racing on the technology treadmill - e-tailing · racing on the technology treadmill • boasts 11...
TRANSCRIPT
Racing
on the
Technology
Treadmill
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
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• Play the “Speed of Change” Challenge and WIN $100!!
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2
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
Larry Kavanagh
• Chief E-Commerce Strategy Officer, Kalio
• 20+ years experience in Direct Mail and Online
commerce merchandizing and strategic marketing.
• Founder of D.M.insite
• Thought leader and e-commerce strategist
3 Today’s Speakers
Lauren Freedman
• Founded the e-tailing group in 1993
• 15–year ecommerce veteran as well as a recognized
and respected figure in the online retail industry
• Author of “It’s Just Shopping”, which provided a
comprehensive behind-the-scenes look at the evolution
of multi-channel selling in 2001.
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
• Boasts 11 years of e-Commerce
experience
• Corporate offices in California and
Ohio
• Today: $0.5 Billion in annual online
sales transacted on KalioCommerce™
• Helping multi-channel retailers drive
online revenues growth
• Next generation ON-DEMAND e-
commerce platform, and full set of
services.
4 About Kalio
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
16 years e-commerce consulting
Author, It’s Just Shopping
50+ years traditional retail and catalog
experience
Fortune 500 client projects ranging
from strategic planning, merchandising,
marketing, to technology development
and messaging
Cross-category projects spanning
specialty retail to departments
Proprietary research studies on
mystery shopping, merchandising,
mobile and consumer behavior
The Voice of Cross-Channel Merchandising
Straight talk from “in-the-trenches” online merchandising experts
5 About the e-tailing group
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
I. Pace of change daunting
II. Vitals show signs of pain
III. Recommended Retailer Success Regimen
IV. Kalio’s “Speed of Change” Challenge
6 Today’s Agenda
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
7 The Pace of Change is Daunting
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
• How can we cost-effectively update the features
and functionality on our site to keep up with
consumer demand?
• With IT continually putting up roadblocks and
tapped to the max, how can our ecommerce effort
maintain parity with others?
• Do we have the necessary resources to make the
changes we desire?
• Is our platform in a position to quickly allow our
company to make these changes in an efficient
manner?
• Do we need to embrace “all” the available
technologies?
• Is mobile a must-have? Can social drive any real
business?
8 How to Handle the Pace of Change?
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
• Developed a questionnaire completed
by a cross-section of retailers using in-
house and outsourced solutions
• Topics included:
– Platform position, challenges and
desires
– Technology demands and internal
adeptness
– Merchandising control and flexibility
– Ecommerce roadmap and
prioritization
9 In-the-trenches Merchant Interviews
II. Vitals Show Signs Of Pain
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
11
Upgrades to our
platform are
costly and time
consuming
ecommerce platform is
past its prime: was
homegrown and overall it
has done a good job;
have squeezed and
bolted everything on and
now we’re behind in
technology and
subsequently the onsite
experience
If you’re not an
expert in any
given area,
outsource it
We simply need an ecommerce
platform upgrade which can be both
a significant time and $ investment;
have gone a long way on what we
have home grown; as we scale too
many isolated applications, a lot of
manual stuff; have to rebuild to
have better merchandising,
imagery, search
many of our efforts are a workaround
of our existing technology as we're
not in a position to evolve efficiently
any other way
Angst Often Starts with the Platform
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12
We have a list of 20 projects
and can only tackle them one at
a time with our limited team.
Desire for less human
involvement so emphasis on
internal-efficiency projects
including software to manage
relationships with marketplaces.
we are hampered in everything
from merchandising flexibility
and cross-application data
sharing to PCI compliance; just simply don't have the resources
strong platform; can build and
integrate as desired but it
takes time and resources and
we just can't react as quickly
as we would like; skill set fine
but hard to keep up-just don’t
have the people
Have a few great developers
but amount of stuff to
accomplish is daunting; hiring &
training new talent takes too
long
Resources Affect Responsiveness
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
in-house; need proper controls on what works for what you do
(focused efforts versus shiny object syndrome); Today we have a
strong platform that continually keeps us in a position to evolve
with the industry and consumer demand. Today we outsource and
they keep up with industry; we came up with ideas/ drill IT;
suggest functionality we believe belongs in platform and will make
changes; don't always pay; free tools; maybe slower than I like
but it would be more expensive in house.
our in-house model allows us
the control but it takes more
time and money than desired;
started major projects and
simply didn’t have staff; had to
bring in 30 people including 20
extra folks; outside developers
and QA/gets expensive;
I need a platform in order to
build and customize the
experience with our own
resources for our product and
consumer; this will give us the
control and customizability we
prefer
13 Merchants Continually Make Tradeoffs to Grow
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
14
order management system-greater
challenge because it's tied to
everything in the organization and the
company is not supported any more
but to replace very scary
Compliance
keeps me up at
night, especially
since the recent
Zappos security
failure
It isn’t just the angst of
1 system, it’s how
they play together
content management system
for all brands we own
maintained separately despite
same product which is
problematic
Platform, CRM and content
management system; that's just
this year but need the big pieces first
we’ve acquired 2 competitors;
although 10X size, we are
behind them in a lot of
business processes; significant
time required to adapt systems
given legacy constraints
Don't want to change anything; own
our own servers but that can be
problematic--should I own or switch
to cloud?
