think with Google: Inspiring Talks by Remarkable People

YouTube has long been a place to come to look for information and to connect with other people with similar interests. In the spirit of this, think with Google has been launched - Google UKs new platform for sharing business insights and viewpoints delivered in bite-sized, inspiring and actionable videos.

The channel has some of UKs leading retailers offering their insights on creativity, strategy, trends, consumer insights and more. Contributors already include Amazon’s Marketing Director Brian McBride, Confused.com’s CEO Carlton Hood, Zappos’ CEO Tony Hsieh and highlights from the think eCommerce events.



As always, viewers will be able to rate videos, leave comments, subscribe and offer up video responses. The hope is that this will become a thriving business community in the spirit of YouTube – so head to the channel, listen to the thinkers and feel free to make your voice heard.

Posted by Christoffer Klemming, UK Marketing Team

Building Your Retail Brand Through Social Media

Photo Courtesy of DreamsTime

In order to promote your brand and boost sales, aggressive marketing campaigns are a necessity. When you take a look at some of the biggest and most successful companies in the world, their branding strategies are clearly defined. Take L’Oreal, one of the main leaders in the cosmetics and beauty industry. Their slogan "because you’re worth it" generates excellent brand awareness and is highly reputable internationally. Subsequently, this leads to increased sales and in turn, increased profits.

However, these huge companies also have large advertising budgets. What if you are a smaller company? Maybe even a start up and you want to implement the best brand building strategy. What can you do? The life saving strategy is called "social media", which is not only cost effective but is extremely worthwhile. Social media networks are free and easy to use. Social media coupled with your other advertising, online and offline, can really make a difference to help boost your brand. It has become an integral part of retail businesses marketing plans. Twittering has overtaken blogging as it’s faster, shorter and more concise. Emails are slightly more personal whereas Twitter lets you connect through one simple line and removes the difficulty of reaching out to people who you may not even know their email address. 1/3 of Twitter users talk brands. A recent research study by ROI Research found 33% of Twitter users share opinions about companies or products while 32% make recommendations and 30% ask for opinions[1].

Social media not only encourages customer interaction but allows you, the business owner, to stay in touch with current customer’s and helps maintain and retain relationships. You can also receive feedback instantaneously and answer customers questions immediately. All the while, building brand awareness and customer loyalty.

Twitter usage grew from a few million user’s in 2009 to over 20 million in 2010. In 2011, Twitter adoption is expected to grow to 32 million and 36 million in 2012[1]. Social media has enabled companies to actively engage with their everyday customers. The new age WOM “word-of-mouth” has provided customers with instant gratification, as they are now receiving answers and recommendations in a very short space of time.

Four important points for building your social media strategy:

• Know your audience - one social media Network will work for some, but not for others. You need to find what works best for you and your target market.

• Define a clear strategy about what you want to achieve as well as effectively allocating time and resources.

• Try different forms of social media to find out what works best for your specific audience. Trial and error is the solution to success.

• Measure. Measure. Measure. It is extremely important to measure the impact of your strategy.

[1] www.emarketer.com




Posted by Trish McGinty, Dublin Retail Team

Sunshine, Searches and the World Cup

What happens to searches when there is great weather and or great content on TV? Is search activity permenantly lost or deferred to a later time when there is less competition for your audiences attention?

Over the past month we have had a good chance to observe both occurances.

The relative search volume seen on a given day compared to the previous four corresponding days (that is Monday compared to the previous four Mondays and so on) is plotted for the period of the World Cup (England's anyway).

Days of extreme weather and England match days are highlighted.

Warm and cool weather have an inverse impact on search volumes as intuition would suggest. Match days also seem to put a dampener on search activity. There also seems to be an overall effect on searches for the period when at least a game a day was played.

Is this reduction in activity permanently lost? Days immediately after England matches as well as the last week on the chart provide evidence that not all is. A component is deferred rather than lost for ever.

This is no-doubt good news for e-Commerce managers looking to forecast trading through future events.


