Product Tester - Marketing

Have been too busy and not been back to here for a while. Or shall I said I hadn't have time to think. Or maybe I was thinking but not writing... Anyway, here I am again after a bad cold and busy week.

The reason I am here about another marketing idea I saw on TV. It is about internet tester writers. These people would try out new products and write about it on BBS or blogs. Company used to hire professional shoppers to test their products. These tester are not hired by the company therefore they can give honest feedback. People who are interested in the products would do some research and maybe communicate with these "testers". Many consumers were more comfortable of trying new products after receive some idea or suggestion. Thus many company now would pay them or send these tester free samples to try out. With help of the testers the new products would be better promoted to some potential consumers and target market.

Only issue would be once the business is involved may influence the tester's judgement. So can these tester still true to their publishing would be hard to tell. I think consumer would still need to make the final judgement themselves.

This is another type of Web2.0 marketing tool. I guess it is another creative way to reach the young consumers. It can reach another type of consumer who not necessary buy into the fancy commercial but believe in someone just like them.

There is even business developed base on the concept of sample testing in personal care products. Member of the store can receive fix number of free sample each month. By giving feedback/survey of testing the product, the member can upgrade to be able to have more sample testing per month. The store receive payment from the producer/supplier by providing product display space and survey result. Company will receive first hand marketing research result by supplying sample and maybe pay some fee. Not sure are the member the right target consumers. I guess if they are interested of trying out the sample, they should be in the potential consumer. But I am not sure whether this group would be the target consumer who will actually purchase the products. I wonder what if this is just a group of young people who can't afford to buy the actual product. Then the feedback from this group won't honest reflect the target consumer feedback.

In conclusion I think those tester who do not receive payment for the testing or free sample should reflect the actual target consumer's true feedback. But once business deal is involved, the honesty may be questionable. Nevertheless, company also has to carefully select the tester who is also the target consumer. If anything goes wrong, it would be hard to control the spread of the bad publicity.

I was also thinking of the samples that were giving away on magazines or with product purchases. In the old days, company wishes to attract consumers to try out their new product by giving away samples without knowing the result of product testing or who are these people. I wonder how many people were actually purchase the product base on those samples. It will take more then a week to see the result of the skin care therefore how can one testing convince the consumer to spend so much money buying it. I wonder do they ever try to retrieve the feedback from these normal people like us, not just some super stars. I understand before putting a new product to the market the company would have feedback on some tester already. But I still think after launch the product, it is as important to know the marketing feedback to better improve and promote new or existing products.

One of the importance of marketing I learn is not only how do you promote the product but how can you trace it or measure it. Therefore was able to receive feedback would be part of the success of this type of marketing tool.

InnovationJam

InnovationJam is a contest website by IBM to collect creative idea. There are some interesting ideas and like BBS, that people can command on the idea to create some interaction. I am not sure what is the purpose for the website or competition. IBM is on the trend to utilize Web2.0 to imporve business therefore this is probably another method to gain more idea or feedback via interuption.

Decision Maker Style

Working at IBM Asia Pacific Headquarters, I am surrounded by all kind of top management executives. Normally we would categories their management style and preference by origin and normally it would give us a good general idea. It is because of the difference of working environment and culture in different countries, the executives from different countries are different.

Base on the "Change the Way You Persuade" article, I categorize the decision maker I currently work with as a Thinker. As a VP of a regional sector in IBM, data and information play an important part of the decision making process. Not only the information and number are very important, they will have to be well organized and detailed. Normally multiple options would have to be given to him; it won’t be accepted or even look at if it was presented with one choice only. Both positive and negative will all need to be presented for him to make the decision. Even thought the result may seem to be obvious, it would still have to leave it for him to decide. Right after the proposal presented, if he is interested, he would request meetings with related department or executive for more information. Depends on the project, more meeting would be arranged and more information would be collected presented before the final decision were made. It was him who told me not to rush to anything before thinking thoroughly.

