California Apparel News

PALM DESERT, CALIF.—Many of the nation’s major retailers—including Banana Republic, Guess, Wet Seal and Hautelook—met at eTail West 2012 to discuss the latest trends and innovations in e-commerce and retail. The annual conference took place Feb. 27–March 1 at the JW Marriott Desert Springs and brought together an estimated 1,700 executives and retailers to take part in panels that covered everything from Web analytics and social-media optimization to multi-channel organization.

Attendees were up by nearly 200 from the estimated 1,500 who attended last year, making it the largest eTail yet, according to Gaianti Raj, senior marketing manager for Worldwide Business Research, which produces the conference.

For many attendees, the latest frontier for e-commerce is mobile, and integrating mobile and tablet websites into retailers’ digital strategies has become increasingly crucial. By 2013, more people will access the Internet over mobile devices than desktops, according to technology research firm Gartner.

Pinny Gniwisch, founder of Ice (www.ice.com), a New York–based online jewelry store, said 13 percent of his company’s traffic comes from tablets and mobile phones. Instead of simply replicating its website experience for mobile users, the company has added features such as an app where customers can take a picture of their hand, upload the photo from their phone and virtually “try on” rings to see what they look like on their finger.

In addition to establishing unique experiences for mobile and tablet devices, the technology must work seamlessly and quickly because the mobile consumer is often buying on impulse, according to Gniwisch.

“People will only buy if the experience is flawless,” he said.

Matt Minas, