LetsBuyIt Blog

After reading RSS-news nowadays my tag-cloud-looking mind, trained to memorize only important facts (My studying attitude– if I don’t remember something it was not important, which even worked somehow…) looks a little bit like this:

Bubble 2.0, 1998, expectations, overvalued, undervalued, Facebook value $10billion maybe even $100billion (expected 2007 sales $150 million), TechCrunch worth $100 million, RockYou value $500 million, Ebay write off 1.4 billion Skype, Microsoft $6 billion acquisition aQuantive, et cetera.

You can most definitely sympathize and we discussed this topic here for about 1min and we came up with the following scientific conclusion: “I don’t know, let the analysts do these interpretations. Let’s get back to work!”

1. These numbers are so big that nobody can actually relate to them or imagine them anyway. Just let the analysts talk about the money that others make! That’s their job!

2. Each mentioned company is based on a brilliant idea, brilliant team to realize them and luck. However each project is also based on bloody, hard work. So just work!

3. Get the basics right because now there are laws, rules and regulations that go with a website and e-commerce company!

4. Think before you click to send an email.

5. Facebook is great fun, an incredible market intelligence machine but an even greater waste of time during the day.

6. Going offline to work sometimes is very productive.

Good luck with all your projects because good ideas deserve success! Just dare to express and realize them.

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The e-commerce is currently growing rapidly. By 2011, it should triple and Sales Volume should reach 320 billion EUR. The main players in this market are United Kingdom, Germany and France respectively which represent approximately 70% of the European online sales. E-business is however the most dominant in the United Kingdom (60 billion generated this year). This can be explained by their different way of life. English people are said to be great spenders in comparison to Germans and French.

This growth should extend rather quickly and cover a big part of Europe. Have a look here at the entire article concerning figures of the market.

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The craze of Internet users to purchase online continues to grow. The number of deals realized by e-commerce reached EUR 28.8 millions in 2007, which means a rise of 37% in one year.

Similarly 63% of the Internet users had already done a purchase in the second quarter 2007.

We notice a rise of 22% of the number of Internet buyers in 2007. This phenomenon can be explained by a bigger trust of the Internet users concerning the use of this sale’s channel (+20% in one year). Moreover, online buyers are mainly young people between 20 and 40 years old, whereas people older than 50 years are still reluctant to this way of shopping.

It is a sector which evolves very quickly because of the immediacy of the act. We are more easily facing to a logic of impulsive buying. Additionally the intent to purchase increased by 35% in 2007 in comparison to the previous year.
Find here all the information and all the statistics on this subject.

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Wikipedia defines a mash-up like this: “An application which combines the contents coming from several more or less heterogeneous applications”.

In the world of the Web, this corresponds more precisely to a website which gathers the services suggested by other already existing sites via the use of modules, called Application Programming Interface (API), such as Google Maps. These modules are developed by editors who see the means there, of offering their services to a greater number, and to thus make an additional publicity with their company. Everyone gains there!

Everyone gains there… at the same time, yes and no. Even if sometimes the use of certain APIs can lead to a new service suggested exclusively by the mash-up, the mash-ups depend on content proposed by others, pertaining to others, which makes their situation sometimes unstable.

This being said, the new development of the mash-ups awaits answers. The Net surfers who saw the services multiply in recent times, now wish to see all of them united to interact and communicate between them on one single interface!!

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I was very happy to read on the BBC website that finally two big players are doing something unique to our awesome avatars: “double” them! IBM and Linden Lab of SecondLife are cooperating to make the avatars universally transferable. Universal Login Programs taken to the next level!

The first step of the project is to create a system where characters can move between universes. Eventually Avatars created in a Virtual Universe, like Second Life, can be used, or doubled, in other virtual worlds by copying parts of the codes. “While the character’s appearance may change depending on where it is taken, its basic characteristics, such as looks and underlying personal data, would be retained,” is stated in the BBC.

Eventually my personal Hasselhoff will roam the entire cyberspace and if things go well, David can go for a pedicure in Barbie World after having gone wild on World of Warcraft. Just what you need!