Normally when his decision is needed, detail data has to be presented clearly for him to be able to understand and make the decision necessary easily. Charts and PPT always help. It would be more effective if it can be presented in short time because he is always busy and having too many meetings. So if a quick decision is required from him, more time needed to prepare the data for him. He would challenge you sometimes therefore it is important to know everything clearly. Often I would need to be prepared for any question he may ask at anytime. After working for him for a period of time, I started to memorize detail, not on purpose but just to be prepared. And knowing he would always follow up on things, I also learn to be proactive and ready or taken care of his request before he asked. And you won’t have his answer if it is still too early or timing is not right. Often he would ask the data to be presented only when time is closer or more input has been received. He won’t give you any hint or feedback if nothing is presented to him.

At work, he is my “client” and my job is to ensure of his satisfaction. Understand what his preference and style is help to make my job easier. But working with a decision maker like him can never be easy or relaxing. It is important to know your information well in preparation for any questions that he might have. I learn to be well prepared with all information needed before talking or seeking for his advice. Even thought he may seem to be tough to deal with but you can always expect to receive compliment or appreciation from him when all is successfully implemented and that is the biggest satisfaction and motivation of the hard work.

More after thought

Our booth was simple and the message was delivered clear. It was really interesting to have the real life trade show as a school project for a learning experience. I did enjoy it a lot. And glad to share our project idea with so many companies. It was very encouraging when they were actually thinking of how to improve their website and maybe considering using the tools we proposed. It was like having a real live test of our idea and project and judged by real companies.

The biggest different with trade show from the traditional in class presentation was to be able to receive the client feedback from real company executives right away. We were able to improve for our next "presentation" with customer feedback. The compliment and other accomplishment contributed to this wonderful learning experience.

Synergy in Fashion - eMarketing Trade Show

It is the world of internet generation. Almost all companies have company websites to be on the trend. But many fail to maintain or update their websites thus defeat the purpose of it. To analyze how companies synchronize online and offline business, we selected fashion industry which changes constantly and should be the on top of trend.

The industry is categorized into three segments. For the high end, using Gucci as an example, the internet is to promoting brand awareness and product searching. Product availability in store can be searched on website is one of the example to drive the traffic to offline stores. Most of the high end brands do not offer online shopping but Gucci does offer some limited selection online in US and UK. People can watch the fashion cat walk show online which used to be exclusive to VIPs only.

For the basic segment, we have Land’s End which was originally a catalogue business then move to internet business. Internet helps them to expend the market further. Since it concentrated mainly on its online business therefore there is more features developed for the website.

Then we take a look at the Armani Exchange (AX) for the example of the middle segment. This is the good example we find the better synchronize their online and offline business. For their online business, there is shipping discount and online sales. Customer could sign up to be on their mailing list. To promote their offline store business, occasionally offering online coupon to be printed for offline store discount. This would be a good tool to track the number of customer visited their website and shop in the store to know how effective the online promotion is. Merchandise bought online can be returned in stores in Canada too. Most of the consumer dislike shopping online beside high shipping cost is the return or exchange issue. By provide option to return offline, consumer may be more willing to take the risk to shop clothes online. If they do need to return in store, traffic to store will be created as customer walked in stores and may shop for more.

The synergy is the consistancy between the online and offline promotion event were in place at the same time. AX collectes customer’s contact information to send them text message the latest event and promotion. AX used the e-technology to connect their customer to drive in store traffic. We believe this is a good promotion tool and will talk more about it later.

Here we evaluate the websites base on the “7Cs of Customer Interface”.

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Then we compare Armani Exchange with Lands’ End. From the chart we can tell there are still some areas they can learn from each other to improve their website. But by looking at it, we can easily tell the different characteristics and target customer of each brand. For example the target customer for AX are younger therefore the website is more creative and interactive. There are more audio and visual content. Because Lands’ End focuses more on their online business they provide more features to improve online shopping experience like online live customer services and customized model in your size.

Then, we would like to talk about using text message as a tool to synchronies online and offline business.

Using wireless technology (text message) to promote offline business is used widely in Asia. Many stores will send promotion message to their loyal customers who have provided their numbers voluntarily.

Text message promotion can work for small or large companies. In compare to traditional printing advertisement this method is cheaper and environmental friendly. It can also reach its target customers more efficiently because those are the one sign up for the notification. Text message can be easily forwarded and it can be another way of “word of mouth”. If the message can be designed to have customer show the message to receive a surprise gift or discount, it can be utilized to trace the effectiveness of the method. It is always very important to trace the effectiveness of the marketing strategy or plan to know whether the investments were well spent or where need to improve.

