Skip to main content

Tag: Speaking

Interviewed on SkyNews about “Mega Monday” or Cyber Monday

Written by Ian Jindal on . Posted in eCommerce, Publishing, T'interwebs.

So, then, to 4 Millbank to be interviewed on the 7pm SkyNews bulletin about CyberMonday (or, being British, “Mega Monday”).

Appearing on SkyNews at 7pm
Appearing on SkyNews at 7pm

I was called this afternoon to ask if I’d be willing to appear and comment and of course the answer was ‘yes’. Then I started to feel nervous!

I don’t recall much about the interview itself – I was in a dark room, staring at a focus point and desperately listening to the question so that I didn’t burble. Intentionally, anyway.

Up earlier had been David Walmsley, Head of Direct at John Lewis, and as I’d arrived in the studio I’d thought how composed and fluid he was on TV. I decided to become more nervous immediately 😉

The studio was intriguing: not quite a ‘radio car’, but certainly a compact and lean operation, mainly focused on political happenings at nearby Parliament.

The Millbank studio for Sky News
The Millbank studio for Sky News

I’ve not been able to track down a ‘recording’ of what I said, but my intention was to cover off how the predictions for Mega Monday were tending toward the blindingly obvious, and how even a scrooge-like consumer was now running out of shopping days to Christmas. Behind the headline figures of revenues (predicted, btw, by IMRG to be £320m today, with Retail Decisions predicting that Mega Minute will be 1.31pm today, with an expected near £1m in transactions that minute), the real issue is that revenues this year will have been bought by discounting. In order to have a higher cash value of transactions than last year, therefore, retailers will need to ship proportionally more boxes – creating an additional strain on their logistics operations as well as reducing their margins even further.

Pressed on the reason for the success of the web I recall mentioning that the web was now a mature component within multichannel retail. The web is used by some 90% of people questioned in an IMRG survey to help decide on purchases made in-store. Interestingly, only 68% of those questioned said the reverse – that they needed to see goods in-store to inform their internet purchasing.

I was asked whether there was anything fundamental to the web that would make it an inherently ‘cheap’ channel, but of course there’s a need to have a capable infrastructure as well, ideally, as a traditional retail channel in order to maximise sales. I challenged the draw of the web as being “cheapness” alone, noting that customers now required service as much as price. In the US on CyberMonday, for example, nearly 11% of all shopping traffic went to Amazon.com – a combination of breadth of product, excellent pricing and exemplary, proven service.

In what seemed like an age or a second it was over and, with a polite ‘thank you’ from the producer, I was back on the scooter heading home.

The kids were pleased to see me on telly (ahh) and I’ve already had abusive texts about being fat/nervous/bearded etc – to which I just say “thanks” 😉

This is a picture of me on the telly taken with Vicky's iPhone - I'm just blinking, not falling into a trance. Honest.
This is a picture of me on the telly taken by Vicky with her iPhone - I'm just blinking, not falling into a trance. Honest.

It was an interesting experience and something out of the comfort zone. It was also a chance to get some key messages to a new audience and finally whet my appetite to enliven our plans for InternetRetailing TV. We did some experiments at our conference – see the embed below –  but I think that it’s time to be a bit more active on this front.

Speaking at the SocialCommerceSummit at The Magic Circle

Written by Ian Jindal on . Posted in eCommerce, world wide wandering.

Speaking on “Distraction” at Bazaarvoice‘s SocialCommerceSummit event. Good audience, but here’s hoping that there’s no remote-controlled trap door!

Update later with the slides.

Update: as promised, here are the slides via SlideShare.

PS067-bazaarvoice-socialcommerce

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: social commerce)
UPDATE: 2008-11-11
The folk at Bazaarvoice have been more diligent and professional than me in their recording of the event. See below a rather nifty ‘showreel’ of the event:

Also, a nice writeup by Justin Crandall, the UK MD, on their blog entry:

Next up was the always entertaining and often controversial Ian Jindal, Editor-in-Chief of Internet Retailing, discussing the Art of Distraction. Ian painted a vivid picture of where consumer power is heading, a future in which customers own their own web experience and gravitate toward those brands who engage them while also making their lives easier.