If those 30 cyberspaces are not enough, you might just want to easily create your own 3D world, with the newly published Metaplace, developed by Raph Koster. Just don’t be surprised if avatars, like the one of Dr. William Bainbridge, Head of Human-Centred Computing at the US National Science Foundation, are trying to engage you in strange conversations because they just want to analyze you: It is too tricky to find real “subjects” as he puts it. From geek to subjects?! Interesting!

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For e-commercants it is frustrating to know that people have gone into the new age of comparing products and services “online” and navigate like experts through special offers and shops however when it comes to the actual purchase the majority still prefer to purchase the item in a real shop.

Conservative or natural?

I think that this is very natural and it is time for the e-commerce sites, portals and shops alike, to unite the two worlds better and that goes beyond having a print-ready format of the product on the site. The idea seems old-school that shoppers then need to go into the shop and hand over the printed product sheet as price proof to bargain. Perhaps we all want the product information on the phone in the form of a SMS, blackberry message, note, and I don’t know what?

There is a lot of room for improvement and Mediaplex, part of the Valueclick group, are attempting in understanding better this “online-offline” relationship by having customer-card related tracking services but is this all there can be?

Are European merchants ready to be confronted with the transparency of comparative search engines to match prices, like in Australia where many shops guarantee to beat advertised prices from competitors? Have Europeans finally travelled enough to become open to the idea of bargaining as much as they do on their holidays (many occidentals claim to be bargaining experts when on holiday but why don’t they do it at home?)

I have spent some years in countries where bargaining is part of the culture and everyday life and I think that the momentum of the mass to bargain has not been outsourced to its limit. Why can’t we mobilize the mass to reset the prices? Flashmob and MediaMarkt give you an idea of where my thoughts are headed.

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We have already written an article about Mobile Marketing and QR Codes on June 20, 2007. Finally we see the initial large scale attempt of international retailer H&M who are “tuning” their ads with barcodes.

You take a photo of the barcode on the poster, the software recognizes the product and without any hassle the shopper can purchase the product over the phone and the price is simply added to the telephone bill. These barcodes can be easily recognized with a small software of the Canadian mobile phones marketing specialist Semacode that allows code recognition in liaison with mobile phone cameras. That is even better than purchasing the product within the banner ad without having to leave the page, made possible by Gettailgate.com.

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The new wave of self-improvement efforts of retailers to adapt their websites and its navigation to the needs of the users, by implementing the latest technologies, is breezing refreshingly through the retail scene.

The fascinating tracking technologies, such as Google Analytics, allow retailers to improve the usability of their websites by closely investigating how viewers navigate on the websites and where there is need for improvement such as responsiveness to advertisements, colors, schemes and cursor-movement patterns. There is a great need for this improvement and we are looking for the new ergonomics 2008.

A new focus in retail has been put on the product itself as consumers become more critical of product, quality, price and presentation with the help of internet transparency. The efforts will be concentrated on finding new mediums to provide the best information to persuade the viewers to trigger a purchasing action.

The shocking research findings of the American Usability expert Jakob Nielsen that modern internet surfers are completely blind to banner ads on websites, by having studied eye-movements, is evidence that retailers need to move on. All proactive Marketers are looking for the new thing.

Mediums 2.0 are new marketing must-have-tools for every frontliner. Video is probably the new buzz of internet marketing 2007 as you can see in the Tomorrow Focus and Doubleclick video-effect experiment “takeGAS” and on IKEA Germany now. IKEA has created an entire videoshow presenting all 1,154 products of the new catalogue, which is a truly fascinating movie. One things is for sure: All this multimedia selling-tools will push forward those high-speed servers from Berlin Hosting Company 1blu without a doubt.

Another great hype is viral marketing with online animations, such as the genius new Wilkinson Teaser “Fight For Kisses”, the BMW M3 game or even for company presentations on www.floaded.com (check out Mercedes Benz). There are many more examples out there, even the GMAIL Video campaign, etc. That viral marketing is very difficult is proven by the Jupiter Research stating that mere 15% of the campaigns succeed as the TigerBalm Youtube video campaign shows.

May the creative and intelligent ones win!

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