Then we would like to take a look at a good example of online shopping websites

Because customers can not try on clothes when shopping at Lands’ End, it provides a virtual model that can be customized in size and specific measure. Customers can virtually try on the outfit using the model in their sizes. Then turn the view to see how it would look like.


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Generally, to offer customer a good shopping experience, it should be user friendly. Often customer could get lost or stuck. Exclusive offer and more interactive function would definitely help. Since consumer can’t see the actual product, more detail description is necessary to help with customer’s shopping. And a good shopping website would have “recommendation” section that is easy for customer to find similar item they may like for saving time.

A good website would promote better brand image. If companies fail to update their website or synchronize their online and offline business, it may create mix message and confuse customers therefore would create a negative impression toward the company.

Our study found many companies’ website was identical or structured like a catalogue. Many companies still concentrate on their offline business and using traditional advertisement. Most of the company websites still served as information database but fail to spot the great marketing opportunity if they can better design and maintain the website. We believe there is still a big “market” for website improvement on online offline synergy.

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TeAM mates:

Terence Wang (http://bdcinternational.blogspot.com/)

Mitch Lyons (http://mitchellclyons.blogspot.com/)

Annie Yu (http://newvalleygirl.blogspot.com/)

For handout of our project, please visit Mitch's blog
For Trade Show board detail and other thought, please visit Terence's blog

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Work in process....

I am working on the blog to show you what my team did in eMarketing trade show. Unfortunately that I did not have a chance to take a picture of the whole trade show and hope someone can share.

Here is the photo of how it looks half completed. Remember to come back for the completed version and detail.

Google Analytics and privacy

Thanks to Taylan's advise on Google Analytics. I have been using it to check the traffic of my blog. Then started to wonder am I the one who visited the most. Then we had the guest speaker in class talked about Analytics tool and also recommend Google Analytics. It is actually quite amazing how it can trace the source, the country of the viewer, number of new visit, etc. But it also make me think about the privacy issue. If Google can trace every step of my Internet habit, then they can also analysis consumer/ Internet surfing behaviour. So where do we draw the line?

Thinking about the privacy issue also make me wonder about blog or other social networking website that we purposely leave a trace or tell the world about our life. How can we complain about how company is spying on our life while we just published in public. I guess the difference is that is my choice to tell my about my life that I don't mind share but don't like the idea of commercialize activities that is spying on me.

The recent article "Surveillance of Skype Messages Found in China" is about Skype in China were under surveillance and the conversation were found recorded in system. Now we would start to wonder who is listening to our conversation? I wonder with the modern technology these days, are our life under surveillance or will come to that? What will our life be then?

Trade show preview

Two more day before our trade show. For your sneak preview, here is the design done by Terence for our team. Don't you think it is nice and cool. We are still looking for stuff to make it more eye catching.

If you are free at 6 pm next Monday, Oct 6, please come and check us out at Robson Square.

Trade show topics:

• In-game advertising
• Online-offline synergies and failures
• Genuine Conversations - how to optimize the customer blog experience to draw customer
• How to Measure the Success of the Business Objects Technical Community
• Marketing the Brainify.com Web 2.0 Application
• ...and more!

Setting is not working here...

Just mentioned about complain, I do have a complain. I can't find a way to feedback to Blogger technical support therefore I am going to blog it here.

I am not happy with my blog layout but I can't change it. The setting do provide a option for me to shorten the blog feed which mean when you open up my front page, it should only show one paragraph of each post. But after I tried to set it many times, it is still not working. Actually many of my classmate who uses Blogger all have the same problem.

My apologize for the long postings and the inconvenience to locate the old posting when visit my blog. But I don't know how to reach the tech support to fix this on my blog setting.

BUZZ = customer feedback

We talked about Viral or "BUZZ" in class as one marketing technique which may be utilized by the company but mostly by accident. Today I found out there is a company actually research and study buzz /internet word of mouth(IWOM) in China to understand the customer for purpose of product improvement and PR.