Thanks for the kind words and again for a fun event. Still grappling with the ‘basic’ magic tricks though…

“People in Aid” – Board presentation.

Written by Ian Jindal on . Posted in T'interwebs.

A couple of weeks ago I gave a presentation to the People In Aid Board on the trends in the uses of digital and social media and how these might be used to provide improved services for the charity’s members, staff, field users and stakeholders.
People in Aid is a charity to support HR professionals and practitioners. In their words:
Promoting good practice in the management and support of aid personnel
People In Aid is an international network of development and humanitarian assistance agencies. People In Aid helps organisations whose goal is the relief of poverty and suffering to enhance the impact they make through better people management and support
The organisation already has a number of good web properties, but very much in the “publishing” tradition: centralised information ‘resources’ that are available ‘from the source’ – not always ideal in the field, nor necessarily reflecting the way people currently work internally.
The preparation phase allowed me to get a good understanding of the issues, challenges and opportunities faced by PIA – my thanks to Ben and his colleagues for their time and ideas. The presentation itself elicited some good questions and push-back and I’m looking forward to seeing the development of their web and digital strategies.
The slide deck is linked below, on Slideshare.net.

Google Retail Summit – moderating “Scaling and Managing the $1bn Online Business”

Written by Ian Jindal on . Posted in eCommerce.

Retail Summit

Google UK have convenened an interesting and senior morning on etail and ecommerce. You can see the list of speakers at the website – quite a gathering.

I’m pleased to be moderating a session on “Scaling and Managing the $1bn Online Business”. I do this with some humility since the last ecommerce business I ran (while Group eCommerce Director at Littlewoods Shop Direct) was “only” £405million. The current £:$ rate is flattering of my efforts though – $800m sounds like a lot more – but failing a slump in the value of the dollar (!) I currently do not qualify for membership of the $1bn-club. Not yet, at least 😉

The panellist will include Bruce Fair (MD, Kelkoo), Matthew Hardcastle (MD, Shopping.com) and Peter Fitzgerald (Retail Industry Leader, Google UK).

Speeches for Adobe and Sky

Written by Ian Jindal on . Posted in eCommerce.

It’s been a busy time on the speaking front, culminating in a ‘double decker’ for Adobe and then Sky.

Adobe’s Scene7 folk have initiated a series of retailer briefings and, having spoken at the first, it would have been rude not to speak again when invited 😉 The topic of this presentation was “Excellence in Online Retailing”. I opened proceedings, then Ijaz and Marty shared some of the Scene7 roadmap. Michael Ross of eCommera then gave a presentation on the “The 10Ps of eCommerce“. This was a great presentation. Michael’s dry and direct delivery was really engaging and certainly brought the 10 Ps to life. I’d read these (since we published an article on them in Internet Retailing Magazine last issue – you can see the PDF here), but seeing the presentation was certainly more fun.

I’ve put the presentation on slideshare.

Then on to Sky University for an afternoon opener on “Online Selling – a customer experience”. The day was organised by Sky for their top teir affiliates and my session was an opportunity to take a broader look at the customer landscape. It was also a good opportunity for me to ponder further the affiliate landscape – an area of increasing interest to me, to which I’ll return in later posts.

A real eye-opener for me though was a presentation from Joost de Valk, a search strategist at OnetoMarket in the Netherlands. Joost is engaged in “white hat” SEO (ie legal, well-behaved, effective SEO activities) for some major brands. Joost also knows a lot – from hearsay, no doubt – about “black hat” SEO: the sort of activities for which the word “naughty” was coined. I spend a bit of time working with client teams to improve their SEO, but I had no idea of the scale, complexity and cunning of the operations attempting to outfox Google, searches and credit-card owners. It’s an area I need to look at! Hopefully, with Joost’s help rather than a DIY remedial course in high-contact, combat SEO!

