IRCE: Takeaways on Marketing, Facebook and Catalogs

Last week's Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition (IRCE) in San Diego had a wealth of vendors and speakers relevant to cross-channel retailers. Here are some of the event's key takeaways:

Ali Wing, CEO of giggle, a cross-channel retailer of baby gear, spoke about the need to “rightsize” your retail and catalog spaces. Multichannel retailing provides huge leverage, therefore you need fewer retail units, less floor space and fewer catalog pages in today's environment. Wing spoke about the need for smaller retailers to compete with fundamentally different tactics. For example, smaller catalog footprints and product assortments than in the past.

In terms of managing all the different technologies that retailers have at their disposal, Wing focuses on keeping giggle on the leading edge, not the bleeding edge of technology. The big challenge is to stay on top of all the third-party integrations the company must manage, she said. “Integration, integration and more integration.”

Doug Mack, CEO of One Kings Lane, spoke about his company's strategy of offering unique merchandise 365 days a year to grow in the daily-deals space. One Kings Lane's private sales model has transformed its customer base from women occasionally hunting for products to daily shoppers. The key is “curated selection” as opposed to the massive breadth of, say Amazon, Mack said.

One Kings Lane aims to be the “world’s most precious store” not the world’s largest store. By offering the best merchandise that’s available, the company is solving the paradox of choice, where too much selection makes it nearly impossible to make a decision. One Kings Lane strives to move beyond the simple convenience of internet shopping to creating a sense of urgency and fun, Mack noted.

Building your number of Facebook fans is a key new metric for marketers to track — and will be a big topic in upcoming months. As evidenced by the exhibit floor at IRCE, lots of discussion is happening right now on how to get Facebook fans to translate into customers. There were several vendors at the show touting their solutions for turning Facebook into a storefront. Building your brand via Facebook requires a different toolkit of strategies; understanding those strategies will be essential for retailers going forward.

Behavioral retargeting services using online ads was offered by several vendors exhibiting at the conference, each with a success story for small- to medium-size internet merchants. These companies offer unique ways of serving up online ads to consumers who wander away from your website.

How many retargeting vendors should a retailer use? With real-time buying, most retailers use just a single retargeting vendor, or at most two. How can you tell if you have too many vendors chasing retargeting sales? The key seems to be measuring the overlap in orders and closely monitoring how many orders are being claimed by more than one retargeting provider.

Virtual catalogs are a new way to be green, profitable and cost effective compared to traditional mail order catalogs. Two companies launched virtual catalog applications for the iPad at IRCE. Both Coffee Table and Catalog Spree are offering an iPad app filled with mail order catalogs that can be viewed on the go.

What I found striking at the well-attended sessions was the sea of iPads. Attendees were taking notes as fast as they could type. I felt dated as I scribbled away with a pen and a paper notebook. You could tell the mobile age has truly arrived by the minority of people who didn’t have a smartphone — or an iPad for that matter. Social and mobile aren’t just buzzwords anymore. I picked up a copy of “Social Media for Dummies,” a true sign that a marketing trend is firmly established when the “for Dummies” edition comes out.

Jim Coogan is president of Catalog Marketing Economics, a consulting firm focused on catalog circulation planning. Jim can be reached at (505) 986-9902 or jcoogan@earthlink.net.