I guess study of "buzz" or what consumer is blogging about the company or product is also a way of "listening" to the customer. Customer won't necessary tell the company about their complain or what they like or dislike about the product but they may blog about it. Especially, it is easier to blog it then to find the company website for complain. We don't even know whether they are listening or even care but we know our friends are reading the blog.

Mail to blogger

Discover the new feature to use email to publish blog from Email Your Post to Blogger.com. It is convenience for those who don't get on the blog often and use email more frequent. But personally, I still like to see how it looks like when published. But it is a nice feature when you had an idea and would like to write it down right away. Or when you are working and don't want the others know you are blogging... Will have to try it once to see how it actually works and looks.

I don't think I would publish the email address here for people to send whatever to my blog. That could be a mess when you open the space to all and may loose control. I do welcome any comments but not for others to blog on my blog.

SNS

There is a new popular social networking Services (SNS) in Chinese. The article said the international services, like Facebook, was not popular in China because of language. I checked Facebook right away and find out it does offer multi language and in Chinese too, so it may be misleading. But I am not in place to judge since I don't know whether it is true or not.

But anyway, the point is this new Chinese version of Facebook offer virtual money to buy virtual car and diamond. So everyone was sending out invitation to everyone they know to earn the virtual money. People post meaningless comments and chat on the net. It is like a virtual world. I have been ignoring the invitation because I did not know what it was. The article did mention there are some new games but you would be bored after awhile. Therefore retaining the member might be a challenge. I did sign up with Facebook not long ago but I did not visit it often. Either because I have not discover the fun of it yet or I don't have many friends on it. Most of my friends are on MSN, so why would I need to "chat" with them on Facebook which is not "live". But I guess the difference would be Facebook is open to all friends to see and keep track of activities and conversations, like a blog but shorter.

Often I also wonder why would people have time to chat on MSN or Facebook. shopping on line or surf the net at work. Is it because they are efficient and I am not? I assumed most of the professionals would not have time for it. So if the company use SNS or this type of interactive tool, who are they talking to?

Other thought on SNS:

"Start-up for ‘super-networkers'" ia about the new SNS for "super networker". This SNS has a clear target market but some think it is late to enter the market in late 2008. Although research shows growth potential, I think the new online network need to be special for the target customer to make it work. Because most likely the "super networker" already join many existing SNS. There were actually many other SNS with special target market like Japanese biggest networking website expended their market to retired senior citizens aiming at the baby boomers.

"TEENAGERS FALL IN LOVE WITH NETWORKING SITES" said about 55% of American teenagers spend too much time on Internet, especially on SNS and reveal too much of their personal information. This raise another privacy issue that need to be regulated to protect the children. Too many of our personal information were open to public without our awareness. Many of us enjoy the convenience of Internet tool but often forgot to verify the setting of privacy and security.

There were also some legal issue regarding these SNS when people published whatever on their blog or space, is it illegal? It has became an difficult issue since it involved with people globally. If the user-generated content is a “user-stolen” intellectual property but not for business purpose. Some company encourage it as a word of mouth for promotion and some sue the individule for copytheft. where is the clear line? To punish MySpace is to stifle cyberspace

Right time + Right promotion strategy + Right target market ≠ expensive

We had a marketing manager of a Canadian wireless adopter company as a guest speaker to one of my classes. It was a bit disappointed to know the company is not really doing much marketing in term of promoting its product or brands.

The company do not promote their brand because they think their customers are the dealers or the mobile service providers even though the end user are the consumers. My thought was if they can promote their brand and establish brand awareness or image, they can turn the demand from push to pull. If the end consumer demand for the brand, the dealers would have to carry the product. But they think they are too small in comparison to the cellular phone producer. I believe small company will have way of promoting the product within the budget if they can narrow down to the media target at their customer. Internet marketing would be the answer.

He mentioned since the service provider have bigger share of the profit and should promote the product. But my question was why would the dealer promoting this product while carrying other products. The service provider would be more interested in promoting the service to the consumer, not the product they give away for free. His argument was the cost of advertisement was too high for the small company like theirs. Generally most of the company only think of traditional promotion and advertisement. I was wondering why didn't they think of Internet marketing. Their target customer should be those use Internet frequently and online marketing should be the most efficient way for promotion. I guess the marketing managers did his MBA in 80s and there was no Internet marketing course. But it was a trend and as a marketing manager, the idea should had been picked up long ago.

