commerce Archives | According to Fred

November 1, 2018 by Fred

Welcome to Retail’s New Holimonth – November

Well, it was bound to happen. First, we had Black Friday, the day in which retailers would traditionally go “in the black” in revenue for the year as they lead up to the holiday spending season. Then it became a shoppers holiday when marketers found a way to capitalize on it to kick off the spending season. Next came Cyber Monday when e-commerce exploded and places like Amazon became a “go-to” place for holiday shopping. Let’s face it, two days a year isn’t enough.

In 2018, welcome to the new retail holiday which I’m deeming the “holimonth” (holiday month) of November. While I’m sure we can probably argue the holimonth is really between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, I feel this year it is now the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. In the last two weeks alone I’ve been seeing headlines about retailer’s Black Friday deals starting to leak. Get your credit cards paid off folks–spending is about to kick into high gear. However, today’s mail brought me the Costco Holiday ad. Big and bold on the cover “Holiday Savings starting November 6, 2018.” Wait, what?! Sure enough, as I flipped through the ad, looking at the TVs, game systems, mozzarella sticks (I mean, who doesn’t need 5 lbs of mozzarella sticks for the holidays…if they even last that long!), and deals on 4 tires, it struck me that these deals were spread across the next four weeks leading up to Black Friday.

Share of Wallet Means Starting Earlier

As marketers, we need to be more creative to get the coveted “share of wallet.” At some point creativity isn’t about a gimmick or cool ad or experience, it is just flat out offering deals sooner than the competition.

Remember when you can get together for Thanksgiving and not worry about running home to get the kids to bed and pre-game your shopping binge run? When Black Friday started to get traction, it was all about who was open at Midnight to get the deals. How many of you have sat in line, in the cold, hours before a retailer opened to be one of the few who got the “hot deal” before they ran out? That game system that little Johnny wanted. Or the doll that little Suzy had to have. I see you’re hand raised (and your “no not me” shaking of head). We’ve all either done it or put serious thought towards it.

Retail shopping mall. — Let’s go shopping!

However, Midnight wasn’t enough. It didn’t take long before the stores started opening up on Thursday at 11:00 pm, then 9:00 pm, and now 6:00 pm! It’s gotten so bad that stores are now saying “Nope, we’re closed on Thanksgiving…spend time with your family. We’ll be open tomorrow.” It is the anti-holiday as a sign of “good faith” for your shopping behavior. The irony of that list is that Costco is closed on Thanksgiving. Maybe that’s why the deals are rolling out weeks ahead of time. However, even if you aren’t shopping in their stores, you’re online buying gifts from them. E-commerce never sleeps.

The Disease We All Exploit…Getting the Deal

Marketers and companies are no fools. They know how the game is played, especially retailers. The game is this, human behavior loves a good deal. The emotional feeling, the dopamine rush of getting the deal. It is literally a legal drug that retailers, game makers, and marketers all exploit. Do what you can to let a hit of dopamine to be released in your brain. The “feel good” drug that everyone has in their body. Get the deal. This week only. Only this time, don’t wait for the Black Friday deals to happen on Black Friday, get them weeks earlier.

In light of all of this, I firmly believe that retailers will now use the entire month to grease the wheels for the mad dash run of sales between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. It’s going to be the new trend. Welcome to November, the “Holimonth.”

April 12, 2017 by Fred

Google is Trying Too Hard to Beat Amazon Echo at Commerce

The battle for the home personal assistant is in full force. Amazon came out of left field with the release of Echo and the Alexa assistant over two years ago. Since then, everyone from Google to Samsung to Apple to Microsoft has been scrambling to come up with their digital assistant or in-home connected speaker. Each has their own strengths based on their originators background. For the Echo, the core is about commerce. It is what Amazon is best at and while there is content from Amazon Music, it is really about enabling more purchases on Amazon Prime.

Google, on the other hand, comes from a pedigree of search and ads. Without a display, getting ads into the mix of Google Home will be a tricky topic. We’ve already seen the feedback from when Beauty and the Beast was coming to theaters. Commerce isn’t really a strong suit of Google’s, but it’s not stopping them from trying to monetize the in-home device.

For me and my wife, the best feature of Google Home is the ability to manage our shopping list. We (and the kids) would add items to a shared Google Keep list and it really became a part of our weekly routine. Well, that’s about to change. This week Google unexpectedly changed how shopping lists are managed with Google Home and shifted the lists out of Google Keep and into Google Express, Google’s commerce tool. Needless to say…I, and many others, are not happy. It’s not so much that Google wants to push Google Express on me. I just think they did it in the wrong way.

First, just over a month ago, Google added commerce capabilities to Google Home. Using Google payment options, you could enable shopping to Costco and Target. While I set up my payment options, I never actually went through the exercise to set up products to be purchased, or re-supplied, through one or several of the partner companies. Regardless, the feature of commerce existed.

Second, the collaboration of adding and managing our shopping list, a weekly routine for us, has now been disrupted. We can no longer manage the list easily. Google Express is a website for me to log into, and I have to go through what seems like more steps to even see my list by going through the Google Home app, into a slide out menu, to my shopping list, to then fire up a browser. WHAT?! Before it was as simple as open Google Keep, tap on my shopping list, which was my first list. Easy. So the user experience got worse…big time.

Third, how this was all communicated was horrible. No transition period. No, ‘hey, we are looking to change the experience and here’s why this benefits you.’ None of that. Just switched this week without warning. Poor customer experience.

Finally, I think Google is trying too hard to be like Amazon. I know they think they need commerce to make this tool profitable for them because they know putting ads into Home will really piss people off. And they are right. However, I will say, I went with a Google Home over an Amazon Echo because shopping wasn’t the primary driver for me. My primary driver was the Google ecosystem that my life was already committed to.

Google needs to play to its strengths on this one. Be different. Don’t try to copy everything Amazon does. In fact, it is going to screw up the product if you do. Play to your search pedigree. Play to your strong ecosystem of mail, calendar, reminders, mobile, and more. I’m happy to have Google Express integrated. I’m happy to shop through it even though I have Amazon Prime. Frankly, I just don’t shop that way with Amazon. I’m not sure I will with Google Express either. Shopping is not the reason I bought a Google Home. Ron Amadeo says it best from Ars Technica Op-Ed…they are ruining a good product to push a inferior service.