ecommerce & digital marketing strategy

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

CLICK & COLLECT AND HOME DELIVERY STRATEGY

WINE CELLAR

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Brief

Outline MY approach for a full e-commerce site for Booths ‘Wine Cellar’ and…launch click & collect & home delivery services

How would I make it a commercial success?

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

PRE-PROJECTPLANNING & RESEARCH

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

ObjectivesWhat are the expectations of stakeholders?

What do customers expect?•“Sell the best quality goods in shops staffed by first class assistants”•(26%) Local produce, North West well known respected brand•Friendly and knowledge staff (known for excellence; butchers)•Ethical company

What do directors and shareholders expect? Grand Vision?•Increase wine and/or alcohol sales?•Never want entire stock range online?•Increase brand awareness?•Work with current CMS and systems?•What is the budget for initial development/maintenance? (small)

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Review Past PerformanceWhat has been learnt from past experiences?

• “Booths closes it’s dedicated wine site” Oct 2012

• 39,000 wines, “biggest wine warehouse”• Inventory feeds• Pick and pack, despatch modules• Ratings, reviews, personalisation

• Why did it fail? Branding? Budget? Range?• What has been learnt?• Why will it be a success this time?

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Critique Current SitePositives & negatives of Booths main website

Positives•Large prominent search/good content•SEO; 50/100 page rank, good use of header tags•Responsive (good or bad?)•Looks good, clean & simple

Negatives•Scales poorly; images stretched•Form validation? (no postcode lookup, mobile numbers)•Missing images•HUGE lack of product information•No personal touch; no store photos, tasting table?•SEO; no robots.txt, lack keywords, slow mobile load•Booths Loyalty Card (eReceipts) - alcohol purchase history?

Couldn’t register without card/can’t request

Mobile App - push notifications? (unfriendly terms) SEO AnalysisWoorank.com

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Critique Christmas SitePositive and negatives of festive responsive site

• Looks clean and simple, however…room for a lot of improvement Credit card payments (must have a merchant

account and payment gateway?) Social buttons (not sharing, losing reach) Newsletter signup (not all year round? ESP?) Data collection inconsistent with main site SEO issues (meta tags, H1, no cache) Lack of unique product content & information

• Order numbers over Christmas? traffic?• Ecommerce solution? free, bespoke, purchased• Looks very time consuming and un-automated

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Review DataWhat can be learnt from analytics?

• Main devices used; mobile/tablet, difference in page visits• Main browser types; mobile/desktop• Site visits; average/total

Peak times Visits by device Returning/new

• Average order value/quantities• Site speed on average/peak periods• Site search results• Top referrals• Ecommerce funnels reports/dropouts

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

SEOQuantity of backlinks & site authority

• Trust Ratio = 0.93Waitrose = 1.12

• Backlinks = 2,680Waitrose = 38,632

• Alexa traffic rank = 31,695Waitrose = 6,908 (No.1 main)

• 37% of visitors to site visit recruitment subdomain

• Search visits = 49.10%Waitrose = 20%

• Load times = 2.33 seconds(58% of sites in world faster)Waitrose 4.2 seconds

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Target AudienceWhat are the target audience demographics?

• Hello

TNS digital life insights

Functionals – Internet is a functional tool. Don’t like to express myself online. I like emailing, checking the news, sport and weather but also online shopping. Not interested in running social life online, worried about data privacy and security

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Competitor AnalysisUnderstand who your competitors are…

Plus lots of smaller companies

Independent wine merchants

(cases of 6 or 12)Wine clubs

Supermarkets(single bottles ordered with food)

Discount cards/offers

Majority of growth from supermarkets andsingle bottle sales

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Competitor AnalysisWho is trending and who isn’t

Who is the marketing leader? Majestic

Virgin Wines ‘accountants’ insight - “margins are tight”, “50% mark-up, after overheads approx 10-12%”, “Only big established brands will survive”

2013N = £35 MilV = £35 MilL = £244 MilM = £280 Mil

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Competitor AnalysisInsight into competitor features and marketing software

Software (tags)•(CRO) Optimisation - Maximiser, Mobify, Optimizely•Customer insights - Clicktale (Laithwaites)•Personalisation & Behavioural - Predictive Intent, Ensighten, RichRelevance (Majestic, Waitrose)

Functionality•Phone and email wine experts for advice/videos (wine producers)•Coupon codes/discounts •Pre-mixed cases and mix your own (Waitrose, Majestic)•Wine club, VIP club (Virgin)•Social sharing and login•Similar wines “those who looked at this also looked at”•Rating and reviews•100% money back guarantee•Free delivery options (Majestic, Virgin)•Store locator, tailored range for Click & Collect (Majestic)

