Sephora has several mobile initiatives

Sephora has 300 store US (N. America) #1 prestige on-line beauty store. the mobile web site was launched in 2010.

as of Dec 2013, the site was fully integrated with e-commerce and loyalty program - with the latest updates including a richer experience for the iPad and additional feature enhancements such as access to the loyalty card program with the iPhone’s new passbook app

Key Stats for for Sephora.com

• Over 50% of emails opened on a mobile device. (tablet or smartphone)
• 1/3 of Sephora.com transactions on mobile device
• Mobile orders up 176% from last yea
• 75% increase in mobile website traffic
• Push messaging heavily used for events, holiday deals and product launches. - Time sensitive and localized messaging increased redemption rates, utilized scarcity to incentivize fast action.
• +1.1 Million App downloads since Passbook launch - which automatically moved the apps to higher rank on ITunes. +400K sign ups for loyalty program in the first 90 days significant number came through mobile app.

Sephora’s mobile philosophy, Don’t think apps, mobile or tablet. - think of the customer experience what supports it. Women are early adopters of technology especially when its social and convenient to them.

Typical Sephora Customer Experiences

1. Shoppers research product info, utilizing a “wish list” from her browsing of products, while in store “she” scans barcodes to read reviews and recommendations from her peers or age group, at the checkout she uses her loyalty card stored in her iPhone passbook so she can earn the loyalty points from her purchase.
2. Shoppers are inspired to shop - incentives are used to get “her” to engage after her purchase, to talk about her experiences with the product - and she leaves her reviews or recommendations on the site to share.

The Sephora shopper path to purchases relies heavily on the ability of shoppers being able to move between any channel and being able to move to their experiences from the previous device they used.

Starting with awareness - from Tumblr, she follows a post about a product, to the Sephora site where she browses products and saves some of her interests to her basket, later at home, she logs into her social network to see if her friends have any recommendations or reviews of her product, based on this feedback, she goes to the store and tries/tests the product to see how it looks on her. If she doesn’t purchase it immediately, she goes home and logs back into her saved shopping basket and buys it online.

Simple critical path for the shopper.

1. Try it

2. Read review from friends, peer group or common interest

3. Buy it.

eGifting Innovations:

eGift cards were rolled out to mobile first then to web-site. - an instant ecard sent with customizable faceplate was automatically stored in iPhone passbook of the recipient. In addition the Sephora mobile app allows for plastic, physical gift cards to be stored in app and provides real-time access to each card’s remaining balance.

“Endless Aisle” concept for Holiday

QR coded product catalog poster was installed in-store where shoppers could scan and purchase on iPhone and have the items delivered directly to recipient for free. Key benefit allows shoppers convenience of not having to carry items home, wrap and ship the items on their own.

Delivery not available in-store at cash register, but on-site iPad running app is available for shoppers to use and order directly from m-commerce site. 

Sephora uses “big data” in Mobile + Local campaigns; by tracking mobile transactions from previous purchases rich CRM data about customers is compiled and is used tosend very relevant email and mobile alert CTAs about products that the shoppers would be interested in. 

Today TPN will be live-blogging from the MobileFirstLook conference in NYC.

Coca-Cola’s Mobile Powerhouse: 

This brand utilizes “Liquid + Linked Content” and combines it with “A trillion points of data” Coke is the largest supplier of location data for their campaigns due to the details tracked in their worldwide distribution efforts.

Best performing geofencing campaigns utilize the strategy of (1 mile/1 hour) CTA messages sent to shoppers within 1 mile of retail location - 1 hour from the time of campaign expiration.

Key areas of focus for this brand in 2013:
SMS, mobile web, apps, video, location-based services, 2D bar codes 

Coke’s key elements for its mobile campaigns are:

• relevant content
• good foundation 
• social listening real-time content adaption (changed next day based on social listening feedback)
• 1:1 messaging (talking not advertising to the consumer)

Coke has 100+ apps, but is still working on “cracking the code” on what the best apps are. The speaker admits, of the 100+ apps, very few are considered good. 

Coke admits could do better with digital shopper strategies; more opportunities for CTAs The brand is working with both Google Wallet + ISIS (Austin/Salt Lake) and evaluating which direction to go.

The experiment with ISIS is a vending machine purchase; integrated loyalty program with ISIS - utilizing transaction record as proof of purchase vs. under the cap message - SMS to NFC working to make as frictionless as possible. Real time analytics 

The brand uses mobile for field sales teams that utilize iPad apps to scan coolers to determine if they are configured correctly- if not, the app will provide instructions on how to fix the issue.

Coke’s still evaluating “responsive design” efforts, there isn’t enough proof that people want the same types of information on each device.- specifically the brand is taking a wait and see approach until further data is available.

By:Kunur Patel

Since few shoppers can wait for Amazon to ship their gallon of milk, smartphone usage in grocery stores is an entirely different beast than in big-box and electronic retailers, where the “scan and scram” phenomenon of price comparing runs rampant.

Consumers aren’t price checking against the Piggly Wiggly down the street the way they compare the values at Target vs. Best Buy, so mobile apps are popping up as tools for shoppers to find manufacturer deals and make lists as they trawl the supermarket aisles.

Food and medicine are the categories that see the least smartphone usage for research and shopping, according to an online survey from Omnicom Media Group and Microsoft. Phones are used more for shopping for entertainment products, restaurants and consumer electronics.

“You see more scan-and-scram when you’re buying a TV than when you’re trying to save a $1 on Kleenex,” said Daniel Blackburn, VP-mobile for interactive agency Rosetta’s Level Studios.

Sixty-five percent of the 3,500 shoppers in five global markets wanted their cellphones to find in-store promotions, according to Omnicom’s survey. Making shopping lists and finding items in stores are also top mobile priorities.

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By: Brian Cohen

Digital shopper marketing tools are clearly enhancing the consumer shopper experience, both for the marketer as well as the shopper. However, the dizzying array of tools available can make it a bit challenging to discern which ones will provide the most bang for the buck for marketers. A new survey on digital shopper marketing from Catapult helped provide the following five considerations when activating these programs:

1. Leverage the Proven Winners

To-date, only three tools have captured shopper hearts and minds; Self checkout, printed coupons from the Internet, and online circulars, all of which are previously existing tactics translated digitally. These tools are easy for shopper’s to understand and easy to use and should be integrated where possible.

Brand Examples: Kellogg’s, P&G and General Mills all have robust programs on Coupons.com and MyWebGrocer. Publix circular integrates lifestyle images and recipes on the cover rather that just product shots with price.

By: Dhani Mau

Could the third most popular social network become the most popular social commerce site?

Eerily addictive and rapidly growing social networking site Pinterest has been around for a while now–long enough, at least, to start to determine how beneficial it can be for retailers. Back in January, Mashable reported that Pinterest had become a top traffic referrer for many e-commerce sites, joining the ranks of Facebook and Twitter. However, its ability to drive actual sales had yet to be determined–until now.

Shopify recently crunched the numbers and put together a handy infographic explaining how Pinterest drives online sales–which it does. A lot. According to their report, traffic from Pinterest to e-tailers is equal to that of Twitter. However, visitors from Pinterest were 10% more likely to make a purchase than those from other social networking sites, including Facebook–even though Facebook actually drives more traffic. Some other interesting factoids:

By: Sarah Mahoney

In a new analysis of the 17 digital tools most used in shopper marketing, Forrester finds that many of the most-buzzed about — including social networking, daily deal sites and QR codes — are struggling in earn their share of spending. 

And while others show much greater potential, including mobile, adoption rates are low.

“Mobile is the next big thing, but it is still next and not quite now,” writes Forrester analyst Tracy Stokes in the report. “The number of articles about how mobile is on the rise for shopper marketing seems to increase weekly. But our research shows that while adoption of handsets and mobile activities are on the rise among consumers, shopper marketers are more wary about the opportunities without proven results or metrics with which to measure any results and thus have been slower to adopt mobile technologies.”

Instead, Forrester, which polled 32 respondents across the industry, finds that the traditional digital platforms — like email, brand Web sites, and retailer-targeted content — get most of the shopper marketing bucks and are likely to remain the top priority.

It’s not that marketers are averse to digital tools, with 87% agreeing that digital technology has fundamentally changed the way people shop, 88% agreeing that mobile technology is a game-changer, and 72% agreeing that consumers make more decisions before they get to the store than they used to.

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You are in the city for just two weeks and one night you get robbed all your valuables. A mysterious man turns up and hands you a mobile phone. You´ve got four pounds left in your pocket. Can you make it to the top?

