Retail Dude

Dear Readers,

As rightly said by Prateek and carrying it forward, the social commerce moves are definitely undergoing a facelift and change.

The change is also evident on how the cookie crumbles when it comes to marketing and business development. India over the decade has seen the boost of growing entrepreneurs which is a direct equivalent to the potential of the growing markets and the innovative quotient. The advent of social and professional networking seems to have opened a whole new platform of business development. The latest to join the bandwagon is Twitter, whose convenience of access through mobile phones and short text formats have yet again changed the way of communication.

It all started with the advent of Ebay who filled a gap of providing a platform for online sales to individuals. And now social networks are touted and been proved to be the next gen marketing tool.  Although the usage of a particular network is a bit sporadic shared by My Space, Orkut, Facebook, Linked In and now Twitter to be the lead flavor of the season. Although there aren’t standard rules but each of them uses their own policies and thus the exploitation of the community. If the service or product is too niche or too rural then the social vehicle is definitely not the medium to promote it. The best thing about this medium is the level of personalization that it can create to every individual user. It’s like a big loudspeaker that has enough takers online. These are the ‘Mavens’ who being the prospective customers are not afraid to explore and are hungry for information.

Imagine the benefits to organization that are actively using these mediums. Every community can be specific to a set of clients and customers. The website traffics could also be reduced significantly through these branches during recession and also amplifies during a product launch easing out costs complementing an effort to go green. Advertising revenues per click also gets a new face. These communities help build healthy leads for a sale or association. The new breed of entrepreneurs couldn’t have asked for a larger audience to be heard and cater to.

Social media is as good as word of mouth and therefore has its own share of the bad. Organisations like IBM had interpreted this very early and therefore set up a special team, that looks into major forums, sites and communities looking for every feed on IBM, either for a product or service. This group monitors every discussion trying to filter a genuine concern to bogus reviews from a rival. Although it provides a great test market as well to acceptance, but at the same time runs the risk of discomfort to a brand presence. You might as well have seen founders and CEOs who also are actively present in these networks only reiterating a fact that these groups needs decisive inputs from the decision makers themselves since it’s almost like a media release.

Social networking is definitely the next big thing if taken care of until the 3G networks hit India which would surely see a burst of M Commerce and application, all hand held for the KING.

Here is a small presentation that peeks into some other forms of marketing tools that are still strongly present although getting a little old. But old is still gold. http://www.4shared.com/file/124057358/5129e2da/Alternative_Marketing_Vehicles.html

Cheers

Sudip

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It is considered as a part of CRM but actually it will empower retailers to uplift their bottom lines. The new trend is here and it’s known as Social Commerce. It’s not long back when we heard about e-commerce and m-commerce, many retailers are still experimenting and evaluating these concept. And this Social commerce is an add-on to these previous concepts. In the market there is lot of buzz and talk about social commerce but some analysts are predicting that the concept will take over market by early 2011. But you can visualize some minor elements of social commerce even now like rating system on most shopping websites, customer’s testimonials and their blog hosted on retailer’s website etc.

Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang told CRM magazine about the past, present, and future state of the social Web, and he categorized it into five overlapping eras –

1. The era of social relationships: Beginning in the mid-1990s, people signed up for online profiles and connected with their friends to share information.

2. The era of social functionality:As it exists today, social networking is more than just a platform for “friending,” but one that can support a broader array of what Owyang calls “social interactive applications.” However, identities are essentially disconnected silos within individual sites.

3. The era of social colonization:By late 2009, technologies such as OpenID and Facebook Connect will begin to break down the barriers of social networks and allow individuals to integrate their social connections as part of their online experience, blurring the lines between networks and traditional sites.

4. The era of social context:In 2010, sites will begin to recognize personal identities and social relationships to deliver customized online experiences. Social networks will become the “base of operation for everyone’s online experiences.”

5. The era of social commerce: In approximately two years, social networks will be more powerful than corporate Web sites and CRM systems, as individual identities and relationships are built on this platform. Brands will serve community interests and grow based on community advocacy as users continue to drive innovation in this direction.

Click on Image to enlarge it

-Prateek Katiyar

Source: CRM magazine & Forrester Research

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Hello Readers,

A sudden brew in the coffee mug of India spurred this article!

India forever has been a contemporary tea drinking nation than anything else. Although coffee was predominantly popular down the southern states, the up class nature of coffee bars made it popular across the country. What clicked with all the retailers was the young and deep pocketed urban youth of India. These cafes perfectly filled the gap of a nice comfy place to hang out with your pals or that sophistication of breakfast meetings.

Clearly, with India’s middle class aspiring to be in sync with the global culture almost all the major coffee chains of the world (Starbucks is still in the picture) were hungry for the country. An express growth lured all of them. That led to the “superlative experience” of these outlets. Products in a wide range of variants that included not only hot coffee, cold coffee, coffee add ons, powder coffee etc but also other drinks and snacks. Actually in most joints tea also made to the menu, which would be touted as adapting to the local environments. The chains have also been adopting state-of-the-art store formats and some even offer wi-fi access to their customers. As a step forward, CCD has incorporated formats like music cafés, book cafés, highway cafés, lounge cafés, garden cafés and cyber cafés targeting a diversified customer profile. Some also went ahead to sell merchandise through their outlets. A prominent feature into Bollywood sponsorships only made sipping a cult. Infact the bug also hit some prominent retailers like Shoppers Stop (Brio), Reliance (Time Out) who had coffee joints introduced to their outlets. Tata Coffee, Indias largest exporter also couldn’t wait to open up Mr Bean Coffee Junction in Chennai recently. FMCG majors like Nestle already had their kiosks well placed when coffee retailing was happening.

Some of the prominent names like CCD, Barista (now acquired by Lavazza), CBTL, Costa Coffee, Barnies and Coffee World are still vying for market share and have very unique expansion plans. Barista in a recent outrage to gain back market share have gone veggie in all outlets of Ahmedabad and are serving udipi menu in the likes of dosas and uttapam! They have also applied for liquor licenses for their ‘Creme’ outlets in Delhi and Mumbai where they plan to keep international varieties of beer and wine. Whereas robust plans of CCD are just enthralling as they have identified 6 new verticals to serve your favorite coffee which also included hospitals. From Highway outlets to more luxurious outlets will include recently launched CCD Squares and Lounges, CCD with its current 720 stores and an addition of 20 -25 every month looks to remain firm on the top.

There is also news that FMCG major HUL is eyeing this lucrative market as well. It will be interesting to see whether HUL gives some spill or chill to the established players.

We all know, a lot can happen over a cuppa coffee.

Cheers

Sudip

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