Thanks To Our 2012 Program Advisory Board

Question 1: Can you share any thoughts about the upcoming holiday season? What are your predictions?

Arnold Sookram, General Manager, Gamehouse.com (Real Networks)

Overall, this Holiday Season is shaping up to be similar to last year – modest growth based on overall macroeconomic factors (consumer confidence is down compared with historical averages, and unemployment is still high at 9%+). The retailers that achieve year-over-year growth are the ones that have been building their brands with consumers and earning greater share of wallet (eCommerce sales as a percent of total retail sales is approx 8% and growing!).

Jason Kang, CMO, Zazzle.com

Retailers who listen to their customers and execute will continue to win. It’s as simple (and as hard) as that.

Mark Deruyter, Frmr. Sr. Manager Customer Acquisition, Musician’s Friend/Guitar Center

Over the past two holiday seasons, consumers have been heavily affected by a unpredictable economy. Obviously that hasn't changed and I believe this holiday will trend along the same lines as the past few years. This means that consumers will be very price aware by comparing prices across multiple retailers and watching closely for sales or coupon events. Consumers will also expect and demand less barriers to buying, such as: Free Shipping, multiple payment options and easy returns/exchanges. Yes, these are common now across many retail industries but some retailers will need to find a way to meet these expectations during the next few months. Consumers will also delay most purchases until the last few weeks before December 25th. The second week of December has always been the best week for sales but this will drag into the 3rd or last few days before December 25th. Retailers should work with their shipping companies to offer the latest shipping dates and hours before December 25th. Finally, many consumers have been waiting to pick up great deals after December 25th so retailers should take advantage of this time by offering deals post the main holiday dates.

Question 2: If you had to name one area, in terms of e-commerce, where businesses should be focusing on right now, what area would that be? And why?

Arnold Sookram, General Manager, Gamehouse.com (Real Networks)

Retailers should focus their energy and resources on understanding their target customer – eCommerce is only one of many relevant consumer-facing touch-points today. Getting smarter about marketing operations and execution is a strategic imperative to be successful in a hyper-competitive, global retail environment. Managing tremendous amounts of customer data is the key to relevant and timely marketing that breaks through the clutter to reach your intended audience.

Jason Kang, CMO, Zazzle.com

There are few investments where there is an easy opportunity to (i) double conversion rates in (ii) a channel that is doubling. This is currently the case with mobile. Mobile helps you engage with customers *where* they want. In terms of the giving customers *what* they want: personalization – whether on the website (like Amazon does so well) or with the actual product itself (what Zazzle is working on!) – will continue to drive engagement and sales.

Mark Deruyter, Frmr. Sr. Manager Customer Acquisition, Musician’s Friend/Guitar Center

The main area retailers should be focused on is around tailoring advertising and media towards their customer base, while also mirroring these programs to capture new customers. With the sophistication of display advertising and paid search, retailers have an array of advertising options at their disposal. In example, retailers should identify the consumers that are providing the most sales and frequency of purchases within their customer database and tailor campaigns around re-messaging to these consumers. See when they purchase and what types of products, so that you can create banners, value propositions and understand the timing to set up the right type of media. Increase bids within search during the periods and for the high demanded products (and related keywords). In the end, retailers need to know their consumers and potential consumers to maximize their advertising dollars while getting the best return. All through mature advertising channels but also looking at emerging channels such as mobile, social and video. By creating this balance, retailers will hit their market and could see higher returns from their advertising dollars compared to the last 2 years.