If they could have promote the brand awareness when market was still fresh with less competitor, the negotiation power would be in the hand of the company, not dealers. If their brand awareness were established the company might also have some price advantage but was fail to recognized as an advantage. I think it is important for company to maintain or improve the position in the market with promotion strategy at the right time.

Other thought:

I was in a conversation with some Chinese Governor who had visited few Canadian companies in Vancouver. The overall impression of Canadian business was not aggressive in comparison to US company. The example of Nortel was one of the first telecommunication companys to invest in China but did not take the first mover advantage and now became one of bad example of foreign investment in China. They also mention about the company they visited that develop and produce special engine for bus. Personally I do think Canada has the best bus design and they agree with the concept. But that company fail to see the opportunity in China for the new bus reform in preparation fo Olympic and Shanghai Expo.

All of these make me wonder why. Is that just management or culture difference? We all know Canadian are nice but would that mean they are less aggressive too. Beside Blackberry, there is not many global Canadian brand out there that is well know. Is there anything to do to change it?

Aerobic, Not Erotic

This is really interesting that I found when doing research for my other project. Check it out; pole dance became the new fitness trend in China. It is strange but true. We used to think of pole dancing as exotic dance but now it is for fitness.

Read about it

Not related thought: I tried to post You Tube here but it was not offered as an option. It did offer to post on other blog sites. I was thinking, since You Tube provide registration option with Gmail account why doesn't it link up with Blogger? Anyway, I managed to post the You Tube here by regular way.

Simple is better?

I was reading the article, "A Word in Your Ear, Keep It Slow and Simple", about simplify English. I am not proud but I have always been using simple English because English is my second language and I live in non-English speaking country for many years. It is actually not professional in business letter but the massage was delivered. A lot of time we spend a lot of time trying to reword the business letter to make it looks more professional. But most of business people are too busy to write in formal way and email language became simple and colloquial. My English is not improving even though English is the main language in my company. Often I have about 30 to 100 or more email per day and time is limited. The people I write to are from different countries, both English and non-English speaking countries but mainly internal contacts. Then I realized my English is getting worst or shall I say “simplified. Often we would joke how we use email as “instant massaging” these days now. We just want to have our message crossed and have the job done efficiently.

Usually the formal business letters were used for PR, external communication letter, announcement and invitation letters, etc. Business letters used to be formal and occasional. With the technology changes, communication became casual and frequent. It is still important for the choice of words but isn’t the meaning of writing is have the massage crossed.

Basically communication skill is the key point. A lot of comsumer complain the difficulty to understand manual or instructions for products. That would be bad example of consumer communication. Therefore instead of concerntrate on how to write properly, more should be on passing the right message to the target customers.

Top Global Brand

The top 100 global brand 2008 by Interbrand is on BusniessWeek. No 1 is Coke Cola, not surprise. No 2 is IBM and No 3 is Microsoft. Google were 20 last year and made it to 10 this year. Blackberry is new this year.

Well, I understand all this brand name were popular and did a lot of brand marketing. Most of them are consumer products and ,not surprising, high tech companies. Being one of the IBMer, I realized I don't know much about IBM brand marketing. I saw ads promoting IBM solution. But it is interesting how IBM replacing Microsoft and became number 2 makes me really wonder what they have been doing. Well, I guess size definitely help but there are more criteria that I will need to find out later.

Network online & socialize offline

Open Thought: How Internet changed our life?

In Monday class, we talked about all kind of website, tools and gadgets out there. Terence mentioned about the "meet up" website for people to get offline and meet. I guess I am not the only one feel that way and there is need for people to go out and meet others. Such website provide platform for people to network online and socialize offline. I think the face to face interaction is always necessary, no matter how technology evolved.

Article Review: How Companies are Marketing Online

Overview:
Companies are using digital tools for customer services. Most of the companies advertise online and majority of those also using digital tools for product development. Online ads were considered useful for brand building for receive direct response. More companies will spend majority of the advertising budget online in next two to three years. Many companies expect to gain more sales from online channels. But most of the companies treated the online and offline marketing separately.

