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  • Welcome!

    Each week I come across interesting bits of data, reports, analyses or viewpoints from captains of industry and masters of the online universe. They're all related to business, technology and analytics. My intention is to share and comment on them here. So feel free to dip in and enjoy this meandering collection with me.

  • Motivated to Write

    A list of my own writing, research and opinion. Mostly about products and people in our online world. Writing about what we see and how we use it helps me to explore and organise ideas in my own head. Read more here

  • Short Posts

    Short posts, quotes and quick comments on anything and everything. More observation than critical thinking. Read more here

Facebook – Quality or Quantity?

I’m not a fan of Facebook. I lost interest a while ago and stopped using it. I’m still, however, feeling the network effect as some disciples don’t respond to email anymore and instead prefer to be engaged on Facebook. I had reason to message some family members recently, so I bit the bullet and found my login.

There was a very blatant, right-column reminder about Facebook’s exploitative business model as I navigated the Site. Take a look at the range of ads and sponsored-whatevers I was served. Untargeted. Irrelevant. Horrible.

They’ve connected a billion people on the planet and this is the world they want us using?

I’m trying hard not to bash Facebook from my middle-classed platform of privilege. But when I compare their efforts to engage with relevant information, entertainment and ads with, say, Google and Amazon: I see no signs of improvement and can only feel they are failing. They publicly state higher moral aims to connect the world and this puts them firmly in the path of my criticism.

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Managing Customer Loyalty

How loyal are your customers?

92% of consumers trust referrals from friends and family more than advertising and 70% trust consumer reviews (via Loyalty360). But do they trust the brand? eMarketer talks about millenials (aged 18 to 34) being very price sensitive in a recent article ‘Millennial Grocery Shoppers Favor Deals Over Brands’. Their research concludes that the path to a purchase grows increasingly fragmented and brand loyalty is diminishing. Shoppers – across many retail areas – are becoming used to switching brand, channel and outlet in an effort to save on price (87% of their survey respondents suggesting price was the biggest influence).

These are just two examples of recent research reports that raise the role of loyalty in a purchase decision. How do retailers respond in this multi-channel world? Is building customer loyalty worth the effort?

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Online Retail in China

“It is ‘one of the few bright spots in the Chinese economy,’ says Zeng Ming. He is talking about e-commerce. Mr Zeng, the chief strategy officer for Alibaba, a giant Chinese internet firm, predicts that digital transactions on his firm’s platforms will top 1 trillion yuan ($159 billion) this year—more than Amazon’s and eBay’s combined. That is a bold claim; but consider what happened on Singles Sunday.

Invented a few years ago by students and seized upon by digital marketers, this festival for lonely hearts falls annually on the 11th day of the 11th month (since 1 is the loneliest number). It is like St Valentine’s Day, only worse. Singletons shower each other with tender gifts: a barrage of pearls; a storm of sweets. This November 11th they spent a staggering 19 billion yuan on Alibaba’s online platforms—a fourfold increase on a year ago, and more than double what Americans spent online last Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving, when retailers urge Americans to shop online). More than 100m purchases were logged, accounting for 80% of the packages shipped that day.”

(Taken from The Economist ‘Pity the Parcel People’, 17th November)

These numbers are staggering.

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