Crate & Barrel: Capitalizing on Testing & Black Friday Data to Drive 2015 Holiday Sales

eCommerce is an industry that grows every year as we become one with our technological society and realize the ability to get whatever we want from our mobile devices.  I explained this to my very traditional grandmother as having a genie in a bottle - whatever I want, whether it's pizza, trash service, or festive decorative pillows, can all be obtained through our magic lamps.

Crate & Barrel is the company that has gotten its ecommerce down to a science.  Rated as the #1 eCommerce Checkout by Baymard Institute (2014), Crate and Barrel uses live and constant testing to figure out what nuances may lead them to generate more sales (Kohnen, 2013).

Figure 1: Crate & Barrel, 2014.

Joan King, E-Commerce Director of Site Management at Crate & Barrel, gave a lecture at the IRWD 2013 web design and usability conference in Orlando last year.  In it, they discussed how to run testing regularly to keep improving upon your ecommerce website's success.  "The answer was in A/B and multivariate tests which is when an element on your website appears different to different viewers" (Kohnen, 2013); then, they ran analytics to see which options led to more conversions.

For instance, "Add to Cart" was put up against "Buy" for a purchase button link on the items' pages.  Checkout buttons were tested in colors like green, red, and black.  Even the navigation system was tested, and found favor with consumers with a more traditional drop-down navigation.

The verdict?  Tiny changes in wording or color increased conversion rates by 20% (Kohnen, 2013).  Looking at their current website, blue appears to have been the color that sold the most items, and the wording "Add to Cart" seemed more appealing to consumers than "Buy" (Crate & Barrel, 2014). 

Also, simplicity went a long way - King also said that when shoppers were given fewer options, they had higher conversion rates (Kohnen, 2013).

Figure 2: Crate & Barrel, 2014.

King's take-away message was to be constantly testing, but not anything that you wouldn't want live on your website for shoppers to see. 

Testing like this should be done for a period of about two weeks to get enough data to see a clear picture of the results (Siroker, 2013).  You can use Google Analytics to do this, or you can use a program like Optimizely, which shows your website as individual elements and allows you to change those elements for testing (Kohnen, 2013). 

As a personal review, I will start out by saying that I'm not much of an online home wares shopper.  I am very much a flea market/yard sale/antique shop aficionado, so I am much more likely to find my favorite throw pillows at a neighbor's garage sale.  However, the simplicity of the website does draw me in to do a little more poking around and see what else they could be doing to reign in their data and use to to optimize sales.

Event tracking is a very useful method of analytics during the holiday season.  Crate & Barrel could easily use it to track the sales and use of their coupon codes during the week leading up to and the week after Black Friday.  Black Friday is starting to wane in popularity as the #1 shopping day of the year for the holidays, as retailers put out earlier and earlier sales to capitalize on the frantic excitement of the start of the shopping season, eager to turn those slow fall sales into profits for the last fiscal quarter of the year (Columbus, 2014).

• Thanksgiving sales went up a staggering 14.3% this year over 2013.
• Average order value on Thanksgiving was $125.25, down 1.8% over 2013 (Columbus, 2014).

"IBM explains this slight reduction in average order value due to shoppers becoming more comfortable and digitally savvy in how they use online coupons and rebates to secure the best bargains" (Columbus, 2014).

Figure 3: Columbus, 2014.

Crate & Barrel has a great opportunity here to use event analytics and consumer surveys or feedback to capitalize on the usage of coupons or rebates in Thanksgiving or Pre-Black Friday sales.  In doing this, they could raise their holiday sales even more!

In what other ways could Crate & Barrel (or similar ecommerce sites) capitalize on this year's Black Friday data using A/B Testing or Event Analytics?

Susan

Resources

Baymard Institute. (2014). Top 100 e-commerce sites. Baymard.com. Retrieved December 8, 2014, from http://baymard.com/checkout-usability/benchmark/top-100.

Figure 1. Crate & Barrel. (2014). Decorative Pillows. Crateandbarrel.com. Retrieved December 8, 2014, from http://www.crateandbarrel.com/decorating-and-accessories/decorative-pillows/1.

Figure 2. Crate & Barrel. (2014). Merrie 12" pillow. Crateandbarrel.com. Retrieved December 8, 2014, from http://www.crateandbarrel.com/merrie-12-pillow/s647139.

Columbus, L (30 Nov 2014). Analyzing Black Friday sales using IBM's digital analytics benchmark. Forbes.com. Retrieved December 8, 2014, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2014/11/30/analyzing-black-friday-sales-using-ibms-digital-analytics-benchmark/.