Here are my slides on Slideshare:

Heading off to the Mediafutures conference

Written by Ian Jindal on . Posted in eCommerce, Publishing, Stuff.

Just off to the Mediafutures Conference in Ally Pally (reaches for A-Z) and wondering whether there’ll be great broadband/mobile reception there ‘cos we’re under a mast?

Interesting day lined up but here’s a quick heads up that there’s a twitter channel at (predictably):
Twitter / mediafutures

I’m not going to promise an update since Nico’s notes are generally quicker and better than any notes I’ve taken at his events 😉

Speaking at the Buy.at “Speakeasy”

Written by Ian Jindal on . Posted in eCommerce.

Bafta

Last Wednesday I was pleased to give the keynote at the Buy.at 5th annual “Speakeasy” event, held at 195 Piccadilly, home of the BAFTAs.

It was an eclectic gathering of a couple of hundred people: merchants, affiliates, programme managers and entrepreneurs in a very open, engaged forum.

I spend a lot of time talking to and writing about retailers and the need to engage fully with the digital, demanding customer, and so it was interesting to have an opportunity to examine the role that affiliates play in connecting products and brands with customers’ wallets.

The blend of large-traffic sites, aggregators (like MyDeco or HousetoHome who put a very professional experience design onto the feeds they receive) and very, very niche affiliates (whether MobileShop.co.uk or perfectlyshapedworld) who put retailers to shame in their focus on customers) covered the gamut of retailing.

Given that we had people from the commercial and operational sides of affiliate marketing it was also an opportunity to examine the drivers for profitability, areas of collaboration and the developing needs that affiliates will have from merchants as they seek to remain relevant to customers in an evermore-demanding marketplace.

Following some good questions (both directly, over coffee and then on the subsequent panel discussions) I met some fascinating affiliates and niche businesses who I’m sure we’ll be seeing in upcoming issues of Internet Retailing.

My thanks to the team at Buy.at for their welcome and hospitality. The event was an examplar of stakeholder communication and networking.

It’s also about the only time I’ll ever get to stand on the stage at the BAFTAs… 😉

Update: Ian Jindal’s slides from Speakesy, May 2008 – contents and images are all copyright, but you’re welcome to use with attribution.


“€Tail – the ins and outs of Europe” [Editorial comment from the May issue of Internet Retailing Magazine]

Written by Ian Jindal on . Posted in eCommerce, Publishing, T'interwebs.

A combination of carbon awareness, recessionary trends and a non-existent expenses budget have kept our Editor in Chief’s focus firmly on Europe this month – just a well, since the rest of the world’s focusing upon Europe too…

The European bloc is the third most attractive global market – after the US and China – and, despite the differences in culture, language and infrastructure, this agglomeration of consumers is at least held together by the twin factors of relative affluence and a consistent legal system – the pre-requisites for trade.

The UK is well-positioned to be at the heart of international moves into Europe: the relatively well-advanced broadband and computing infrastructure, the credit card penetration levels, the enjoyment of shopping (online and off) and the ready acceptance of brand imports from across the pond makes the UK a natural ‘beach-head’ for US aspirations in Europe (or “rest of world” as our cousins so often term it).

The well-developed markets in France and German also hold attractions but outside the big three markets – each with its own idiosyncrasies – any hope of an homogeneous, easily-addressable marketplace evaporates.

Leaving aside language and culture (which of course one can’t) the plain sailing of the ecommerce front-end so often comes to grief on the jagged rocks of logistics and distribution. While it’s easy to present an ecommerce front-end to any market (indeed, we often scour the websites of US-only retailers and ponder the costs of delivery and import duty) it’s a totally different matter to get the goods to the customers. Legacy national carrier networks, cross-border delivery issues, the siting of warehousing, management of credit cards and returns… Ah – all of the problems of real ecommerce, but with a combinatorial level of complexity. Software alone cannot solve this, nor can marketing. Hence we see GSI’s European team investing in local logistics companies and partnerships, and the growth of ‘end to end’ commerce offerings that can provide a complete ‘click to doorstep’ service in-country.

