Category Archives: marketing

Retailers be aware: product customization might be the future – and it comes from the web

Fresh Worldwide Press, marketing, online shopping, shopping experience, , , , , , , , , , , ,

A very interesting article about a new trend which goes against the well-known rule of product massification: “One size fits all”. The article mentions several websites, mainly U.S based, offering to their customers the chance to create their own unique product. Ranging from Art to Chocolate and Perfumes, just to count some. this new trend is going to become big, especially because many “co-created” goods undercut their top-tier competitors. 

Searching what the Italian web offer is may be a little bit frustrating, because the search always reminds to non-Italian companies. The only great example of online product customization which is 100% Italian is Miraqo. The very clever website offer the chance to create your own chocolate adding a huge variety of high quality ingredients, which are also certified as being organic. If know of more Italian based companies which are offering online customization services to their products, just leave a comment or send us an email (Source: Smallbusiness.aol.com)

What we do care about

As designers & consultants who are in stores every day, we see the good, the bad, and the ugly in this business. We see what works and what doesn’t. We admire those who take the time to share with us new ideas to build beautiful stores, who really establish solid connections with us, who agree with us that it’s imperative to have a winning concept in today market.

This might be true for many generic consultants around the world. But one of the things that we’ve noticed, is that we provide one other thing that is perhaps one of our greatest values. It’s that our customers can talk to us about their business, freely and openly, and get the help they need.  

Many Retailers certainly seek out advice from a number of sources, and most commonly from vendors.  Vendors certainly have a great view of the marketplace, and they too see a lot of what goes on in the Retail space. 

But at the end, the vendor’s solution to a Retailer’s problems will be to buy their product.  It’s a little like that old saying, “To a carpenter, everything is solved with a hammer.”

For us as designers & consultants, the only thing we honestly care about is whether or not that Retailer has made money, and if they are happy doing so.  In terms of product or vendor solution, we don’t have any “hammer” in the pocket.  Yes, we can suggest but a the very end, it doesn’t matter to us which vendor the Retailer buys, as long as it contributes positively to realize our design store, collaborating and to make the Retailer money. 

Please meet us soon at:

– Euroshop in Dusseldorf on the 26th and 27th of February

– Gulfood in Dubai on the 1st and 2nd of March

The state of retail online shopping in UK: January 2011 report

Fresh Worldwide Press, marketing, online shopping, , , , , , , , ,

Shoppers in the United Kingdom spent 5.1 billion pounds ($8.3 billion) online in January, up 21% from one year prior, according to the latest figures from consultant Capgemini and Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), a web retailing industry association.The travel sector generated some of the largest growth, as more shoppers took advantage of seasonal discounts on vacation packages. “Travel is one of the sectors of the U.K. economy that saw the earliest adoption of the Internet as an initial point of purchase and this trend shows no sign of abating,” says Phillip Rinn, director of advertising partnerships at eBay Advertising.

January travel sales were up 31% compared with the same month in 2009, and the average value of trips purchased was 886 British pounds ($1,439), the highest recorded in over two years. Many of those winter-weary travellers also bought luggage online, says Russ Carroll, U.K. managing director of comparing shopping site Shopping.com. “Shopping.com saw sales of luggage rise by over 20%,” Carroll says, “as many consumers decided they needed to get away from the miserable British weather.”

Hefty discounts offered by furniture chains also contributed to strong results for online home and garden retailers, as shoppers spent 56% more at these e-commerce sites in January than the year prior, according to IMRG results. “Home, on the back of our Clearance offer, had a very strong month with sales up over 30% on 2010,” says Jonathon Brown, head of online selling at general merchandise retailer John Lewis.

Alcohol sales dropped 67%, which IMRG attributed to shoppers’ desire to cut back after holiday excesses in December (Source: Stefany Moore for Internetretailer.com)

Is this the future of retail shops?

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At the last National Retail Federation Convention, Intel showed an interactive, 7-foot-6-inch Intel® Intelligent Digital Signage Concept with an LCD display and holographic glass called adiVerse to demonstrate how technology can enhance the retail customer experience with a multi-touch, multi-user interface.

Intel partnered with Adidas to show off what the wall might look like, and the results are pretty sweet. Designed by U.K. shop Start Creative, the wall renders products in 3-D, and allows a shopper to spin and zoom in on the shoes, and call up specs from a touch-screen display. Particularly hot models, like the company’s F50 soccer shoe, have accompanying video and relevant information (like the fact that F50-clad feet scored 44 goals in last year’s World Cup).

Supplemented by a supply of actual shoes that can serve as fit models, the display wall allows retailers to deliver massive inventory in a relatively small space. “We’ve leveled the playing field for small retailers,” says Chris Aubrey, VP, Global Retail Marketing for Germany-based Adidas. “They can now act like a big flagship store in a town like New York.” Not to mention the fact that the installation turns flat walls into prime selling space.

Concept demonstrates how digital signage technology can provide retailers with a competitive advantage, and how it can impact customer loyalty by providing targeted, interactive content to consumers. (Source:Fastcompany)

Multichannel customers, profits and mobile technologies

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This post is about a kind of customers that my clients know very well: multichannel customers. Since I started DESITA‘s business, I’ve always believed in multichannel marketing, and now I always advise my clients to use web and mobile as much as they can to keep customers informed and “tied up” to the brand.

