SPONSORED SUPPLEMENT: eTail 2001
Multi-channel retailers emerge from the fray as online winners: conference to explore cross-channel strategies.
Six
months ago, the talk around Internet retailing already was moving beyond the
year’s well-publicized dot-com crashes to focus new interest on the survivors.
Who were they, how did they do it, and what winning traits did they share? A
new category of merchant has stepped into the spotlight with a firm handle on
those answers. But then, they’re not really so new after all. Once criticized
for being too slow or too timid about getting onboard the online train—at least,
compared to pure-play supernovas that shone then fizzled—the land- and catalog-based
e-retailers are now in the driver’s seat and going at full-throttle.
If you have any doubts, just take a look at the line-up for the eTail 2001 Conference set for July 31-August 2 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York. The conference title, “Driving Profitability, Loyalty and Operational Efficiency to Meet the New Standards of Multichannel Retailing,” zeroes in on the path Internet retailing has taken to emerge from last year’s bashing and pick up steam. And it has: forecasts show that the woes of individual retailers haven’t turned shoppers off the web. U.S. consumers will spend $74 million online at retail this year, up from $45 million last year.
Zeroing in on tactics
A full half
of the 10 major morning presentations from retailers, vendors and researchers
will focus on winning multi-channel or clicks-and-mortar strategies; as well
as four of the afternoon concurrent sessions. The others will discuss how multi-channel
retailers are using new technologies to attract and keep customers, how they’re
redefining customer service, and mining customer data to boost conversions and
sales. Presenters include some of the best-known names in retailing, online
and off. In-depth case studies from 19 retailers will show how they tackled
key issues such as integrating multi-channel operations from storefront to back
end. Top technology and market intelligence providers will share their views
as well, bolstering their presentations with real life dispatches from the e-commerce
front. (A complete vendor list and presenter list are available below)
Pre-registration for the conference will be followed by a welcome reception for those arriving on the evening of July 31. This networking opportunity will offer conference attendees the chance to meet each other as well as the speaker faculty and fellow delegates in a casual, informational setting while enjoying complimentary drinks and snacks.
The morning sessions will focus on strategies and tactics to make multi-channel e-retailers successful, in key areas such as designing a fulfillment program that works across all channels, restructuring business models to meet changing goals, building customer loyalty without breaking the bank, and raising customer service to new levels. Retailer presenters will explore how customer data can translate into dollars, and how the right partnerships and alliances can boost retailers’ power and presence online.
Creating ’Web-Tainment’
David Lauren, chief creative and marketing officer of Ralph Lauren Media and Polo.com, will headline the program on August 1 with his presentation, “Transforming Your E-Commerce Site into ‘Web-Tainment’: A Compelling Medium for Customer Acquisition and Retention.” Online only since November 2000, Polo.com already has become one of the most innovative retail destinations on the web. Through a unique blend of merchandising and online entertainment provided by Ralph Lauren Media, a joint venture of Polo Ralph Lauren Corp. and NBC, Polo.com leverages the web’s interactive capacities to bond shoppers to the site without losing sight of the metrics most critical to e-retailers. Lauren, son of designer and Polo founder Ralph Lauren, worked with Ralph Lauren Media to create the Polo web site, and now oversees the development of its editorial content, services and products. He will discuss how to create an engaging environment online that promotes repeat visitors and shoppers while maximizing the power of the brand through community. He’ll also discuss how Polo.com determines the right amount of personalization through customer service, content, and interactive features, as well as multi-channel marketing campaigns that have driven web site sales and increased ROI.
On the conference’s second day, August 2, Bill Bass, Lands’ End senior vice president for e-commerce and international, will lead off. Web sales at Lands’ End have only gone up - 40% over a year earlier in the first quarter of 2001 alone. Lands’ End says it’s put the customer at the center of everything it does, an approach it calls a key driver in the company’s success, and Bass’s address, “Devising a Customer-Centric Approach : Differentiating Your Business Through the Delivery of Superior Customer Service to Build Loyalty and Instill Brand Confidence,” shows just how. Bass will share information on how his company has integrated customer service touch points across all channels, trained customer service representatives to meet the demands of multi-channel retailing, and cut the costs of customer service without cutting quality by nudging shoppers toward self-help. He’ll also discuss integrating real-time inventory data and fulfillment data across multiple channels, extending the cross-channel integration of customer service to outsourced partners, and synthesizing all customer data into a single view.
