‘Sophistication, opulence, timeless:these words are the cornerstones of luxury brands. But how, in fact, does a brand remain timeless in the digital age?’ Gabriel Shaoolian questioned this in Huffington Post (081417). She added, ‘It evolves its marketing strategy to meet the changing emotional and physical landscape of its consumers, and it uses modern technology to conquer new platforms and expand brand narrative along the way.’

McKinsey stated that ’40% of all luxury goods purchase decisions are influenced by what consumers see and hear online. That means, in an industry with more than $280 billion in sales last year, online-influenced purchases accounted for more than $100 billion in revenue.’

Social media, previously seen as too mass marketing, has become an increasingly important marketing tool for luxury brands and especially for luxury retailers. They are turning to social media in an effort to stay engaged with consumers as well as create new revenue streams, according to a top Facebook executive. ‘Generally speaking’, stated Matt Jacobson, head of marketing development at Facebook, told the South China Morning Post, ‘the biggest luxury brands are normally the last to innovate, but some of our best work has come from Hermès, Rolex, Porsche, LVMH, Gucci and Chanel as a way to directly connect with customers. This idea of brands connecting more directly with consumers, that’s a powerful trend. Luxury brands need to maintain a high level of customer service, amid a level of aspiration that doesn’t exist for other products.’

Luxury firms themselves admit they are late to the game when it came to adopting a digital approach, but said they now see it as complementary. ‘In the past, the […]

Research from Stanford scholars revealed that specific words in product descriptions can predict sales. They found that polite language that invokes culture or authority helps products sell. The work was carried out on online products in Japan, but the authors’ method could reveal top-selling words in English, Chinese and other languages.

Computer science graduate student Reid Pryzant and Stanford linguist Dan Jurafsky applied a machine learning technique to analyze more than 90,000 food and health-related product descriptions and their sales data on the Japanese e-commerce marketplace Rakuten. The more of those keywords a description contained, the better the product sold, according to the research results, which recently appeared in an article presented at the SIGIR Workshop on eCommerce in Tokyo, Japan. “Product descriptions are fundamentally a kind of social discourse, one whose linguistic contents have real control over consumer purchasing behavior,” the researchers wrote. “Business owners employ narratives to portray their products, and consumers react accordingly.”

Challenges of language analysis

Online vendors have long struggled to figure out why the exact same product offered on different websites has varying sales figures. Previous research focused on online consumers’ reactions to product reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations. But product descriptions haven’t received as much attention because studying the effects of language on consumer habits is a difficult task, according to researchers.

The problem is that many words are associated with high sales simply because they signal the product’s brand or pricing strategy, the researchers said. For example, if a product’s description includes brand names like “Nike” or phrases like “free shipping,” its sales will be higher than a description that doesn’t. But these are words that advertisers can’t change. “We’re more interested […]

Manufacturers and retailers are constantly talking about finding new ways to drive traffic, thus added sales. First, we all have to understand that the shifting consumer shopping behavior, from how they show across different retail channels, between departments and categories across the store, to how they shop differently for brands, is a fact. It is not some esoteric thesis from a professor in a college speaking on conditions of today in business. This disruption has left both manufacturers and retails struggling to adapt. But first we have to understand through experience and research, where dollars are being spent and how to tap into changing shopping habits in order to drive growth. Consumer dollars haven’t vanished from brick & mortar. As Nielsen has stated, ‘The automation behind digital retail is changing how consumers shop Across channels, particularly online, consumers are buying less each time they shop.’ They say it is an action called ‘not filling the basket’. They further stated, ‘Their (customers) primary goal is to simply get what they want quickly and without any friction.’

That is all well and good, but how can you get them to prefer your store…get them to come into your store?

In a world where budgets in retail have decreased, primarily because sales have declined, one cannot live by what we did before…what our fathers did before us…what their fathers did before them. We live in a completely different world. Only a few things of commonality blend over the generations. Radio is still in the cars…television sets are still in the homes…and something on print is occasionally seen as we go by the place where you buy water in the […]

If there ever was an immediate need to make sure your website is mobile friendly, the time is now! For those who have delayed, get moving. For those who have taken their employees word for their website’s mobile friendliness, double check with an independent consultant. For those who have just made a new website, full of stuff and movement, you better double check with an outside consultant to make sure you are really mobile friendly.

In a new report, Adobe expects mobile to surpass desktop by the end of the year. While desktop remains the primary driver of retail revenue, retail mobile visits are steadily rising, and the data suggests it will surpass desktop in visit share by the end of 2017.

“Today, people are viewing retailers on their phones, but still buying from their desktops,” Schreiner said. “By the end of the year, we’ll see mobile eclipse desktop with site visits. It’s hard to imagine they won’t take a very big share of sales, too.”

The study also details how effective email promotions and social conversions are at different times of the day. Email promotions are most successful in the morning and evening, whereas social and display conversions grow in the late evening, probably thanks to impulse buys.

Social still lags as a channel. Retail will have its mobile moment before the end of the year. And paid search is challenging organic for the number one channel.

A couple of notes:

. Search channels convert best in the afternoon.

. Social and Display best convert in the late PM and early AM.

. Tablet share continues to decline.

. Quality over quantity is the key strategy.

. Overall […]