Systems Pose a Myriad of Problems
III. Recommended Retailer
Success Regimen
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
16
I must be able to
make basic
changes to a
website in a very
short time frame
Angst comes
from not being in
control of making
a change ($2500
+ 8 weeks is not
an option)
Strong flexible platform that
continually keeps up in a
position to evolve with the
industry and consumer
demands; cost- effective We have lag-time to implement
large solutions, however we
have the flexibility to make
changes real time when critical
or can focus better on blue
ocean areas that differentiate
our business
if we had a more flexible
position could test cheaper;
wish we had mad money; our
small size and economy made
us more thoughtful before
jumping in
Flexibility Affects Customer Experience
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17
While there are many
changes I would like to make,
profitability and ROI weighs
heavy in those decisions
Exercise in diligence to know
what will carry ROI as we could
easily go down many paths
not bleeding or cutting edge, but
we can effectively enter space
when profitable to do so
Being Profitable Matters for Most
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
In Oct, 2010 we did a deep
dive with departments about
their unique needs so today
only 15% -20% of changes
require intervention because of
the strength of the admin tools
good at keeping away from IT;
10% require IT. Try to make
less and less; good interface position to admin as needed
95% of merchandising doesn't
require IT involvement; test it
and forget it; IT more unique
personalization and
segmentation
18 Control in the Hands of the Merchants
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19
Discerning what is hype and what has
legs can be challenging
We have 35 projects
where ½ overlap;
challenged to keep up
before you know what
you own
everyday something new; have to look at -
is that a fad of the moment lately, most
everything seems to be a fad; even social-
not convinced it has impact on retail
business like ours; can't deny ipads and
iphones to surf and shop, so we can't
ignore this
Separating Fad from Functional Fundamental
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
Projects need to be prioritized,
roi needs to be assessed,
storyboards created and this
could take 2-3 months
Our in-house model allows us the control but it takes more
time and money than desired. We do some testing depending
on what it is yet mostly plug and place for basic
enhancements; Looking to understand how do you prioritize
intelligently; quick discussion, y/n vote; invest a lot of time
hearing what sales pitch is; if it's a revenue generator we may
try it
20 Intelligent Prioritization: Working the Project List
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
21
launch site; made
concessions ; revise and
update all areas; checkout;
key page review; increase
the quality of the customer
experience;
more flexible in how we
present product (size, video);
taking data and using relevant
information so the customer
can see what they want
sooner; become a true efficiency model
optimization (fast); self service
(do what they want without
calling); personalization
(relevant timely/good
experience)
major revamp of checkout
funnel; product page to order
confirmation
touch up and redesign; don't
require backend improvements;
do in the offseason
Optimized User Interface
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
Upgrade site search-will handle
this internally
Have to figure out what’s
important to my customers,
then spec, sometimes we get it
wrong
navigation/usability; browse the site; 4. data structure backend
onsite search with the ability to
custom configure; want to learn
how to customize and configure
smartly to benefit from upgrades;
can't afford a new rebuild; need to
take advantage of enhancements
adding more digital assets
including super detailed high
resolution images
22 Category Differentiators
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
Having the ability to
personalize/customize;
segment; tie data platforms
together to give personal
experience. don't have a
$100 million budget; need
relevant engine (SaaS)
emailing/personalization; can't
dynamically change out
products/ merchandising is now
static
taking data and using relevant
information so the customer
can see what they want sooner; become a true efficiency model
system static versus dynamic;
can add product easily; CMS
has no personalization
algorithms and system contains
no logic based on browse or
buy information
23 Personalization Prowess
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24
We look at our
competitors and
believe we need mobile
but wonder why we
can’t do it on our
platform as we want to
make the most of our
investment
Our current mobile provider
couldn’t adapt to our new site
so we missed the holiday
season it's a timing issue-had I
adopted a platform; would
be fully mobile for 2011;
wouldn't solve operational
problems; quicker turnkey
solutions though there can
be big fees along the way;
get benefit of learning from
others down the way
mobile site; analytics;
increased mobile browsing
and shopping; 6-9 month
payback with outsourced
partner
We like showing up when it's
important. Launch Mobile
version of website-compelling
migration of the website to
mobile; data consistent; more
customers are using
1. move to mobile optimization
(increase web marketing,
increased open rate via email; #'s
getting higher (tablet, conversion
3X higher than iphone)
Mobile Matters
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
25
.
better using analytics to improve
sales as a result of user testing
Desire improved site analytics to
better run the business
revamp; merchandising and
analytics; tie-in for Google with
api to database/create product
click impressions; dashboards; lot
of performance metrics in
backend/ front end impression
clicks yet hard to marry the two
together
struggling with attribution across
channels (phone versus online
orders)
Better understanding both traffic and channel attribution
Data/Analytics
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
26
There isn’t anything that new and
sophisticated that would cause us
not to be able to do it. The main
questions that come up are
possible impact that no one is
aware of (i.e. negative SEO
impact). We try anything/don’t
screw up SEO.
refocused on web marketing efforts
SEO essential and want to
continue to expand market
place presence
Launch several new niche
websites using existing
platform and infrastructure-
within category; different
market categories
Marketing
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
27
Time to revenue
SPEED OF CHANGE
POST-LAUNCH EXPERIENCE On-Going Services & Value
Power to the Business User
APPLIFORM™
The KalioCommerce™ Difference
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
28 Ready for the Challenge?!
Guess. Watch. WIN! How FAST can we make a change on a site?
1. Submit your guess as an answer. USE the Questions in GoToWebinar.
For Example : 3:15 (3 mins, 15 secs)
2. No answers will be accepted after we SAY GO.
3. Whoever gets closest will win a $100 gift card!
4. READY, SET…
Speed of Change Challenge
Racing on the Technology Treadmill
29 You Need to Know Kalio
Integrated On-Demand E-commerce
With Kalio, YOU can design:
• Beautiful sites
• Sites that perform
• Sites that you can change, FAST
For more information, call 408.550.8048
or visit www.kaliocommerce.com
THANK YOU
E-tailing Group
www.e-tailing.com
773-975-7280
Kalio Inc.
www.kaliocommerce.com
408.550.8040