Kohnen, C. (27 Feb 2013). How Crate & Barrel keeps their website looking awesome: testing. Examiner.com. Retrieved December 8, 2014, from http://www.examiner.com/article/how-crate-barrel-keeps-their-website-looking-awesome-testing.

Siroker, D. (11-13, Feb 2013). eCommerce Testing. 2013 IRWD Web Design & Usability Conference. Lecture conducted from Orlando, FL.

Google, Your Own “Personal Oracle”: Dangerous or Intuitive?

Google’s got the market cornered on the virtual crystal ball.

Between knowing our home, and work addresses and a list of places we’ve been recently, to the people we talk to most often, and knowing our heart’s deepest questions that we routinely try to erase from our browsers and search histories, it’s an understatement to say that Google knows a lot about us. 

Burakfdu, Wordpress, 2013.

Personally, I have a Samsung Galaxy S5 Active that tells me each morning about the things it thinks I need to know: the weather, how far I am from “Work,” when WVU plays next, and updates me on where my recently ordered packages are.  I barely have to think about what I want to know when I wake up and it’s already there, thanks to Google’s…gently prying nature.

It’s too easy, isn’t it?  To sign into a program like Swarm or a Google Play game like Scramble with Friends using your Google+ profile.  To get personal purchase emails, letters, and pictures in your inbox.  To publish and manage your blog, all using your Google profiles.  It’s a mindless process.  What harm could there be in Google knowing what we’re up to?

Andrew Keen said a mouthful in 2007 when he wrote, “Having successfully become our personal librarian, Google now wants to be our personal oracle. It wants to learn all about us, know us better than we know ourselves, to transform itself from a search engine into a psychoanalyst's couch or a priest's confessional” (Keen, 2007).

The article prophesizes about what Google wanted to be in 5 years (yes, that was 2012), and in it, the Google CEO says that he wants Google to be able to answer “question[s] such as 'What shall I do tomorrow?' And 'What job shall I take?' (Keen 2007).    It can’t be done without getting to know us.

The future is just that, and is now.  In 2007, Google wanted to offer a tightly knit suite of services:  “personalized homepage, search engine, blog, e-mail system, mini-program gadgets, Web-browsing history, etc. — that together will create the world's most intimate information database. On iGoogle, we all get to aggregate our lives, consciously or not, so artificially intelligent software can sort out our desires” (Keen, 2007). 

According to Danny Dover at Moz.com, Google uses six different ways to collect data (Dover, 2008).

·      Click Tracking – Google tracks ALL clicks on all of its services.  If you use Chrome, then this includes all clicks on all pages that aren’t Google, as well.

·      Forms – Google tracks all information entered into forms, as well as the date and location where the information was submitted.

·      Cookies – Google puts cookies in your browser, which are helpful for things like remaining signed in to Facebook, or preloading other information.  Google’s cookies (for each of its services, including DoubleClick and AdSense) also track your activity.

·      Server Requests stored in Log Services – Every request made of a Google service is stored: searches, submissions to blogs, requests for Google +1s, including:

o   IP Address from user making request. This can be used to geo-locate the user

o   Date, time, and time zone offset of user

o   Language of requested result (in this case, English)

o   Search query

o   Operating system of user

o   Browser of user

·      Javascript – just like the tracking code we’re embedding in our websites.  This tracks activity on our pages, regardless of what browser the visitors are using.

·      Web Beacons – I’m quoting this because I can’t believe they need a dirty trick like this to get information: “Google embeds small (1 pixel by 1 pixel) transparent .gifs into many of its checkout screens. Just like the javascript, a user downloads the invisible image and sends information about their computer to Google” (Dover, 2008).

Wow.  Doesn’t seem like just your eBay purchase for a Christmas Gift anymore, does it?  Here’s a complete list of all the personal information that Google admits to collecting from internet users (MOZ.com, 2008).

It seems as though the world got a bit nervous for a little bit, especially when Google Street View really started to collect data in a heavy way – Germany even fined Google for “Systematic, illegal collection of user data” (O’Brien, 2013) but then really began to worry when Julian Assange revealed the link between the company, its founders, and the U.S. Government (RT, 2014). 

This year, consumer feedback service Servata asked 2500 internet users in two surveys how they felt about the National Security Agency (NSA) collecting user data, and then about Google.  Respondents were more worried about Google’s data collection (on a scale of 1-10, they averaged 7.06 for the NSA, and 7.39 for Google) (EndtheLie, 2014).

