How to improve conversion rate?

October 4 2010 by admokrieger in General, Marketing |No Comments

Hello everybody, it has been a while since my last post. There are two main reasons: I was on vacation all August and I was very busy with my jog all September with little time for my family so I decided not reduce that time more by working on the blog. Now, it is getting better and I have a bit more time.

I decided to start posting again with an article about conversion rate. This is an highly important subject for any online business because this is the best way to increase any online business. It commonly accepted that conversion rate in the industry is between 2% and 3%. At a first glance, that number makes me desperate. Only 3% of the traffic of any web site generate a sale! But if you consider it, I find it very interesting: It can only be better. Continue reading »

First post with the iPad

July 31 2010 by Olivier in General |No Comments

I bought an iPad to see if this a good device to manage the blog while I am abroad. At a first glance and after 10 minutes of usage, i can say that the screen is wonderful and the keyboard is very easy to use in landscape mode. I already saw a problem with word press as this is impossible to use the HTML visual editor. I have to use the HTML editor otherwise this is impossible to enter any text.

That said, there are also some other limitations. As you probably noticed, there is no picture attached to that article. The reason is that I haven’t found yet an application which could be used to work on pictures.
Another limitation is that Safari doesn’t allow multi tab navigation, you have to switch from one instance to another. This is very annoying in my point of view.

Otherwise, it seems like a good device to update the blog from time to time but I don’t think I will write very long articles.

What’s your experience with the iPad? Did you try to use it from professional purposes?

PS: I finally found a way to upload pictures but it requires uploading the image manually from the iPad to the blog via FTP. Not that easy, isn’t it?

PS2: There is also an iPad app for WordPress which seems very easy to use. I’ll give you more feedback when I would have spend more time using it.

Interview with Sam Feuer, CEO of MindSmack

July 29 2010 by Olivier in Interviews, Mobility |No Comments

This week’s interview takes place with Sam Feuer, CEO of MindSmack. I came to know Sam from one iPhone app (see my post about Shopping mall applications) I downloaded. I found the app very interesting and promising, especially for retailers.

I though it would be a good idea to interview Sam and see what he thinks will be the future of this type of applications based on his experience and strategy to develop his own product called FastMall.

Olivier – Can you tell us a bit about you, your background?

Sam – I’ve always been fascinated with the Internet and envisioning amazing possibilities for web and mobile. In 1998, I began working for several successful Internet startup companies. Within one year, I branched off to begin my own advertising and design agency in New York City. Continue reading »

Amazon and Facebook team up to offer a better social experience to consumers

July 28 2010 by Olivier in Retail, Social Medias |No Comments

Since Tuesday July 27th 2010, Amazon offers to their customers the possibility to link their Amazon’s account to their Facebook profile. That’s a great move but what are the reasons behind it? In a previous post, I presented 3 easy tips to leverage Social Networks. One tip was to use Facebook login to access retailers’ websites. Obviously, Amazon went one step further to offer a better social experience to their customers.

We will see first what are the new functionalities offered by Amazon with the Facebook integration and then I will try to see what are the benefits for Amazon, Facebook and the consumers. To conclude, I will try to predict the future ;) Continue reading »

NRF Mobile Blueprint – Mobile Marketing (Part 2)

July 27 2010 by Olivier in Marketing, Mobility, Retail |No Comments

In my previous post, I spent some time to present the huge NRF blueprint which aims at helping retailers go mobile. This second post is about Mobile Marketing. Mobile Marketing could be the first step a retailer could take to enter the mCommerce world.

This post will focus on the following category, all part of Mobile Marketing:

  • Advertising & marketing
  • Customer service
  • Shopping tools
  • Product information
  • Loyalty programs
  • Promotion & coupons

We will see a lot of different solutions & technologies available for retailers to use Mobile Marketing at its best. Just to name a few, we will approach the following concepts (without technical details) like Quick Response codes, Augmented Reality, NFC tags … Continue reading »

Leverage shopping mall applications to drive traffic to stores

July 27 2010 by Olivier in Marketing, Mobility, Retail |1 Comment

Did you ever hear about FastMall, an iPhone app that provides interactive mall maps and information about stores in the mall?

If not, this is a very interesting application, developed by Mindsmack, a US based company. Currently, the application supports shopping malls from 20 countries, mainly in big cities but it will expand for sure if consumers start to use it heavily.

Just a few information about FastMall before I try to explore interesting ideas around shopping malls & retailers. For each shopping mall, FastMall provides directions to reach the stores, information about hours of operations and one interesting feature: If you shake your iPhone, the app will show you the nearest toilet. Consumers can also post a review on the shops they visited so it’s getting social as well.