Moving to the web
The afternoon’s sessions, which focus in on more specific topics, will give conference-goers a choice between two concurrent tracks. They’ll choose from either track A or track B to meet in less formal, more interactive sessions led by vendors and retail executives on such topics as overcoming the challenge of expanding brand across the channels, moving offline brands onto the web and developing a real-time inventory management system. Other topics will include e-mail marketing, a look at the latest online visualization technology, emerging trends in personalization, and more. Among the presenters of the concurrent sessions will be Cathy David, general manger of Target.com; Ann Acierno, senior vice president and general manager of Estee Lauder Cos. online; Melanie Agnermann, vice president of marketing for JCPenney.com; David Towers, director, customer experience for e-commerce at J. Crew; Sean Kaldor, vice president, e-commerce, at Nielsen/NetRatings and others.
The champagne roundtable discussion groups, held at the end of the second day, provide another opportunity for participants to meet the presenters on a one-to-one basis. Meeting informally, conference attendees and presenters will discuss what they’ve learned during the day, exchange views on controversial issues and brainstorm on new ideas and strategies to implement at home. Participants will choose from individual roundtable topics, hosted concurrently by all of the conference speakers, which correspond with each speaker’s conference presentation.
A pre-conference technology workshop on July 31 offers two consecutive tracks. The morning’s workshop, “Bring Life to Your Merchandise, Profits to Your Organization and Loyal, Satisfied Customers to Your Business: An In-Depth Look at the Impacts of Online Merchandising,” will offer case studies on the online experience of retailers from Eddie Bauer to Godiva Chocolates. Hosted by Chris Johnston, vice president of product marketing at technology provider Viewpoint, a conference co-sponsor, it will show how implementing advanced technology can spur sales and improve the customer experience and how to measure results. The afternoon’s workshop, “An Assessment and Improvement Plan for Web Operations of a Hypothetical Leading E-Retailer” will be hosted by Bo Lasater, founder and vice president of strategy at technology developer Totality, a conference co-sponsor. Participants will create, analyze and evaluate a fictional retailer, using the exercise to explore the technical issues and objectives that challenge e-retailers in the real world. The group will examine in-depth technology cost assessments and a comparison of outsourcing vs. in-house alternatives to demonstrate the costs and benefits of different technology solutions.
The retailers on
the agenda
The first day of eTail 2001 will feature speakers from top
e-retail companies such as David Lauren, chief creative and marketing
officer, Ralph Lauren Media and Polo.com; Dan Korn, executive vice president,
Neiman Marcus Online; Dennis Bowman, senior vice president and chief
information officer, Circuit City Stores; Gene Domecus, senior vice president
e-commerce, Macys.com; Cathy David, general manager, Target.com; Julie
Bornstein, general manager, Nordstrom.com; Monica Luechtefeld, executive
vice president, e-commerce, Office Depot; Ann Acierno, senior vice president
and general manager, Estee Lauder Cos. Online; Gene Rosadino, president
of Direct and senior vice president of Supply Chain, Zany Brainy; and Melanie
Angermann, vice president of marketing, JCPenney.com.
Day Two will feature retail industry speakers including Bill Bass,
senior vice president e-commerce and international, Lands’ End; Susan Harvey,
senior vice president and managing director, Bloomingdales.com; Dennis Honan,
vice president and general manager customer direct, Sears, Roebuck and Co.;
John Barbour, CEO, Toysrus.com; Ken Weil, vice president of new
media, Victoria’s Secret; David Towers, director, customer experience
for e-commerce, J. Crew; and Barry Judge, vice president of marketing/e-publishing,
BestBuy.com.
Zoom, zoom
How Viewpoint’s
zoom technology helps re-create the
real-world shopping experience online
The early advocates of Internet retailing believed
in the power of the web: Put it up and consumers will buy it. The convenience,
to their minds, was where the value lay.
They were right about the convenience—it’s one of the major sells about Internet shopping. But it’s not all. Internet retailing has become more about retailing and less about the Internet. And that has meant that product presentation and increasing customers’ confidence that they are making the right product choices have become more important.
Thus many vendors have introduced 3-D, zoom and other rich-media technologies
to help customers make those choices. The benefits that retailers derive from
such systems are not just increased sales—although that’s where they see the
return most immediately—but also in fewer product returns and fewer calls to
customer service from buyers who can’t figure out how a product works or how
to assemble a product. “The benefits are twofold,” says Chris Johnston, vice
president of product marketing for New York City-based Viewpoint
Corp., which produces 3-D and zoom technology for retailers and manufacturers
selling on the web. “The benefit you get from creating the content is a four-
or five-times multiple on the investment from what you get now in terms of sales.
And on top of that you’ll see reduced costs in returned products and in calls
to your customer call center.”
In June, Viewpoint introduced its ZoomView technology. It debuted at EddieBauer.com. It is getting ready now to introduce the technology on a major bricks-and-mortar retailer’s site. That merchant will use the technology to highlight high-priced products as well as products it doesn’t sell in its stores.