What is the cause of this sudden interest? At a high level there’s a combination of a search for new growth outside the US and UK, a feeling that the technology allows a foray into Europe, and the growth of the indigenous etail markets growing to a critical, attractive mass.

Within this there are five main categories of activity (based unscientifically on my conversations last month):

  1. existing master of the large-scale play who look to extend their efficient supply chain and volume retailing to other territories
  2. niche or specialist etailers for whom a global market might exist and who now look to replace lost domestic volumes
  3. Global manufacturer, facing demand for their products in many territories, and juggling global marketing/brand ownership with a variable quality of local distributorships
  4. a domestic power-house looking for “near-shore” opportunities to support growth.
  5. companies who form the local part of a global group coming under pressure to operate in a unified, global fashion.

We will be tracking these developments with interest in these pages in the coming months.

The challenge of Europe is not just one of plugs, pipes and trucks: there’s a ‘selling’ challenge too. While it’s trite to note that customer behaviour may differ in regions and markets, what can we learn from this? Furthermore how can etail professionals move beyond obvious promotional mechanisms and enhance profitability? These questions will be occupying Europe’s leading multichannel retailers in Amsterdam this month for the inaugural European eCommerce Forum (ECF).

ecf-logo-smallThe Forum is an invite-only, expert peer group for etailers with €70million+ in etail sales, and will provide a confidential space for discussion, experimentation, benchmarking and networking. A joint initiative of Internet Retailing and Joris Beckers (CEO of FredHopper), we aspire to improve in-country selling capabilities as well as a broader European view.

ACSEL logoA fortnight later our colleagues at ACSEL, the French association for eCommerce, will be launching their book – “Europe – an Opportunity for eCommerce ” by Jean-Christophe Defline – at a conference in Paris where I’ll be expanding on the European view from the ECF and the UK perspective on eCommerce.

Most etailers will not welcome further complexity when the focus is upon the likely consumer downturn in the UK, so “Europe” may appear an untimely distraction. However, this syzygy of interest in Europe highlights topics of interest to us all: improved brand and customer communications; dealing flexibly with multiple partners and carriers; learning responsiveness to smaller, niche markets and, of course, driving for growth in a tough economic climate.

Adobe, Agency.com: some recent speaking

Written by Ian Jindal on . Posted in T'interwebs.

I was invited by Agency.com to speak at one of their ‘brownbag lunches’ and managed to do so on 29 February, 2008.

The format is a relaxed one: an external speaker, an ‘open mic’ in terms of topic (I spoke on rich internet applications, underlying data and the challenge of selling in a contracting market) and a group of people all clutching and munching their lunches and throwing in questions. It was a fun and interesting session and I’m grateful to Nick Corston, Agency.com’s Sales and Marketing Director, for the invitation.

Last week I provided the keynote for the Adobe Scene 7 and Bazaarvoice ‘best practice seminar’ for retailers. Held at the wonderfully-located Adobe offices in Park Crescent, London, we were treated to good hospitality, excellent facilities and great company – a broad range of retailers and publishers. Chris Poad, Head of eCommerce for Otto UK spoke in his usual engaging style, and had some really thought-inducing questions about how to replicate the notion of “play” and “playfulness” within internet shopping. Justin Crandall, Commercial Director of Bazaarvoice gave a whistle-stop history of ratings and reviews and then proceeded to move quickly beyond the obvious into the future challenges at the heart of “customer to customer marketing”. I learned a good deal from these presentations – and left with a number of new questions to ponder.

Marty Cornelius and Ijaz Bhattee of Adobe Scene 7 then treated us to a tour of the capabilities of the imaging platform, made all the more memorable by Ijaz demonstrating live the ‘hackability’ of the Scene7 URLs (instructional parameters) and really showing how one could ‘drive’ the application. I always admire someone with the confidence to do a whole presentation ‘live’!