For a long while when I started college, I was more than happy to share any kind of information services like MySpace and Facebook (and even all the way back to AOL Instant Messenger) asked for.  It shaped my open relationship with the internet through my early twenties and made me comfortable with sharing more about myself than my parents were, that’s for certain.  When I became a public figure as a television news and weather reporter, it made sense to make a presence online that was well-branded…but I suddenly became very cautious about what information I had online.  After three years of having my persona shared with a million households, I was ready to recede from the internet – and almost did fully, back to the bare bones of what I needed to run the City’s social media. 

Over the last year, I’ve become a little more lenient again, having realized that this is just the norm.  This is where we are now.  I’m not uncomfortable with my phone telling me where my packages are each morning, or letting me know what the score was of the Reds game I missed or who they play next, until I hear about huge data breeches or hackers getting access to gmail passwords. 

But…isn’t that the way we feel about our home security when our neighbors’ house gets robbed?  We certainly are more aware of it, but it’s the risk that comes with owning a house with things in it. 

What experience with Google has shaped the way you feel about the trade off of your privacy for your own “personal oracle”?

Burakfdu. (Mar 2013). Google Privacy JPG. Burakfdu.Wordpress.com. Retrieved December 1, 2014, from http://burakfdu.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/google-privacy.jpg.

Dover, Danny.  (24 June 2008). The evil side of Google?  Exploring Google’s user data collection. Moz.com. Retrieved December 1, 2014, from http://moz.com/blog/the-evil-side-of-google-exploring-googles-user-data-collection.

EndTheLie. (24 Oct 2014). Google data collection worries more Americans than NSA. EndTheLie.com. Retrieved December 1, 2014, from http://endthelie.com/2014/10/29/google-data-collection-worries-americans-nsa/.

Keen, A. (12 July 2007). Is Google’s data grinder dangerous? LATimes.com. Retrieved December 1, 2014, from http://www.latimes.com/la-oe-keen12jul12-story.html.

MOZ. (2008). User Files: Google User Data.  MOZ.com. Retrieved December 1, 2014, from http://moz.com/user_files/google-user-data/SEOmoz-Google-User-Data.pdf.

O’Brien, K. J. (22 Apr 2013). Germany fines Google over data collection. NYTimes.com. Retrieved December 1, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/23/technology/germany-fines-google-over-data-collection.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

RT. (24 Oct 2014). ‘Google grown big & bad': Assange reveals company & its founder’s links to US govt. EndTheLie.com. Retrieved December 1, 2014, from http://endthelie.com/2014/10/29/google-data-collection-worries-americans-nsa/#qzdG9pLIxQhGYDZ5.99,

Clicky: A Worthy Google Analytics Contender?

Google Analytics is a huge contender in website analytics today.  It’s free, it offers your data up in easy-to-understand charts, and it’s very customizable so you can create reports that accurately reflect your data and your needs (Google.com, 2014).  However, many professionals also supplement this program with other software to get the most out of their data, and to supply what GA can’t (fieg, 2011).

One program that claims to do a lot that Google Analytics can’t is Clicky.  According to Clicky.com, it offers “real time web analytics,” and touts many features that it believes trump Google Analytics (Clicky.com, 2014).  Going by its own comparison to GA, it looks like there are some major differences.

Real Time

“Real time web analytics” is one area in which Google sort of falters.  During our class’s initial review of our blog analytics, it was pretty clear that a lot of us were hoping we’d be able to see more of the recent statistics, so this would have been one area where Clicky would have prevailed (Blackboard, 2014).

Clicky also offers a bit of code that you can place in the body of your website in order for (only) you to be able to view how many people are on each page of your website at just a glance.  This is in the form of a tiny counter at the bottom of your page.

Individual Visitor Data/Heatmaps

Clicky says that it is able to track ridiculous amounts of individual visitor data, whether or not they have javascript enabled.  Google tracks by having the user put a bit of JavaScript code into their header that puts a cookie in the visitor’s browser (Google Developers, 2014).  If JS is disabled, then Google may not pick up the visitor.  Some browsers like Firefox have extensions that block ads and Javascript, so it looks like the JavaScript hurdle that Clicky has overcome can provide more accurate insight into the website’s activity.