Posted by Jonathan Marsh, UK Retail Team

Retail: Weathering the Storm

“The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco" ~Mark Twain

Although the nuances of the British weather system have the ability to befuddle even the smartest meteorologist, one can usually expect a colder climate from October to March and hotter weather from May to September.

In the same way, as a retailer, it’s pretty safe to assume that during the winter months more heaters, raincoats and winter boots will be bought, whilst in summer it would be sensible to stock up on air coolers, barbecues and beachwear. In the past month alone, as the mercury rises, Waitrose has reported a 6.1% rise in sales with traditional picnic fare like salads up nearly 30%: great results, but hardly unprecedented. These assumptions are part of staple planning for all retailers, and shape the buying patterns for such seasonal products.

However, as the weather seems to be becoming increasingly unreliable, retailers often have to act fast to climate changes. For example, in 2007 freak stormy weather in June – usually a quiet month for online retailers - saw shoppers buy from the comfort of their homes, rather than brave the appalling weather. Play saw a 33% increase in sales compared the the year before. Stuart Rowe, spokesperson for Play.com said "every year we see a decrease in sales during the summer months as consumers spend their time in their garden, the parks or high street but this year has been a monumental exception"[1].

Likewise, severe snow in January 2010 resulted in pubs and restaurants reporting a like-for-like sales drop of 5% as people stayed at home rather than braving the snow[2]. "With so many city centres feeling more like ghost towns it is perhaps surprising that the figures weren't worse,” said Peter Martin of Peach Factory, which produced the research[3]. At the same time, Pets at Home reported a 70% rise in dog coats, at a time when the product would usually have been on its way out until next Winter. In the same period, John Lewis saw a 1.4% sales drop as snow kept shoppers off the high street. Importantly, online sales rocketed by 56% with comfort food such as frozen chops and tinned beans performing well[4].

Optimisation & SEO Ideas:

• Change your ad text. Signal your customers to the urgency of buying at this time of increased demand with messages like, “While Stocks Last” or “Stock Just in” if you have a plentiful supply.

• Make sure you can fill any holes in your offline product offering online. If you can’t get paddling pools in your store in time, but think you could ship online orders to coincide with a bout of hot weather, make sure you have ads showing. Give realistic delivery times too, or you could be facing returns.

• Prepare your paid search campaigns far in advance wherever possible, to make sure you have established some history and a good quality score on your seasonal product keywords by the time they come into fashion.

• Your ability to restock according to freak weather conditions is crucial, and depends a lot on the quality of your supply chain. Either way, prepare your online campaigns to reflect the situation: if you have something or can get something in stock, prepare the necessary ad text and keywords. In the same way, make sure you’re keeping an eye on products that may have gone out of stock. For example, you don’t want to be paying for clicks on “desk fan” during a heat wave if you have none in stock!

• It sounds ridiculous, but watch the weather forecast! A 10-day one if you can. If sun is predicted, make sure your bbqs, garden furniture and toys, summer apparel is all in stock and well presented on your site and in your advertising campaigns. If it’s set to rain or be very cold (which, let’s face it, is much more common in the UK!), remember that people will be less likely to leave the house, so products like DVDs, Books, CDs and Homeware may be more in demand, especially if long periods of bad weather are predicted.

• Remember, freak weather conditions trigger unusual buying patterns, which may skew your ordinary sales figures. People buying paddling pools in a sudden April heat wave, for example, are simply moving their usual “June purchase” a few months forward. Don’t be alarmed then, if your usual peak seasons for particular products are not as great. As the Greenlight white paper on weather and retail says, “All these purchases would have still been made, but were brought forward or postponed due to weather abnormalities”[5].

[1]Fashion United, 4th July 2007
[2]“Like-for-like sales sink 5% under January snow”, Peach Report, 14 Feb 2010
[3]“Coffer Peach Business Tracker January 2010 figures - Pub and restaurant groups count cost of January blizzards”, KPMG, Jan 2010
[4]“Pets at Home enjoys winter sales boost with dog coats”, Guardian 15th January 2010
[5]Greenlight White Paper:”The effects of weather on Internet retail sales”

Posted by Emily Whitchurch, UK Retail Team