Never seen so many in one market

into latest trends & software

EG: 0.1% increases

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

SWOTUnderstand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

Strengths•Big, known brand (North West)•Perception of quality produce & service(s)•Personal friendly service

Weaknesses•Smaller range•Perceived as more expensive•Late to online market/lack of presence•Small budget (lack of advertising)

Opportunities•Establish consistent online presence and processes for growth and brand awareness•Automate/embrace new technologies

Threats•Introduction of another big player like Amazon•Rival supermarket expansion

Positive Negative

Internal

External

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

PESTLEWhich external factors may influence success or failure

• UK online wine market worth approx 800 million Online wine sales 5% of global sales; 25% of UK wine drinkers shopping online 11% increase in online sales (?) – individual bottles from supermarket home delivery 470% increase in wine sales past 8 years

• Average online wine transaction £125• Online wine sales set to double over next 5 years (2012)

Political - ban on alcohol discounts, tax hikes, tighter regulation, exchange rate of imported goods; storage/stock levels

Economic - double-dip recession “Predict fastest growing major advanced economy 2014” “UK online wine sales enjoy long term success unlike bricks and mortar” “Total wine sales online up 8%, red wine sales increasing by 6%,

white by 11%, rosé by 18%, sparkling by 13%” 53% increase in pubs selling real ales since 2009

Environmental - climate change (crops), weather impacting deliverySocial - cultural changes (pubs to homes, lager to ales), reduction in farming

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Stakeholder InterviewsPut yourself in the mind set of the customer

Only way to improve project success is to understand whom you're talking with & what interests them…

•Conduct customer/staff interviews Email questionnaires Internal discussions with back/front line staff

•Create fictional PERSONAs Why should they come on your site? What are they looking for? What needs of your users can be satisfied? What are their interests? How do they interact?

PERSONA and user journey developed for Butlins

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

ThoughtsMy personal thoughts at this stage...

Concerns over Click & Collect service – will people use it?•Supply & demand - customers will pick something else•Christmas urgency - reserve limited supply of quality local meats•What is Booths USP or niche in a crowded market?

Focus on British wines (sparkling), ales, whiskeys, etc•Waitrose have ‘around the world ales’ very few local•Booths separate ales by UK region; Lancashire, Cumbria•3 million bottles English wine produced (doubled YoY 2012)

Relate to history of country and region•Ale drinkers like to regularly try something new (club)

Focus also on B2B market; supplier gifts (packaging)

Booths beers and cider festival (USP)•Promote and sign-up customers Click & Collect; delivery services

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

PROJECTSYSTEMS, PROCESSES

& DEVELOPMENT

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

How might CMS operate?

First I would need to understand current infrastructure and systems; are they integrated? Do they communicate? Budget?

Does the current system meet requirements? Conduct in-depth interviews with staff and software vendors?

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

System (Project) Requirements

Website

Real-time stock visibilityCustomers/staff + stores/warehouse

DatabaseIntegration?

Member GUID

Inventory/Stock Management

Out-of-stock, bulk uploads, price management, VAT,

SKUs, price matching

Purchasing

SecurityCustomer data

internal, external, legal

Server

CMSImages, Content

Farm?

MarketingCreative

CreativeDevelopment (PHP)

Wireframes, Standard

ESP (CRM?)Triggered/transactional emails

(API) account details, password, confirmation, picked & packed,

shipping, cart abandonment

CSProcesses

Departmental/store communication

click & collect/delivery

Shopping Cart SolutionOrder forms, shipping, carriage

product weight, postcode lookup

Payment GatewayPayPal, Credit Cards

SSL

Merchant Account PCI compliant

Order Tracking (Logistics) Initial order - payment - warehouse

(pick & pack) - shipping - delivery

Hosting

Accounts

DNS

Tag Manager

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

CMS RequirementsThe positives and negatives of Wordpress

Depends on expectations & future scalability?

Positives•Cheaper development costs•Open source (PHP platform)•Lots of plugins (apps) and themes•Easy-to-use•SEO friendly•Framework constantly updated•Perfect for small product range•Page based•17% of web / 60mil websites

Negatives•Not built for ecommerce – intensive scripts slow down site, overwhelm servers•Most themes not suitable for ecommerce•Attack from hackers (novice)•Security issues•Upgrades break sites/themes•Customisations overwritten •Limited integration with other pro systems; ESPs, shipping, payments, tracking, etc

Not great for sites with large product selection, high traffic

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Ecommerce SolutionRecommendation for Wordpress compatible system or

Shopify “excellent for growth, scale, features, support & pricing”• Embed Shopify storefront into Wordpress; 100,000 sites• (£18 a month, £47 a month, £179 a month + 1-2% transaction fee)• Fully hosted online shopping basket; payment gateway, SLL, PCI compliant• 24/7 support; excellent• APP store; specialised third-party plugins, 100s of themes (lower development costs)• Mobile/responsive compatibility• Excepts coupon codes & discounts• Features; MailChimp integration, analytics, customer insights and segmentation, SEO

optimised, customer account area, social sharing, landing page creation• Real-time carrier calculated shipping rates (£104 a month)

Cancel account; entire store & data is permanently deleted

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Alternative SolutionsWhat are the Shopify alternatives?