That said, what could we do more in order to provide more values to consumers and retailers? Continue reading »

Interview with Justin Seyfarth from Sports Authority

July 22 2010 by Olivier in Interviews, Retail |No Comments

This is the first interview from a set of interviews. My goal is to publish one interview every week if I get enough peoples interested to be interviewed. If you are interested, please send a mail to wi (at) olivierkrieger.com & I will get in touch with you shortly to explain you how we can conduct the interview. Just a few words about the interview, as I want it to be convenient for you, it’s going to be done via email unless you prefer to do it over the phone or Skype.

This week, Justin Seyfarth from Sports Authority, is going to present his company as well as his role & the importance of good allocation in the retail business. Before we start, I would like to say a big thank you to Justin for the time he spent to answer my questions.

Olivier - Can you tell us a bit about you, your background?

Justin – Recent Graduate from Texas Lutheran University, graduated with a degree in Journalism and an emphasis on Political Science, I got involved in retail when the U.S economy started to curtail and I hopped on the first career path that became available. I came into Sports Authority through their Team Sales Department and have worked my way up through the ranks.   Continue reading »

Google, Yahoo & Bing – Are we ready to lose 30% of business?

July 19 2010 by Olivier in Search |No Comments

If you run an online business, you are probably very careful about SEO, Search Engine Optimization. Like most of peoples, I am very focused on getting the best page rank in Google to drive traffic to my blog. But as most of peoples, I forget something critical: Google is not the only search engine used by customers.

I ran 3 queries on Internet (using Google of course) to see if most peoples are really thinking only about Google, here is the result. When I search for “Google SEO”, I get 44,300,000 pages. When doing it for “Yahoo SEO”, I get 42,500,000 pages & for “Bing SEO”, I get 29,400,000 pages. Of course, this isn’t scientific but I have to say I am surprised to see Google & Yahoo so close. Based on that result, I decided to write a quick post about those 3 search engines & also give you some help to increase your page rank in those 3 search engines.

First, let’s have a look at the marketshares of these 3 major players in Internet search. It’s difficult to estimate those numbers but companies like comScore release on a monthly basis an estimate of Search engines market shares.

In June 2010, Google accounted for 62.6% of the search, with Yahoo being second with 18.9% & Bing third with 12.7%. All three accounted for 94.2% so there is no real need to pay attention to the remaining 5.8% as they represent dozens of other Search engines.

First thing you will notice is that Google rules the world of Search. So it makes sense to focus on Google only for your SEO strategy. But if you pay a second look, you will see that Yahoo & Bing accounted for 31.6%. So if you don’t pay attention to these two companies, you will lose more than 30% of traffic to your web site.

If we assume that revenue is related to the traffic on the web site (which seems a valid statement), then the potential revenue loss is more than 30%. I don’t know who can afford to lose 30% of business, do you?

That said, now the question is:What could be done?

The good news is that all three companies have developed what they call “Webmaster tools”. For Google, you should go to www.google.com/webmasters/tools/, for Yahoo it’s https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ and for Bing this is www.bing.com/webmaster. All these tools offer you the possibility to monitor your web site’s page rank on Internet based on their own index.

I advice you to spend some time to explore all 3 tools & then to optimize your site to each of these Search engines. I won’t give you any advice on how to optimize your web site now as it needs a lot of knowledge (which I miss) & a lot of time to prepare a relevant and helpful article.

I can only refer you to the book below which is a very good start to SEO. Enjoy!

[avhamazon locale="US" asin="0321526287" linktype="pic-text" picsize="medium"]

NRF Mobile Blueprint – Introduction & presentation (Part 1)

July 18 2010 by Olivier in Mobility, Retail |No Comments

In a previous post, I presented the National Retail Federation as they just released a blueprint to help retailers go mobile. As the blueprint is huge (177 pages), I decided to split it into 7 posts (see in the previous post the table of content).

This post will focus on presenting the blueprint to understand what the NRF wants to achieve with the blueprint. Most of the content of that post is based on the blueprint but I will take sometimes the opportunity to add some comments or ideas. Now, it’s time to start ! Continue reading »

National Retail Federation – The mobile retail blueprint available but what’s in?

July 14 2010 by Olivier in Mobility, Retail |No Comments

The National Retail Federation (NRF) just released a blueprint to help retailers go mobile. Before spending time on the blueprint, let’s have a look at the NRF. What’s his mission? According to their website, their mission is “to advance and protect the interests of the retail industry and to help retailers achieve excellence in all areas of their business“. In fact the NRF is a trade association which represents small, medium & large retailers in 45 countries.

I find it interesting to see that the NRF released such a blueprint to all retailers. It means for me that all players from the retail sector are considering m-Commerce as a real opportunity. I am sure we will see in the next months/years very interesting solutions based on mobile commerce. I talked yesterday about a large French retailer which have released an iPhone App with success. Let’s see if he has followed the recommendation from the NRF. Continue reading »

Next Page »