We know that not everyone loves going through a lot of text or pages of information to find out more details about a company. To help solve this, we have been working hard on trying to introduce short, snappy videos to our site to give people a concise and more "interactive" glimpse into what we are about.
We are really happy with the first version of the video and I wanted to share this with the world. We would love hear your criticisms, feedback, suggestions or praise. The video was produced by the excellent folk at YourFilm and I would definitely recommend them if you were looking for someone to produce any interactive or corporate videos.
The world-wide web has had an amazing and sometimes hardly believable effect on our everyday lives whether we are in business or as consumers. One of the major changes has been in the transparency of pricing. Of course this has been a huge benefit to the web-browsing consumer and presents a real challenge to the online shop as to how to catch and keep the price researching consumer.
Take, for instance, a big name UK brand like Halfords selling a multitude of consumable and other products. They are big enough to “own brand” much of their range making it marginally more difficult to shop around for the exact price comparison.
Halfords have a very respectable free iPhone app which is bright, quick and very informative right down to customer reviews of particular products. In fact, in the writer’s humble opinion, in almost all areas it’s as good as Halfords' “desktop” website. Halfords do not say what percentage of sales they take through their mobile app and I can only assume it’s a fairly small part of their direct income, however the app must do a power of good when it comes to product and price research. Once the prospective shopper has done their research online they can, if they choose, go to Halfords network of stores across the country where they can see, touch and try the product. The app does offer reserve and collect and home delivery too.
This sort of app is going to grow in importance as we see the number of smartphones in use increase (currently there are over 17 million in use) together with the use of mobiles (both smartphones and tablets) for shopping processes growing exponentially. In fact it is estimated that web traffic from mobiles will grow up to 8 times faster than from PCs. One retail strategist estimates that nearly 2/3rds of UK shoppers will be using their mobiles for shopping in the near future!
So the answer for any pro-active seller online is to consider carefully their mobile commerce strategy - it is not going to go away. As illustrated by Halfords it is even possible to “app-sell” a huge and diverse product range. Whether your offer is small or big the advantages of selling through the mobile route is manifold. However there is one simple rule – be focussed on ease of use and retaining your customers details and you’ll capture customers.
Our own investigations have shown clearly that consumers tend to became frustrated as each time they purchased from a new website they have to establish a new account together with payment details. They felt this was a time consuming and did not always justify the small amount they may have saved by choosing the cheapest. They also felt that they were maybe increasing risk by using a new supplier with such concerns as payment security, reliable delivery, unknown quality etc. The answer then, is clearly to design and build a mobile app which allows for the simplest possible purchasing process, ideally at the touch of as few buttons as possible.
One doesn’t have to look far to see how mobiles are changing the way we think and act. Look around you next time you are in a busy public area, how many people will you see using their mobiles?
BYOD or Bring Your Own Device is a relatively new opportunity that has arisen because even the largest corporation can struggle to keep up with the constant rate of technological change, providing state of the art devices to all their employees and their often diverse roles.
Very often the devices employees have at home or in their pockets are far more powerful than those provided for them. So what if you as an employee have an ancient desktop PC at work that runs XP and your company mobile phone has a tiny screen and won’t connect to email? Result – frustration. So what happens if you try and get your company's IT department to accept and adapt to your devices? Result – cost, delay and confusion. This scenario is particularly relevant to the burgeoning number of flexible home and away working generation of employees who may well toil away outside of company hours and therefore probably outside of IT department operating hours.
The standard reply to the idea of BYOD has been security, but with improved systems and the growth of the cloud, security, while still a big concern, need not be the buffers that bring this particular opportunity to a halt. Critics of the strategy also claim that people may do things with their own equipment they wouldn't consider with a company laptop. Companies thinking of this sort of change must also take into account that friends and family often have access to personal laptops opening up potential security risks.
There are corporations out there that do offer a BYOD package acknowledging that existing systems were far too limiting, for example if you wanted to use more than e-mail you needed a company laptop. These new systems, sometimes retaining a few “pool” laptops that are available to staffers, encourage their people to buy their own devices and access their desktop remotely from home or “on the go”. The benefits are clear - under the new system the IT support staff are more likely to be free to do other critical work. Understandably in this enlightened age work-life balance is another driving factor - employees can use these systems from anywhere enabling those who wish to focus on work at home in a more relaxed fashion.
There are other business models where an opportunity is given to the employee to purchase their own devices - an allowance provided to purchase a standard model with the employee being given the chance to upgrade at their own cost. Unsurprisingly it appears that most employees love having the freedom to choose and claim to enjoy their computing experience more. Imagine buying a brand new top end Mac on a company purchase scheme, how happy would you be to get the device, and how happy the company would be not have it on their books?
Compatibility is also quoted as an objection but presumably common sense would kick in and the company would have a set of clear guidelines on what equipment could be used, its security systems and usage and data protection policies.
Whether the driving factor for considering the opportunity of BYOD is cost-cutting, employee satisfaction or flexibility any company needs to be very careful to consider all the facts.
Does your company/organisation practice BYOD? We would love to hear the pros, cons, and pitfalls you have faced and whether you agree with our opinion?
One of the major benefits or drawbacks of the web, depending on your position, has been the transparency it has brought to pricing. This has been a major boon to the consumer and often a headache for the seller. Recently we at hedgehoglab were given the chance to explore this conundrum in detail. We received a call from a web-based seller who was frustrated because his website did not seem to be recapturing existing business. “...... Customer’s seem come and go...how can I capture them for good?” was his simple but challenging brief.
We asked for his metrics and, at first sight, it did seem odd, customers bought his consumable item (usually bought on average about 7 - 8 times a year) and then promptly seemed to disappear.
His customer response metrics showed no major issues, his prices weren’t the cheapest, but every buyer seemed happy enough, so why were they not re-purchasing? With some detailed research we found that, when the need for purchase arose, the consumers were using their search engine to look for the cheapest price. On further investigation it appeared that consumers became frustrated as each time they purchased from a new website they had to establish a new account together with new credit card or similar payment details. They felt this was a time consuming and did not always justify the small amount they may have saved by choosing the cheapest. They also felt that they were maybe increasing risk by using a new supplier with such concerns as payment security, reliable delivery, unknown quality etc.
The answer was to design and build an app which would allow for the simplest purchasing process at the touch of a button. The app would remember the consumer’s details so the only action required was to confirm the details as correct – this included the actual spec of the product previously ordered, the consignment address, payment details etc. The mechanism for getting the app out there was even simpler - receive an order from the web site and deliver it with the free app. Now when Mr Customer, on the way home on the train or bus etc suddenly remembers he’s forgotten to buy this particular item, he just fires up his phone, a few clicks and the product is on its way.
The client has been very happy with the results and is happy to be now in the position of taking a large percentage of his business through the app. And the lessons? - yes, price is often, but not always a key buying determinant, certain products however, especially the purchasing of distress commodities are best made simple and this is where a correctly designed and simple to use app wins every time.