Google does provide a good bit of individual user data, like Demographics, Behavior, Engagement, etc (Fig. 1).  GA does put your data into charts and graphs, but you can also download the raw data to make sense of it yourself (good luck).  Clicky also makes your data available for download, but its reporting system for individual visitors DOES appear to offer more plain-speech insight [Fig. 2].  Plus, it even tracks if something on my blog is shared, where exactly they are, the user’s browser and OS – you can really get into the mind of the visitor. (That’s me, by the way – I’m not violating a random visitor’s privacy. J)

[Fig. 1] (Google Analytics, 2014).

[Fig. 2] (Clicky Stats, 2014).

One feature that makes me want to sign up for Clicky immediately is Heatmapping.  Clicky claims that this lets you view “heatmaps” for individual visitor sessions, showing you where their mouse went, offering an idea of what they might have been thinking.  I can’t say I have found any evidence that Google Analytics can do this – according to Clicky, it can’t, anyway (Clicky vs Google Analytics, 2014).

[Fig. 3] (Clicky, 2014)

Uptime Monitoring/Alerts

A week or two back, in our IMC 642 Discussion Boards, I cited an article where a blogger didn’t realize her site was down until she was checking in on her Google Analytics reports (Herman, 2013.)  Clicky claims to remedy this problem by alerting you right away if you site is offline by using Uptime Monitoring, and verifying your site’s problem by checking from several locations before telling you.

Clicky also has customizable alerts that you can set when you reach goals, hit rock bottom in visitors, or have a high bounce rate – all customizable.

Price

Google Analytics is free.  Anyone with a website to monitor can use it without worrying about how they are going to be able to access their data on a regular basis, even if the income or revenues aren’t there to pay for it.  Clicky costs $9.99 a month, but only if your website gets more than a million monthly page views (Clicky vs. Google Analytics, 2014).

Mobile App

Google doesn’t offer a mobile app for Analytics.  Clicky does.  Pretty plain and simple, there.  For those who have other things to do than sit on GA all day, this is a great way to access data while Networking, at a meeting, or just because you’re randomly curious and aren’t near your computer.

Overall, Clicky appears to be quite the competitor with Google Analytics.  With more recent data, more detailed information on visitors, and the ability to view reports with a mobile app, this free program could be a great supplement to my current GA reports.  I plan to keep my account open and also add my regular personal brand page to Clicky and set up some custom alerts.  I don’t get a lot of visitors, but being able to get confirmation when I do get a visitor would be gratifying, to say the least!

What Google Analytics competitors have you researched?  Why did you decide to supplement your GA reports with additional tracking software?

Susan

References

Blackboard. (2014). IMC 642 Week 5 Discussion Forum. Reed College of Media. Learn.WVU.edu. Retrieved November 24, 2014, from https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_group=courses&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2FdisplayLearningUnit%3Fcourse_id%3D_20666_1%26content_id%3D_1178123_1%26framesetWrapped%3Dtrue.

Clicky. (2014). Home. Clicky.com. Retrieved November 24, 2014, from http://www.clicky.com.

Clicky. (2014). Clicky vs. Google Analytics. Clicky.com. Retrieved November 24, 2014, from http://clicky.com/compare/google

Clicky Stats. (2014). Clicky Stats for SSullivan642 Blog. Clicky.com/Stats. Retrieved November, 2014, from https://clicky.com/stats/.

 

fieg. (16 Feb 2011) Forum Discussion Response. Google Analytics and real-time analytics comparison: Chartbeat vs Clicky vs Mixpanel. Stackoverflow.com. Retrieved November 24, 2014, from http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4599207/google-analytics-and-real-time-analytics-comparison-chartbeat-vs-clicky-vs-mixp.

Google. (2014). Why Google Analytics. Google.com. Retrieved November 24, 2014, from http://www.google.com/analytics/why/.

Google Analytics. (2014). SSullivan642 Blog: New vs. Returning. Google.com/Analytics. Retrieved November 24, 2014, from https://www.google.com/analytics/web/?hl=en#report/visitors-type/a56698205w90209007p93801607/.

Google Developers. (15 Jul 2014). Tracking Site Activity. Developers.Google.com. Retrieved November 24, 2014, from https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/asyncTracking.

Herman, J. (13 Dec 2013). How often do you check your analytics? JennsTrends.com. Retrieved November 13, 2014, from http://jennstrends.com/check-your-analytics/.

Choosing the Social Media that leads to Engagement & Interaction

Today's Web-2.0 way of communicating (though the rich multiverse of social media) is a two-way exchange of communication, versus the previous one-way transfer of data and facts for a viewer or listener to consume and decide for themselves. The advent of social media has allowed consumers to give feedback to companies, corporations, businesses and government in a way that is real-time and allows for instant gratification: the lightning-fast satisfaction that builds business/consumer relationships and allows for brand love to grow.