- Technology related insights, trends, information, advisory information

• Couldn’t find one ‘big brand’ using Wordpress for ecommerce• Magento; free, open-source platform, huge extension library, excellent

reputation, highly scalable, 4 sizes of software, EPOS systems, fulfilment solutions + more

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

FulfilmentHow will the fulfilment process work?

Click & Collect•Payment options? None, deposit or full?•Turn around time? Pick up time and legality?•Collection point? Customer services, checkout, wine section (storage), customer experience•Assistance carrying to vehicle? Elderly customers (multiple cases)

Home Delivery•Delivery from stores or warehouse?•North West or UK? Postcode selection•Courier or own transportation?

Cost effective journeys? (multiple deliveries) Tracking & insurance Charge flat fee (weight) , size or priced based? Process for returns & breakages Delivery methods; next day, standard?

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Fulfilment SolutionRecommendation for order tracking

Shipping/collection very challenging aspect of ecommerce• One big downfall of Wordpress

Understand courier integration and systems

Shopify tracking solution;• A lot of PO/POS hardware;

print shipping addresses, invoices – suitable?• Compatible integration with carrier systems;

FEDEX, UPS • One-click automated label printing

Order confirmation email & shipped, delivery notifications?

Shopify printer; One of manyInvoices, labels, receipts, slips

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

New FunctionalityRecommendations on new site features & content

Could give 100s of ideas, here are the essentials;•Personality; video, voice to brand?•Product reviews and ratings; fits audience profiling, 70% of people trust reviews, SEO•Wishlist; allow customer to keep a record of future purchases•Cross-selling and up-selling; “people who liked this also liked…”•Layered and faceted navigation; drill down into products, EG: country, region, price•Store locator and real-time stock visbility; tailored range•Product range; pre-mixed cases and mix your own•Coupon code discounting; although not Booths policy, very important •*Rich content and images; unique content (not farmed), key features, EG: food match, grapes•Postcode lookup•Social, single sign-on and guest transactions – ASOS done great job

Baby steps – implement features graduallyThird party solutions to follow…

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Software Add-ons (3rd Party)Recommendations for additional site enhancements

Google Tagmanager (free) Update website tags with incurring development costs

- MailChimp ESP (£6-£70 a month dependant on send volume) Shopify integration, plus other Wordpress systems Marketing emails, personalisation, automation, transactional, behavioural programs

- AddThis Social Sharing (free) Allows customers to share products/offers on a range of social media platforms

- Optimizely (£10 a month) Conversion rate optimisation (CRO) software Conduct A/B, split and multivariant testing without development experience

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

- KISSmetrics Customer Intelligence (£88 a month) Conduct Cohort analysis “GA tell you what’s happening. KISSmetrics tells you who’s doing it”

- Bunting Personalisation (£95 a month, 50k pageviews) Shopify and Wordpress integration Serve ‘real-time’ personalised content based on demographics, behaviour, historic data Personyze; Tesco

Software Add-ons (3rd Party)Recommendations for additional site enhancements

RemarketingCustomer Services Customer Feedback

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Project DevelopmentApproach to development processes & costs

• Agree on development approach; agile vs rigid• Full creative or pure systems/development agency• Required skills; languages (PHP), creative, SEO knowledge, etc

Agile approach; Short sprints/daily scrums – very intensive! Flexibility to change ‘stories’ – feature creep, additional costs, timescales

Development Launch(soft)UAT Maintain Userability

Stories

Userability Stories

Wireframes(sitemap)

Web Design(themes)

Discussions& Meetings

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Project RisksPersonal experience from systems and development projects

• Lack of UAT or testing platform; changes made LIVE

• Lack of documentation/legacy issues; knowledge lost, knock on effects

• Lack of stock visibility/automation; increased back orders, aged stock

• CDN; images not optimised/poor site speed

• Security; data stolen internally, site hacked

• Lack of communication; customer services/marketing

• Rushed projects; social media abuse

• Data collection differences; lack of consistency/system issues

• CMS limitations and/or locked down of systems

• Pricing errors; lack of alerts

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Project ApproachPre-project implementation & planning