This is how Barclay’s free online game 56 Sage Street begins. It is Barclay’s intent to engage teenage customers who are otherwise hardly interested in financial services and hence, would normally ignore any form of traditional marketing. A mix of the popular games Grand Theft Autoand Sim City was the company’s approach to creating awareness among the targeted audience.

Gamers have to complete different challenges related to earning and investing money. Moreover, they can advance faster when they choose to collaborate with their friends by connecting via Facebook. The final task however, can only be solved by a larger group and thus, fosters even further word-of-mouth and direct recommendations from players.

In the first month of the release back in July 2010, the online game designed by BBH attracted some 55,000 players. The game received over 2,300 “likes” on Facebook, 2,277 tweets and 35 Google +¹.

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Source: www.imediaconnection.com

Author: Neel Grover

Today, the retail industry is in the process of acclimating to a new multichannel environment. For today’s marketers, this means a new kind of shopper is emerging — one that engages with a wide variety of channels when deciding what to buy and where to buy it. A recent study by Shop.org, comScore, and Social Shopping Labs highlighted this trend by demonstrating that 47 percent of consumers have looked to their mobile devices for product reviews while shopping in a brick-and-mortar store. The offline and online worlds are blurring, and consumers are turning to an ever-widening variety of social and commercial information sources before making a purchase. All these disparate strands, both offline and online, need to be pulled together into a coherent retail strategy by merchants. The process can be daunting for marketing departments worldwide, but there are many growing retail trends to capitalize on.

More mobile shopping

Smartphones and tablet devices have certainly played a part in this sea change. Forrester’s prediction that m-commerce will be worth $31 billion by 2016 seems to be on track, but what’s more telling, perhaps, is that the analyst firm also predicts that by 2015, 82.1 million adults will own a tablet.

Indeed, tablets will provide an increasingly potent sales channel for retailers by strengthening and innovating the mobile shopping trend as we know it. A tablet interface not only supports content consumption, but also greatly enhances it. Therefore marketers should make plans to optimize their web content for all platforms (iPad, Android, Windows 8, and others) and make it accessible to all markets. They must also ensure that their mobile web offerings provide media-rich experiences that establish significant brand awareness with a new set of mobile consumers.

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Live Blogging from M-Commerce Summit 2012.

Alon Brands - fuel refinery brand and #1 Licensee for 7-11 (300 Stores) and other distributor locations. (600 locations) -other c-store brands selling fuel.

Mobile is at the heart of Alon’s digital solution. Core mobile engagement is via SMS, deals are pushed to customers who opt-in. SMS offers are simple an easy to redeem. Ex. free with purchase, product discount redemption codes; primary driver for communication is to build database of people.

Programs have to resonate with B2B and B2C, tags everything to channel into database (to monitor sales analytics on POS) Uses traditional to drive digital campaigns for awareness.

Opportunity: the brand cultivated 2-way communication. with- once a day, with simple offers or contest questions. 

All data is captured in a S-CRM. (Social CRM) - includes; direct mail, social media, broadcast, community sponsorship, mobile apps, grand opening, gas coupons, billboard, give aways, mobile.

Key efforts included: 

• Online Contests and Sweeps
• Facebook Contests and Online giveways.

Winners were instructed to send photos of themselves with promotional items. - UGC that was created showed a high degree of involvement of the shoppers, who took the initiative and the effort to go back to the store where they won the contest and even take a photo with the store manager.

Best performing offer: 1$ off Milk offer, least compelling offer for shoppers, food service items deals.

Results of efforts:

• Y/Y growth of database 150%
• Coupon Redemption rates 5%-50%
• 25% increase in web-traffic
• Mobile Internal Communication

Near term plans:

• Mobile Payments and POS integration
• Send personalized communication offers
• Social CRM - using public channels to learn about customers.
• Building up Facebook and online games - virtual items - with offline redemption.

Live Blogging from M-Commerce Summit 2012.

Citibank - Beyond mobile banking and the new role of tablets.

Critical mass is here, comscore data shows growth in usage of mobile banking apps has changed year over year over 110%. Tablets are the fastest growing device category in history with over 60M iPads and 6M Kindle fire (Android) tablets being sold, analysts predict that by then of 2012 -tablets will comprise 80% of the laptop market. 

Tablet user profile is: 25-44 wealthy, with incomes over 100K annually. this demographic has more investable assets to use bank products. 

Citibank develops all apps in-house due to tight regulation of industry. Key feature and app development philosophy was to create a user experience that would “delight” banking customers, drive more customer engagement and exploit multi-touch and graphics processing power of the tablet. 