But in today's world of emerging media and the ever-changing landscape of social media, how does one decide where their efforts are best invested for a strong, fruitful, and measurable interaction with customers and constituents?

In our readings this week for class, an article by Chris Lake suggests that social media avenue selections should be made in order to get people to

• make a noise.
• store and share things.
• love your Web site.
• visit more frequently.
• refer your company to their friends.
• buy into your brand.
• buy your products.

Before choosing, a company should research its ideal audience and determine where they can be found (Custom Creative, 2014). A company can't succeed without optimizing its resources, and knowing exactly who your target audience is will ensure that budgeted monies are spent as wisely and as lucratively as possible.  For example, within the last year, Kraft has taken control of its place in social media and is now working in the digital realm to reach more millennials, Hispanic shoppers, and those on limited budgets (Wohl, 2014).  It recreated its entire company workspace, and now has a social media monitoring center it calls The Looking Glass.  It watches online trends and has found that mentions of Kraft in social media are up 25,000 from a year ago - due to amusing posts like the A-1 and Steak breakup on Facebook.

How did Kraft decide to use Facebook?  It looked at its new target audiences and then at research that showed which social media its audiences are using.

Facebook matches a good deal of its audience: at 71% usage, it's the most popular social media online.  It's also more popular with women, who do the majority of the shopping in two-thirds of American households (RetailLeader.com, 2014).  It's more popular with ages 18-29, and not with people of higher income, someone they're not targeting as much.

Where else is Kraft focusing its social media efforts? 

On KraftRecipes.com, there are prominent links to its Facebook page, as well as to YouTube, Pinterest, and Tumblr.  According to the Pew Research study, Instagram is a great medium they're skipping, where they could reach millennials and Hispanics.  However, they don't want to spread themselves too thin.

Pinterest is a great choice because it's popular with Women - but according to the Pew Research data, it's not really a winner with millennials, low income audiences, or Hispanics.  

Kraft also appears to be using Tumblr like Pinterest, but it's not sharing any posts from anyone but themselves.  Perhaps time spent with Tumblr could better be applied to Instagram.  Also, using repost apps, it would be very easy to share consumer-created content.  I wonder if the difficulty of managing an Instagram account from a desktop platform hinders its appeal to Kraft digital marketers.

Kraft's goal appears to be, based upon its social media choice, aimed at women and those who share and save recipes for later.  However, if we revisit Lake's goals for our social media from earlier, then we see where Kraft's selections for social media do mirror those points.  Pinterest, Tumblr, and YouTube get people to

• make a noise.
• store and share things.
• love Kraft's Web site.
• visit more frequently.
• refer Kraft to their friends.
• buy into the Kraft brand.
• buy Kraft products.

After identifying your audience and exploring the social media that correlates with your audience's tastes and favorite "hangouts," Custom Creative implores businesses to set up a social media strategy that aligns with the businesses mission and goals. Another source, Inc.com, stresses the importance of maintaining the two-way conversation that social media breeds.

Measuring comes both before implementing these new social media as well as regularly afterwards in order to gain insight into progress and accountability.  We're learning these next as we install and use Google Analytics in Week 4.

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Custom Creative. (2014). Choosing the right social media channel for your business. CustomCreative.com. Retrieved November 10, 2014, from http://www.customcreative.com/custom-blog/97-choosing-the-right-social-media-channel-for-your-business.html.

Manafy, M. (9 July 2014). How to choose the best social media sites for your business. Inc.com. Retrieved November 10, 2014, from http://www.inc.com/michelle-manafy/how-to-choose-the-best-social-media-sites-to-market-your-business.html.

Pew Research. (2014). Social Networking Fact Sheet. PewInternet.org. Retrieved November 10, 2014, from http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/social-networking-fact-sheet/.

Retail Leader. (2014).  Women still dominate grocery shopping. RetailLeader.com. Retrieved November 10, 2014, from http://www.retailleader.com/top-story-consumer_insights-study__women_still_dominate_grocery_shopping-2053.html.

Wohl, Jessica. (16 Jun 2014). Kraft marketing sees payoff in digital space. ChicagoTribune.com. Retrieved November 10, 2014, from http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-kraft-marketing-0617-biz-20140617-story.html#page=1.

Wood, S. P. (15 May 2014). Retrieved November 10, 2014, from http://www.mediabistro.com/prnewser/a-1-steak-sauce-breaks-up-with-its-brand-and-gets-a-prwin_b91985.