Companies:
The reasons of low usage of online tool were lack of capabilities to manage them and limited access to high-speed Internet. Online marketing tools were used more frequently by public companies in high-tech industry. Most widely used functions were providing service information via Web sites, interacting with customer via email and sales transaction. The companies use digital tool frequently would more likely to use complex tool for online service, like Internet calling or chats. As the use of digital tool increases, online and offline campaigns would likely to be more integrated.

Consumers:
Most consumer use the Web to search for information. Web would be part of two stages of the consumer decision-making process – product awareness and information gathering. Therefore companies see it as a useful vehicle in brand building.

Interactive tools:
Collaboration tools used internally help to make information more accessible by everyone in the organization without have to flow through layers to reach the decision makers. Most of companies who advertise online also use some kind of interactive tool for customer service. Some companies host forums for customers to exchange idea or help each other. Interactive tools were used to help build relationship between customers and companies to the benefit of customer retention and brand building. A lot of companies also use the tools to involve customer in product developing or to test idea. It is part of the business technology trends that encourage user collaboration. Base on the survey by McKinsey, Web services, collective intelligence and Peer-to-peer networking were more popular for company investments. Some companies are more focus on networking and collective intelligence technologies then others. These companies are usually large, in high tech and in Asia, especially in China where companies adopt fast even though they were later followers.

These studies only show how Internet improved interaction with customers. But many companies switch the service online completely and discourage consumer to reach them offline. The interactions were sometimes cut off and would be considered as bad services. Some online service system were not well design to serve all customers’ need and was not flexible, therefore it is necessary to have service integration online and offline.

Cautions:
Internet has changed fundamental processes of communication in term of who provide information and how the audience receives it. In term, corporations lose a degree of control at it. Traditionally, consumer can only receive the information provided by the corporation with traditional media. With Internet, everyone can be the information provider and the control is limited. Therefore it is necessary to learn how to better manage its reputation online and better handle the negative impact on corporate reputation.

Online Sales:
Majority of companies would like to gain sales online while facing infrastructure and culture issues offline. Many companies were lack of resources to keep up with a sales channel online and some simply neglected it. Although many corporation plan to invest in this area, many factors need to be considered. US is one of the mature market with good infrastructure to support the online shopping activity. And consumers in US were exposed to concept of catalog and TV shopping therefore the concept was well accepted by consumer. Another good example would be China with a fast growing online market. Internet penetration is growing rapidly and consumer start to realize the benefit of shopping online. To encourage online shopping, there are intermediate service providers that offered online payment with bank to prevent fraud. It is a good example of the technology development according to culture and shopping hobbit of the country. With the development and successfully implemented, the technology then can be transferred. But interestingly, it was not the payment security that consumer were most concerned in China but the quality and security. Security and privacy would be the issue still required improvement or even regulation worldwide to promote online shopping.

Integration:
Most companies still separate their online and offline marketing efforts. Many companies’ regular businesses are disconnected from their online business. It is important for companies to have integrated campaigns. A lot of online marketing were to influence the offline sale. But a well integrated service will improve consumer’s overall experience. It is for companies’ benefit not only at cost cutting, but also for better customer satisfaction or experience to have integrated marketing online and offline.

Conclusion:
It is the technology trend for companies to market online with technology tools. It will not only improve consumer relation, it often improves communication and efficiency internally. Implementing technology tools not only encourage customer interaction but also help with product development. Companies need to use the tools with caution for maintain brand image. Companies need to learn how to transfer the benefit offline. It is also important to understand the risk of the tool too. Many companies expect the online marketing to be a major tool in the future therefore properly select the right tool and management would be something company need to pay closer attention to.

