Electric Thoughts in a Digital Era

Category: eCommerce Conversations

  • Feed.fm – Music for brands to connect with customers

    Music has been used for decades in retail to create a connection with customers however music is not widely used in ecommerce. Music is part of consumer science to create an environment in which the customer wants to spend time in the shop and then based on the emotional connection it will then lead the consumer spend money in that specific shop. When I worked for an ecommerce business one of the most important beliefs that must be made known to team members is the importance of a conversion. Whether it be the putting the item in the cart, clicking on a button to create revenue – nothing must stop that from occurring. A San Francisco based startup, Feed.fm is using music to help brands connect with their customers via emotional connections.

    Why music has not been seen inside ecommerce

    When researching for my conversation with Jeff Yasuda, the CEO of Feed.fm, the impact that music has on conversions was consistently on my thoughts. Needless to say it was immediately dispelled and described as a myth.

    Music has been a part of advertising (TV and radio ads)  and retail for decades, yet when I look at ecommerce it is not widely seen. The movement to ecommerce and digital retail has been blocked by 3 factors according to Jeff:

    1. Licensing costs for music is high.
    2. Legal complexity – it takes a long time to legally be able to use music in a commercial environment. Lawyers who specialise in music rights are expensive and difficult to find.
    3. Finding the right music – everyone thinks they are a DJ and thus finding music can be emotive and not based on any relevant data.

    Businesses also have a challenge in that they have to be able to connect with millennials and Generation Z who are interacting with brands mostly on mobile devices.
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  • Happy Returns Takes Returns Personally

    LOS ANGELES – When David Sobie and Mark Geller worked at Hautelook they created the returns program that ensured that customers could return Hautelook purchases at Nordstrom Rack locations. This was prior to the omnichannel retail existing yet it lay the the groundwork for their future. Little did they know that they would create Happy Returns that would leverage their domain experience regarding returns.

    I spoke with David Sobie, CEO and Co-Founder of Happy Returns and our conversation made me realize that retails future will contain a moment for returns. Returns is one of the remaining elements in retail that has not seen significant investment, yet it is a line item which provides retail Chief Financial Officers with sleepless nights.

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  • A conversation with Sina Afra

    I had the opportunity to meet Sina Afra while I was in Turkey. Afra is the Co-founder and CEO of Markafoni a flash sales commerce business that was acquired by Naspers in July 2011. Markafoni is after Ventee-Privee the number 2 flash sales business in Europe.

    Sina Afra, is one of the few CEOs of a big commerce business that writes a blog that has become something akin to a must read for me. His annual state of Turkish commerce posts have always been a favorite of mine as it is in-depth and contains a lot of really good insight. I see Afra in the same light as some of the big ecommerce founders – visionary, thought leader and most of all a key part of his country’s ecommerce ecosystem.

    A few things were highlighted for me in our conversation:

    1. Sina is fiercely loyal to the Turkish ecommerce industry. He made no attempt to hide that which was great to see. In general most commerce executives I meet are in general stuck at watching the big players (Alibaba, Amazon and eBay) but forget about their local ecosystem. He made the point that in his mind Turkey is in the top 5 of the most important developing markets.
    2. He was absolutely inspirational in describing his business to me. The mere fact that he could recite key metrics made me realize just how in tune he is with his business. I am going to be trying to be more like him here as that ability to be fully aware of the business was beyond impressive.
    3. He made a great point of being able to look at the founders of commerce businesses in more detail regarding their education, background etc. I have heard this thinking once before (Jack Ma of Alibaba in one of this many videos) and after thinking about it in some detail I realized that this is something I have not thought about in more detail. This becomes very important when a new competitor enters your market as then you are able to understand their thinking and strategies.
    4. He also made a very clear case that the flash sales vertical is alive and well. Markafoni, Gilt and others are still making sales and delighting customers. I found this to be quite refreshing as I thought that the flash sales industry is under pressure.
    5. He made a very important point regarding emerging markets and that is that the ecosystem is very dependent on investors, angels and VC’s. We tend to forget about this factor when looking at a specific market. A great point to be aware of and also to keep in mind.

    I can honestly say – that the time I spent with Sina Afra was inspirational and highly educational. Turkey is very lucky to have him in their ecosystem as he has experience that not many commerce CEO’s have.