Ecommerce Trends for 2010

Despite the worldwide recession, ecommerce continues to build sales momentum thanks to merchant initiatives, growth in the mobility sector and more sophisticated back-end systems, according to a new report entitled 10 Ecommerce Trends for 2010 that we released this week. The report says that online shopping is moving from a transaction mentality to one that also embodies discovery, entertainment and social bonding experiences.

Five of the report’s key ecommerce trends for 2010 include:

A Smarter Mobility:
Smartphone growth with its wider screens and compelling applications will continue to accelerate in 2010. Just as ecommerce sites have contributed to sales in physical stores, we will see more aggressive pushes by mobile applications to drive ecommerce sales. One emerging way will be through Augmented Reality (AR), where information is overlaid on images or video.

Fulfillment Rules:
More retailers will consider regional fulfillment centers because of the volatility of fuel costs and marketplace demand for accelerated delivery times. To minimize inventory, drop shipping from manufacturers will gain traction. Reverse logistics will also be a point of emphasis as recapturing the value of goods not only fits into heightened environmental concerns, but for businesses represents an opportunity to reduce costs, increase customer satisfaction and increase marketing opportunities by offering refurbished products.

Customer Service is Everywhere:
As consumers utilize an increasing number of communication channels – from texting to responding to YouTube videos, their expectations to access information, express themselves, and receive feedback in an immediate time frame, poses a complex challenge that e-retailers are beginning to take very seriously. As a result, Call Centers are being replaced with Customer Experience Centers that deliver consistent superior touchpoints with consumers over a wide spectrum of communication channels.

Being Relevant is Virally Important:
Whether they like it or not, e-retailers are expected and valued as more than suppliers of goods and services. Accordingly, they must proactively take on personalities that their market segments feel comfortable with. This relevancy requires e-retailers actively listen, converse and engage in a variety of areas such as online destinations and social responsibility forums,

Business Intelligence Meets Business Process:
While companies retain a wealth of data, they often lack the capture tools, analytical processes and personnel bandwidth to turn this information into actionable activities. In 2010, there will be a greater commitment to unleash the intelligence residing in data banks to create sophisticated marketing and sales business processes that provide competitive advantages.

Elise Chow, President and Chief Executive Officer of FFP Global in commenting on the report said: “Traditional analysis has suggested that the growth of ecommerce represents a powerful shift to the consumer, because comparative information is readily available at their disposal. However, FFP Global believes that e-retailers are being infused with considerable clout as well through extensive data capture capabilities, influential interactive mediums such as Facebook and Twitter along with the availability of robust outsourced backend services.”

To receive the report 10 Ecommerce Trends for 2010, contact Joe Sarno (508)475-0932 or via email at jsarno@ffpglobal.com

Call Center Outsourcing: A Strategic Connection

The benefit most often cited about outsourcing call center services is that it enables companies to better focus on their core competencies. However, FFP Global believes this is a very incomplete, if not flawed assessment as it suggests that customer interactions do not have strategic implications. Today, a customer interaction in all its forms, whether an inbound phone call, web chat or email exchange, can have a profound multiplier effect and bottom line impact when these experiences good or bad instantly traverse online media and social networking spaces and pick up a life of their own.

Metrics of Success

From bringing home grade school report cards, to receiving job evaluations, throughout life, people are used to getting feedback on how they are measuring up to what’s expected of them. Likewise, at FFP Global, we routinely receive feedback, whether from business partners, employees or clients. 

However, we wanted to formally, objectively and proactively measure our performance in a wide range of dimensional ways by creating a comprehensive set of business metrics.  

As a result, over the last couple of months, a small team at FFP Global, representing all operating areas, has been working on such a project. The goal of these metrics is to provide FFP Global a foundation for making continuous improvements in the ways in which we serve our current and prospective clients along with all stakeholders we touch.

In a sense, it’s knowing how we are doing, long before somebody is going to tell us. In some cases, it can be a hard truth.  However, ultimately, based on this understanding, we can rapidly address areas that are not up to our standards.  And just as importantly, by setting metric goals, we can be true innovators.

In formulating our metrics, we learned a few interesting things: For one, many companies only use financial results as their business metrics. In addition, while much has been written about business metrics, too often it is presented in theoretical terms rather than specific recommendations. A technique we at FFP Global employed to develop our metric sets was to use our business processes as a starting point.