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October 2001, ShopTalk By Andrea Learned |
| Welcome to the first issue of Reaching
Women Online's short (I tried), text update on a rotating list of
industries and implications for marketing to online women consumers.
This time the issue is called ShopTalk, to follow up on the last issue
of our full newsletter, Reaching Women Online (http://www.reachwomen.com/enewsletters/06.rwo.htm),
and it's discussion of holiday e-tail. (Next time, it might be CauseTalk
or TeenTalk depending on what tidbits cross my eye in the week prior.) As with Reaching Women Online, these "Talks" will be archived on the ReachWomen web site. In this issue: 1. Nuggets of knowledge from recent e-commerce news 2. J. Walker Smith, President of Yankelovich Partners, Inc. on the reassessing of consumer priorities that was occurring before September 11th. The type of customers you draw in for freebies or deep discounts aren't likely to be the ones with whom you build relationships. Women, in particular, are looking for a long-term connection (not just immediate gratification). So, keep your eye on the basics of great customer service, high security and privacy concern, and ease of navigability in these trying times. Nuggets of knowledge from recent e-commerce news: • Free shipping, steep discounts or gifts with purchase may have attracted customers in the past, but not the kind of customer who becomes a loyal repeat spender. From: "E-Commerce: A Consumer's Report -- Pricing: No More Free Lunch...Please?" The Wall Street Journal, September 24, 2001) Editors note: This conflicts with an e-tailing.com study I included in the last issue of Reaching Women Online that cites free shipping, online coupons, satisfaction guaranteed and discounted shipping - in that order - as top incentives for online purchasing. Let me know what you have found, or how things go over the holiday season. • More than one in four shoppers (28%) say the Internet makes them shop more often, while one in three women (33%) say they usually exceed their shopping budget online. From a study conducted for the Unilever Interactive Brand, 04/09/2001) And, from BizRate.com: This is the year (Q4 of 2001) when online shopping goes mass -- with more than 25 percent of Americans shopping online," said BizRate.com President and CEO Chuck Davis. "In a maturing market, e-tailers need to focus on the consumer, especially female buyers, in order to continue to thrive." Catering to the online shopping needs of women will become even more important this year. Since the 2000 holiday season, women have become the majority buyers at key gift-giving occasions, and they are expected to continue to power online growth during this year's holiday season. More than half of the retail categories such as Gifts & Flowers, Health & Beauty, Food & Drink and Home & Garden are female-dominated and continue to grow twice as fast as other categories. "E-tailers and manufacturers operating within these female growth categories need to give serious thought to how they will reach out to women," Davis said. And, recent clips from InternetRetailer.com's IRNewslink: E-retailing growth will stay strong in Q4, says ERA's Elissa Myers (full story: http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=5231) • Growth will occur in the fourth quarter because consumers want to remain close to home, the diversity of products available on the web has improved, the technology of shopping has gotten better over the past year and the fulfillment problems of two Christmases ago are distant history to most consumers. Consumer group launches educational campaign about safe web shopping (full story: http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=5217) • Security remains a top-ranking concern among online shoppers with 43% believing they're risking theft of their credit card numbers when they use them to buy online, according to a new survey from the National Consumers League. Additionally, more than half the consumers surveyed - 59% -- mistakenly believe it's safer to pay for an online purchase with a check or money order than a credit card. • Some 55% of NCL survey respondents with Internet access said they'd placed an order online in the previous 12 months, compared with only 44% who reported doing so in a similar 1999 survey. J. Walker Smith, President of Yankelovich Partners, Inc. delivered a paper entitled "Trying to Get Back to Business in Trying Times," in late September that I found helpful. The link for the PDF is: http://www.yankelovich.com/mp3/bus_as_usual.pdf Mr. Smith discusses the massive reassessment of priorities that was occurring leading up to September 11th, and how that has taken on even more momentum since then. He suggests three reasons for the shift in priorities: 1. Consumers have grown tired of the hype. They want something real and authentic. 2. Consumer smarts have increased with the market boom of the nineties. New personal agendas are being set for one's own interests and on one's own initiative. 3. Newly felt claustrophobia of abundance. People don't want more stuff, they want something more in their lives. The values that Mr. Smith highlights further on in the paper are also priorities for reaching women, so I've included them below: 1. Family 2. Community 3. Integrity 4. Work/life balance 5. Authenticity 6. Security Read the piece yourselves, and tell me what you think. |