Ux of Citibank tablet app engages customer by creating data visualization of real-time data. Allows customers to review expenditures without having read through financial spreadsheets.

Posting live from New York City today, at the M-Commerce Summit 2012. 

Zappos keynote highlights

tablet app has always been the priority; iPhone and android were released after. Customers prefer a richer experience over the small mobile screen when shopping.  The iPad users have the biggest shopping basket and order value, followed by the iPhone and Android.  Marketing focused on being featured on AppStore or Google Play – leverages WOM over other media channels for promotion.

Mobile apps have a halo effect on a brand, the better the app, the higher brand rating. New features with products via 360 views, has increased conversion rates, the key for selling more online is attributed to how products are merchandised on site (online and mobile)  Zappos takes tens of thousands of product photos daily.

Zappos uses a Top of Mind strategy relying on “push notifications” as reminders to purchase with In stock notifications (sign up on site) when items are out of stock. Badge notifications and frequent app updates.

Native support for Twitter (doesn’t require login if already login in from other apps.) – posting on twitter via link sharing, help with SEO. Native Facebook support -showed increase in traffic  Pinterest integration is in development.

The Mobile Shopper: Wave Collapse Study – 2012. 

Online Study: 1000  iPhone, Android, Windows or Blackberry users

Key insights: mobile shopping behavior is closer to physical store shopping behaviors – than to online store shopping. The frequency of purchase is much higher with mobile than online.

Mindsets for mobile shoppers differ and are related to the type of stores being visited.  Top stores for mobile browsing are, department stores, malls and Electronic stores.  Stores that are more likely to see mobile purchasing are, Discount stores, groceries, warehouse, hardware and general hardware stores.

Browsing is the norm for digital. – Survey participants state that online shopping is better than an in-store experience. Tablet browsing is better than Smartphone mobile (richer experiences)

Brands must integrate Social; 56% follow a brand on a social network; offering discount deals is a bad strategy as it sets the expectation that the only reason to follow a brand is to get better deals. In one week, more than half give up to 25% of their purchases to the brand they follow.

By: Daniel Todaro

Source: retail gazette daily retail news

Even a casual observer can see how the in-store retail experience has vastly changed for shoppers over the past decade.

Since 2002 we have seen an inexorable rise of desirable, lifestyle-led brands from personal technology through to luxury goods. Subsequent growing consumer demands for design alongside functionality loom large over the retail space.

How these companies have chosen to communicate with their customers has similarly altered to fit this new landscape – through advertising and product lines but notably how they present themselves in the store environment.

Over the past ten years since our inception, we have worked with a number of tech brands on their retail presence and noted this change in the landscape. Through recession and now double dip, stores have seen ever more sophisticated retail marketing and access to sales and shopper data.

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Source: Adweek

Author: Noreen O’Leary

Shopper marketing is growing at more than 21 percent annually, with some big consumer products companies like Procter & Gamble spending at least $500 million to target consumers at the point of purchase. Last year, BBDO and its Proximity digital capabilities set up ShopWork in North America to help clients navigate the increasingly complex retail experience at whatever physical or virtual location it may occur. Laura Davis-Taylor, an Atlanta-based retail strategist with more than 20 years of experience, is the managing director of the new operation. She spoke with Adweek about how technology is changing the shopper experience both online and off.

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A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but would any other scent by the name of rose evoke the same response? Or more to the point, does ambient scenting stimulate longer dwell time, product interaction, or positive brand perception, leading to increased retail purchases? Many people seem to think so. The practice is gaining wider acceptance among retailers and brand marketers, as reported in this recent Today Show video. It’s been tried by brands from all facets of the market, from Bloomingdale’s to Goodwill. 

Claims about the benefits of scent marketing abound. Impregnating a product with scent (such as Naked & Famous Denim’s newraspberry-scented jeans) has been found to enhance brand equity. Building on that notion, the use ofambient scent when the consumer discovers a product also has been found to increase recallabout the product later, and researchers have exploredfavorable impressions of products associated with pleasant aromas.

Field experiments point to positive anecdotal results from ambient scenting. At IKEA, visual and olfactory cues at the point of purchase increased shoppers’ tendency to touch products, ambient scenting prompted more dancing at three nightclubs, a Belgian field experiment found shoppers more willing to revisit stores that are easy on the nose.

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Source: www.retailenviroments.org