It seems that this strategy will be the winning one in the future too, reading what Urban Outfitter’s CEO Glen Senk revealed during his keynot at last fall Shop.org. Urban Outfitter’s multichannel customers spend in fact two to three times more than single-channel shoppers. Additionally, consumers who engage with the company across three or more channels spend six times more than the average consumer. “Mobile may ultimately impact the in-store experience more than it impacts the online experience,” Senk said during his keynote. “We believe mobile technology will boost e-commerce, but I believe it will absolutely revolutionize the brick-and-mortar retail business.”

Josh Herman, multichannel marketing innovation leader at Acxiom, says that mobile needs to become an integral part of the in-store experience, for example offering customers personalized deals and tailored suggestions. “I think what we’ll see this year is a focus on getting the mobile marketing infrastructure more closely tied to the rest of the marketing intelligence assets. This will help fortify spending in mobile marketing,” Herman says.

Carsten Thoma, president of Hybris U.S. and COO of Hybris Group, believes that mobile is the glue that bonds online and brick-and-mortar operations, but he still sees confusion from retailers on where to start. In addition, many companies riddled with legacy systems that prevent the integration of mobile, he says. “That complete fusion of offline and online in a seamless environment is the most important thing in 2012. I’m 100 percent sure that customers are expecting this experience,” Thoma says, and I do agree with him

Two social media tools for retailers: local buzzing with enterprise control.

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We often talk about social media, buzz marketing and online reputation. Big corporations can find it quite difficult to control and “direct” all the related online communication, especially when this is done at local level – agents, retailers, franchises. But now there are platforms that can help corporations achieve great results with just a couple of clicks.

Yesterday I stumbled upon an interesting Tweet by Mashable, regarding a new startup, Hearsay, whose product – Hearsay Social- is a social media management platform, that gives companies with a national presence and local agents or franchises the ability to manage all of their social media in one place. Hearsay calls organizations that fit this mold “corporate/local.” Hersay Social is a web-based software that a corporation and its local branches can use to coordinate their social media efforts. The dashboard gives local agents or franchises the ability to manage their own local Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. It also also gives corporations the ability to monitor local engagement. Not only can they access detailed analytics for all of their agents, they can also catch when they step out of line. Hearsay clients list includes State Farms whose case study is availaible online.  Here’s an interesting video about the product features.

Another software that can help companies achieve the same result: Expion. Expion provides Social Media Management Software that enables large Enterprises to publish and aggregate social media conversations that can scale to hundreds of local based Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and YouTube channels, etc. This software allows maximum employee social reach within a company’s defined social guardrails, allows for employees across all your locations or departments to deliver coordinated and consistent brand appropriate messaging. At the same time Expion’s unified database aggregates and tracks all employee and customer social interactions. This centralized intelligence will profile customers, identify advocates and critics, track behaviors and create best employee practices, while measuring effectiveness of messaging for continued optimization. Expion is already used by Coldwell Banker Advantage, Applebees’s Restaurants and Mark’s among the many

ECOFFEE’s green guerrilla: here’s the proof!!

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Well, there is not so much to add to this great video showing the backstage of our ECOFFEE green guerrilla action during last SIGEP. Spread the video, spread sustainability!

Interested in meeting us? Here is our agenda for the next three months!

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The next few months are among the busiest ones for those who work in the Retail Food sector. The followings are the most important event to which we will attend – just in case you are interested in meeting us personally!

Jan. 21-21 Greencity , Paris. International Business Convention

Jan.22nd – 26th , Rimini (IT) 32nd SIGEP, International Exhibition Artisan Production of Gelato, Pastry, Confectionary and Bakery  

Feb. 19th -22nd Sapore– Tasting Experience, Rimini (IT) it represents the entire beverage, food and seafod market for the Ho.Re.Ca. channel (a sector that has exceeded 70 billion euros and has further growth prospects)

Get ready to go “wow” watching ECOFFEE’s guerrilla marketing actions that will take place during Sigep! Stay tuned or participate to this important event!

Feb. 26th-March 2nd Euroshop Düsseldorf (DE). The global retail trade Fair

Feb. 27th– March 2nd Gulfood  Dubai. Gulfood is one of the most important food, drink & hospitality markets worldwide

March 14th-16h FME – Franchising Middle East, Dubai. Franchising Middle East Exhibition is the largest International Franchise Show in the MENA Region.

March 29th– April 1st– Horeca , Biel (Lebanon). The international Tradeshow for the Hospitality and Foodservice Industry

Legambiente awards ECOFFEE

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I strongly believe that sustainability is a key factor for business that want to successfully overcome market challenges. And I am glad that this culture for business sustainability is becoming more and more widespread in Italy too. ECOFFEE has in fact received a nomination to participate at the “Green Economy Emilia Romagna” Award, an initiative of Legambiente dedicated to the companies promoting environmental business policies. A great result – and this is only the beginning!