Redeploy existing photography
ZoomView technology allows retailers to deploy the high-resolution photos they use for their catalogs and other print marketing on the web to provide a high level of detail to customers. Customers zoom in on the particular area of the product about which they would like to see more detail, and the ZoomView technology amplifies just that area and downloads it to the user’s browser in a compressed format.
ZoomView “tiles” and compresses the photos for speedy download. A high-resolution photo itself can require 10-30MB, so simply enlarging the photo for customers to view details is not feasible because it would require too much bandwidth. Thus ZoomView detects the specific area that a browser is zeroing in on, breaks that particular section into an enlarged view, which is what tiling is, then feeds just that view to the customer. It goes through a similar process when customers zoom in on other portions of the product. Dividing the image into tiles, then compressing those tiles reduces each image to 5-15K, Johnston says.
In addition, Viewpoint has created a program to combine the zoomed product photo with Macromedia Inc.’s Flash technology to create an image in which dialogue balloons materialize to point out features to the viewer. For instance, if a customer is viewing a video camera and wants to see if it has a fade-to-black button, that customer can zoom into that portion of the camera. Not only will the customer be able to read the words on the fade-to-black button itself, but a balloon will pop up highlighting the fade-to-black feature. “This allows a very specific presentation of a product to the consumer,” Johnston says.
Retailers who want to use the ZoomView or the Flash presentation have three options: They can buy the web content and production services from Viewpoint, they can contract for the content from producers that work with Viewpoint, or they can hire Viewpoint’s training staff to teach an in-house staff how to produce the content. Retailers who use ZoomView have no additional costs to create the images, since the photos exist already for use in other media. The cost of converting the image to be used in ZoomView is less than $100. The cost of using Viewpoint’s display technology ranges from $2,000 a year to $50,000 depending on size and quantity of the files and frequency of use.
Tracking the shopper’s actions
To help retailers calculate ROI on its technology, Viewpoint incorporates tracking services into its offerings. That tracking service can tell what a customer looked at, for how long, what the customer zoomed in on and how the customer manipulated the image.
The market for zoom technology is large. Some estimates put the selling portion
of zoom at $1 billion a year right now. On top of that, they add training of
personnel and education about products for another $10 billion.
To Viewpoint, the zoom technology is the way to create a web shopping experience
that will more closely resemble the real world—and that will lead to increased
sales. “The main thrust of what Viewpoint provides is the ability to increase
site stickiness and conversion of browsers into buyers, while keeping the costs
down,” Johnston says. “This allows retailers to create an engaging shopping
experience on the web.”
eTail 2001 Agenda
Pre-Conference
Technology Workshops
Tuesday July 31, 9:30-4:00
9:30-12:30: Workshop A: Bring Life to Your Merchandise, Profits to Your Organization and Loyal, Satisfied Customers to Your Business: An In-Depth Look at the Impacts of Online Merchandising, Chris Johnston, vice president of product marketing, Viewpoint
12:30-1:30: Lunch
1:30-4:30: Workshop B: Work Together With the Group to Create, Analyze & Evaluate a Hypothetical Company, Bo Laseter, founder & president of strategy, Totality Corp.
Day 1
8:00-8:30: Continental Breakfast, registration, opportunity to view the exhibition area
8:30-8:40: Chairman’s Opening Address
8:40-9:20: Transforming Your E-Commerce Site Into “Web-Tainment”: A Compelling Medium For Customer Acquisition and Retention, David Lauren, chief creative & marketing officer, Ralph Lauren Media and Polo.com
9:20-10:00: Implementing a Flawless, Multi-Channel Fulfillment Operation That Is Both Accurate and Cost Effective to Meet the Growing Expectations of Today’s Consumers, Dan Korn, executive vice president, Neiman Marcus Online
10:00-10:45: Break
10:45-11:25: Profit is Now an Imperative! Building a Business Model and Process to Meet the Challenge, Dennis Bowman, senior vice president & CIO, Circuit City Stores
11:25-12:05: Building and Maintaining a Loyal Customer Base in a World of Diminishing Budgets and Rising Competition, Gene Domecus, senior vice president e-commerce, Macys.com
12:05-12:45: “Schtick & Mortar”: Teamwork + Passion + Vision = Profitability, Mark Bressler, managing director, Towerrecords.com
12:45-2:00: Lunch
2:00-2:40 Track A: Identifying Opportunities and Overcoming the Challenges of Expanding Your Brand Across Channels, Cathy David, general manager, Target.com Track B: Transitioning Your Brand Online: A Manufacturer’s Perspective, Ann Acierno, senior vice president & general manager, Estee Lauder Cos. Online
2:45-3:25: Track A: Identifying How Interactive Product Visualization is Revolutionalizing Online Retail, Jeffrey Sugerman, CEO, Point Cloud
Track B: Developing a Real-Time Inventory Management System that Maximizes Supply Chain Efficiency to Ensure Customer Satisfaction Throughout the Order Process, Gene Rosadino, president of Direct & senior vice president of Supply Chain, Zany Brainy
3:25-4:10: Break
4:10-4:50: Track A: Cracking the Code to Online Merchandising: Turning the Clues Your Customers Are Giving You Into a Satisfying Shopping Experience and Increased Conversion Rates, Julie Bornstein, general manager, Internet, Nordstrom.com Track B: Optimizing Operation Performance: Overcoming the Complexity of E-tail Applications and Infrastructure, Michael Carrier, CTO & founder, Totality Corp.