References (click to view)

Reference for "How companies are marketing online"

• How companies are marketing online, September 2007, http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Marketing/Digital_Marketing/How_companies_are_marketing_online_A_McKinsey_Global_Survey_2048
• Eight business technology trends to watch, December 2007, http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Information_Technology/Eight_business_technology_trends_to_watch_2080_abstract
• Tony Conway, Mike Ward, Gerard Lewis & Anke Bernhardt, "Internet Crisis Potential: The Importance of a Strategic Approach to Marketing Communications", Journal of Marketing Communications, Vol. 13. No. 3. 213-228, September 2007
• Jun Yu, "Marketing to Chinese consumers on the internet", Marketing Intelligence & Planning, Vol. 24 No 4, 2006 P380-392
• Bikram Jie Rishi, "An Empirical Study of Online Shopping Behaviour", Journal of Marketing and Communication, January - April 2008, Vol 3 Issue 3
• Jacques R. Bughin, : How companies can make the most of user - generated content", http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Marketing/Digital_Marketing/How_companies_can_make_the_most_of_user-generated_content_2041
• "How companies are using Web 2.0", March 2007, http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Marketing/Digital_Marketing/How_businesses_are_using_Web_20_A_McKinsey_Global_Survey_1913_abstract
• Picture sources: http://jefferyclark.net/WordPress/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/web20.jpg

Children of online marketing

Terence refer online and offline marketing strategy integration as marriage. It make me think about the interactive marketing tools that companies adopted. These tools would be like the children of the marriage. They need to be attended, educated and regulated to grow up properly to contribute to the society/business. Isn't that the same as how companies should do when implemented the tools. Because of the fact that companies would have less control over how the consumers will do or say on Internet, it is more critical for the comapnies to put more effort and be prepared for any unexpected. Proper guideline and regulation would be necessary to maintain companies' reputation. But too much interruption may lose the trust from the consumers and defeat the purpose of the interactive online tool. It is like parents should closely guild and help the develop of children's life but still give them enough freedom and power to develop their own future. How to handle properly would be the question.

Picuture source: http://shafiur.i-edit.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/02/web2.jpg

How internet changed our life?

My Internet connection was off and I was frustrated. Internet is the main communication channel I have with my family and friends in the world. Therefore I feel disconnected when I can’t get on Internet.

Internet made the world seem smaller but also made our personal world smaller. People can easily chat online or pass on the information therefore the social life seems unnecessary now. People go out less and there is less face to face interaction. We can purchase things online and most of business can be done online. I remember an ad about a girl never go out of her house because of the shopping website therefore the only way for the boy who likes her to talk to her is online. I wonder what the world will become if we only stay at home and connect the world online only.

I hope and I know it won’t happen because we all love socializing and going out. We all enjoy a good dinner at restaurant with someone we love. Traveling and seeing places with your own eyes is different from seeing the photo on the internet.

Internet suppose to make life easier and better because people can be reached easier and communication is a lot better. Therefore the distance between people should be shorter now. But lot of time we find ourselves busier because technology makes the life faster. At my work, I would be working with co-workers located all over Asia Pacific and sometimes I have to work late to reach co-workers in North America. Because of technology, there is no more excuse for delay and things get delivered.

People everywhere are either on the phone, sending text message or reading email on blackberry. Technology is part of our life now and it is harder to have life / work balance. To catch up with the speed of technology, everyone is rushing. It is ironic that with blackberry you can actually "work" outside of office. There should be less overtime because you can check email everywhere. But then you would be working all the time, isn't it? It is actually good or bed would depend on the perception.

I wonder how our life will become with rapid change of technology….

Friday at Zara

I start to wonder if I keep writing about the shopping experience; will people start to think I like shopping. Which is actually true but I don’t do this all the time in Shanghai. It is not only because of the e-marketing project and weather is getting cold; I am in Vancouver for a short period of time only and price here is actually better. Brand name products are expensive due to high import tax or basically because consumers in China are willing to pay for higher price for international brand name products.

Anyway, finally I was able to go to Zara today before it close for the day. I don’t understand why some stores in Vancouver close so early. In Shanghai, most stores close at 10 PM. When I left the store, Robson street was crowded with people and most of the store were closed. I guess it is Friday night for action. I don’t know where people were going but I was going home.

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Zara is a Spanish brand and very popular worldwide for its stylish design and affordable price. The website was in Spanish only and still showing summer collection. I had hard time using the website because of the language issue at the first visit. Then I find the bottom to change to English. I just concluded it was not user friendly before I find that language bottom. I don’t think the website offer online shopping. It basically serves as an information center but not keep updated because the website is still showing spring and summer collection. Therefore a lot of work will need to be done to connect the online and offline business.
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TeAM Project

Before I post my thought about my "research" experience, it would help to post the project outline first. Our team decided to do the project on how company connected online and offline and how can it be improved.

