearly three times more likely to watch video on their devices compared to smartphone users, with one in every 10 tablet users viewing video content almost daily on their device.
• In April, 16.5% of mobile phone subscribers reported used a tablet, representing an increase of 11.8 percentage points in the past year.
• Growth in market penetration was even more apparent among the smartphone population, with nearly one in four using a tablet device in April -- an increase of 13.9 percentage points in the past year.
• A lower 10.4% of feature phone owners use a tablet, suggesting that smartphone ownership is highly predictive of tablet adoption in the current market.
• A demographic analysis of mobile device audiences indicated that tablet and smartphone audiences closely resemble one another in terms of gender composition, with tablet users just slightly more likely to be female than smartphone users.
• the age composition of audiences showed that tablet users skewed noticeably older than smartphone users. For both devices, the heaviest overall audience concentration was between the ages of 25-44. Compared to smartphone owners, tablet users were 28% more likely to be in the 65 and older age segment, and 27% less likely to be age 18-24.
• Tablet users also skewed toward upper-income households, likely a function of the high price point of these devices, still considered a luxury good to many consumers. Indeed, nearly three in five tablet users resided in households with income of $75,000 or greater, compared to one in every two smartphone users.

Tablets provide an easier and more inviting platform for e-tailing activities including the online purchase of Consumer Product Goods. The explosion of tablet usage is sure to increase the trend for consumers to purchase their grocery items online for home delivery rather than making a trip to a bricks and mortar store. There is also increased opportunities for CPG manufacturers to engage consumers in a richer and more varied way. This is a good example of the evolution of technology enabling and accelerating an emerging trend- home delivery of CPG.