4:55-5:35: Track A: Putting Muscle Into Your Online Arm: Leveraging Your Offline Operation to Create a Profitable E-commerce Business, Monica Luechtefeld, executive vice president, e-commerce, Office Depot Track B: Harnessing the Power of Permission E-mail Marketing to Break Through the Clutter and to Reach Your Target Market, Melanie Angermann, vice president of marketing, JCPenney.com
5:35-6:30: Roundtable Discussion Groups
6:30-8:00: Cocktail Reception
Day 2
8:00-8:30: Breakfast
8:30-8:40: Chairman’s Opening Address
8:40-9:20: Devising a Customer-Centric Approach: Differentiating Your Business Through the Delivery of Superior Customer Service to Build Loyalty and Instill Brand Confidence, Bill Bass, senior vice president e-commerce & international, Lands’ End
9:20-10:00: Walk-In...Log-In...Call-In...Mastering Multi-Channel Retailing from Back End to Front End, Susan Harvey, senior vice president & managing director, Bloomingdales.com
10:00-10:45: Break
10:45-11:25: Restructuring the Business Model to Serve the Multi-Channel Customer: A Sears Case Study, Dennis Honan, vice president & general manager, customer direct, Sears, Roebuck and Co.
11:25-12:05: Establishing Partnerships and Strategic Alliances to Leverage Your Assets: Core Business Competencies, Brand Equity, Capital Investments, Technology, John Barbour, CEO, Toysrus.com
12:05-12:45: Where Are Your Customers Coming From? Utilizing In-Depth Customer Knowledge to Understand What Really Brings Dollars to Your Site, Gian Fulgoni, chairman & co-founder, comScore Networks
12:45-1:45: Lunch
1:45-2:25: Track A: Utilizing Advanced Visualization Technology to Facilitate Interactivity and Dynamically Merchandise Products to Increase Sales, Robert Rice, president & CEO, Viewpoint Track B: Striving For Profitability: Devising Ways To Get There Faster, Ken Weil, vice president of new media, VictoriasSecret.com
2:30-3:10: Track A: Making Customer Data Work For You: Strategically Managing Customer Data to Increase Conversion Rates, Sean Kaldor, vice president, e-commerce, Nielsen//NetRatings
Track B: Are You Maximizing the Potential of Your Personalization Efforts? Emerging Trends and Advanced Strategies to Connect You and Your Customer Through Targeted, Relevant and Effective Offerings, David Towers, director, customer experience for e-commerce, J. Crew
3:10-3:55: Break
3:55-4:35: Determining Where to Spend Your Limited Marketing Dollars and Which Channel Delivers Maximum ROI, Barry Judge, vice president of marketing/e-publishing, BestBuy.com
4:35-5:15: TBA
Exhibitors at eTail 2001
Beyond.com offers technology and services to build, manage and market
your online store.
ComScore Networks is a provider of infrastructure services to e-businesses
based on the monitoring of web users.
Dock3 is the shopping, pick-up and shipping solution, the leading personal
at-work delivery service.
Nielsen//NetRatings provides the most advanced Internet technology
and analytic services.
PointCloud is a leading provider of 3D imaging and photo content management.
RichFX is a market leader in online visual merchandising solutions
that create highly sensory shopping experiences.
Scene7 delivers dynamic imaging software for the web, print and product
design.
Teradata, a Division of NCR, is a one-stop web site for industry-specific
news and events about analytic solutions, CRM, and e-business.
Totality provides application and infrastructure management services
for complex, high-performance e-commerce environments.
TrueSpectra offers ImageTone, a distributed, dynamic imaging infrastructure
that allows for accessing and sharing of visual information.
Viewpoint is a leading provider
of rich media visualization and marketing technologies for the web.
Webloyalty.com offers marketing services that strengthen customer loyalty
to e-commerce and portal sites.
Exclusive media partner:
Internet
Retailer is the leading magazine and web site covering how the Internet
is revolutionizing the way retail businesses operate.