I will be responsible for the store that I can actually buy something... for better utilize my short stay in Vancouver....

My way of time mangement ^_^

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T e A M Project Outline

Terence Wang - http://bdcinternational.blogspot.com/
e-Marketing Project
Annie Yu - http://newvalleygirl.blogspot.com/
Mitchell Lyons - http://mitchellclyons.blogspot.com/


Subject: Online – Offline Synergies and Failures
Market: Fashion/Clothing Companies (3 Price Levels)

I. Fashion/Clothing Industry Overview
II. Analysis Objectives
III. Benefits of on/offline Symmetry
IV. Analysis of Companies (3 Markets)
– compare and contrast with selected International examples
A. Economy Fashion (Below $80)
B. Mid-Level Fashion ($80-300)
C. High Fashion (Above $300)
V. Recommendations and Best Practices

A/X

It was just one of the afternoons; I was too tired from study so decided to visit a store. And now I have a good excuse because the e-marketing project.

I visited Armani Exchange and the overall experience was friendly and comfortable. Then I notice the little card "Be the first in Canada" and realized they send out text messages to customer for updates like special event, special offers and new arrivals. That is the feature that I was telling my team about how the business in China utilized the mobile technology. I guess some business in Canada is doing the same too.

A/X also provides email to customers by register on their website. I am assuming it is for US first because the website is located in US. TO find out whether it serves Canadian online, I check the shipping policy. That is what I normally do when check out the online store. It is important to know the shipping and return policy before spending a lot of time searching but would be great disappointed if they don't ship to where you are. A/X accept online purchase return in store and that is a good option when shop online. I still remember when online store started to set up back in early 2000 and return policy was one of the big issues. The store accepts online purchase return tend to operate better then those don't. Eventually I find "Shop Canada" for online shopping shipping in Canada right on Google search. It won't be easy to find if you just go to their main website. It was specific that Canada shop offer different items and only ship within Canada.

For comparison, I had visited Guess website which offer Canadian shipping but can only be return online. The reason is the online store for Canada actually operate in US therefore all shipping is from US and all item are tagged in US dollars. On top of the shipping charges, there will be tax to be added to the cost. So A/X website does offer more value and better promoting their online store.

I also like how A/X online store shows different view of the clothes you choose and also few recommendations. And I even found one item that was out of my size in the store. Currently it is also offering low delivery charge with free return to promote Internet shopping. I think it is very convenience for people who live outside of big cities.

Well, since I live in downtown and was there in person, I bought a sweater... for marketing and myself. But I still can't believe I can't find time to go shopping because of all the reading and projects. Now thanks to this project, I really need to go out and visiting more stores.

My Blog

Blog is not new to me; I have been keeping a personal blog for about two years. It all started when I was new to Shanghai and not knowing a lot of people locally. Blog became one of the communication channels or it is like some kind of diary. Like talking to a friend but I didn't have to repeat the same story to everyone. In a way, my friends everywhere could have a idea of how I was doing, if they want to know. But when all became too personal and to avoid co-worker to peek into too many detail of my life, it was archieved and another blog were set up. Now it became some kind of private space.

Blog is very personal for me, which is like a place to dump all the emotion and express my feeling. Study shows that women handle their stress by talking to someone else. But often it would be hard to find someone willing to listen or to whom we feel comfortable talking.

There is one online study shows people who blog tend to be more depressed and the main function of blog is for venting. I think it is only partially true and bias. Many blog were keeping for information sharing or networking which is also the new business marketing trend. I think it is a good place to express personal opinion to public without going through media. It is also surprise to find many good articles on blog and some even became famous blog writers then publish books. Another benefit is not only we can see the article from the view of professional writers, we can also check out personal opinion. I guess this is where companies can look into as the “word of month” to market.

Blog is not only a place to “write” but also a place to connect. It is for friends to keep up with each other. It is also a place that strangers can meet. It is interesting that people can find others with same interest and opinion through blog. Therefore it became another type of networking.

Thanks to blog, I can always keep a smile on my face because all the other unwanted emotion were dumped at my secrete place. So regardless of the other benefit of blog, it will still be a “dumping tree” to me.