• Agree project aims and objectives• Develop a robust set of success criteria and KPIs (SMART)• Define approach to project – EG: internal / external, etc• Identify requirements and constraints – EG: budget, expertise, resource• Produce a MOSCO based on constraints; features/functionality• Clearly identify colleagues roles and responsibilities• Prepare a clear brief (blueprint) for kick-off meeting• Define ‘roadmap’ of time scales and key project milestones

Gives clear direction, structure, manageable goals = less time wastage

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Project ResourceRequired to implement & maintain operations

Require autonomy and authority to make decisions and enforce deadlines

•Effective communication with ALL departments Identify key points of contact from each

•‘Buy-in’ required from ALL staff, failure due to; Resistance to change Time constraints (work overload) Cultural (website not important)

•Communication with external parties; Couriers, Software Vendors, etc

Development & ITUAT, bugs, maintenance, down-time, improvementsWarehouseFulfilment, logistics, backlogs, breakdowns, delays, stock issuesMarketing & CreativeWireframes, web design, site promotion, message consistency, branding, contentPurchasingStock shortages, back orders, pricingaged stockCustomer ServicesReturns, breakages, promotions awareness, account deletion, bugs, cancellations, delivery issues, tone of voice, response lead-timeAccounts

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Project MeetingsEffective status meetings lead to project success

Implementation ‘kick-off’ meeting•Ensure a clear understanding and agreement from everyone involved of brief, roles, success criteria and responsibilities

Regular progress meetings•Evaluate performance and timescales•Discuss effective solutions to problems•Ensure any changes meet project objectives•Ensure each person understands the needs and wants of others throughout

End ‘sprint’ or completion meeting•Assess performance against success criteria•Learn from mistakes•Present plans for next stage

Clear understanding, agreement & goals are key

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Project Road-mapProject management tools keep everything on track

Produce a detailed but flexible roadmap for each stage/sprint of the project

•Online project management tool; Collaboration (internal and external) Dependencies (who’s required) Alerts (for deadlines at risk) Gantt charts Attach files

•Improves idea generation•Improves project visibility•Helps keep track of sprints & deadlines £15 a month

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Project SuccessAnticipated sales, revenue and profit margins

Commercial success is very difficult to answer, unknowns;•Budget for initial build, ongoing improvements & marketing•Database size•Past performance•Current site traffic•Market conditions; PESTLE•Current infrastructure & available resource

Personal approach;•Justify additional spend based on ROI analysis•Increase spend inline with KPI achievements•Where possible statistical A/B test any opportunities

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

POST PROJECT

PROMOTION &IMPROVEMENTS

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Digital MarketingChannels I would utilise for website promotion

- utilise targeting tools; custom audiences, lookalike audiences, audience insights, competitions, promoted posts, increased post imagery

- promoted tweets, simple newsletter sign-up

•Email - utilise existing database, cost effective; ‘batch and blast’, personalised & behavioural (birthday messages)

•SEO - get site structure correct at build; meta, header tags, URL structure, etc Google+ Create valuable keyword rich articles, useful content, guides Guest blogging, niche sites Referral links; contact suppliers, niche sites, campaign groups

(improve ranking and authority)

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Digital MarketingChannels I would utilise for website promotion

• Google Adwords/Bing (PPC) - cannibilisation optimised, long-tail search • Remarketing (CPA) - display targeted banner adds to potential customers;

cookies

• Google Shopping - export and import nightly csv product feeds; main driver of traffic for Dabs (costs?)

• GeoTargeting - display location sensitive advertisements to mobiles, awareness, product search, IP address, postcode radius, cities

• PR - online PR releases (before marketing takes places, time)

• SMS? utilise mobile numbers

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Traditional MarketingAlthough it’s usually more expensive, it can still work

• Print website address on as much promotional literature as possible

• Direct mail to local affluent regions (test)

• Discount & voucher codes - first online order, festive periods, order value, repeat purchase

• POS or leaflet at tills and wine department

• Advertisements in local press or publications - (LEP, Lancashire life), freebies, competitions

• Beer Festival (mentioned earlier)

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

Conclusion• Wordpress - affordable solution that fits

Booths budget, can do the job but isn’t ideal

• Big enough brand to break into market

• Need to clearly define USPs and strategy

• My approach; Test everything (wherever possible) Implement cost effective solutions based on ROI Grow spend inline with revenue/profits Push back on feature creep unless critical - “just say NO” Continually optimised and improve site

MIKE SUTCLIFFE

QUESTIONSBy Mike Sutcliffe

[email protected]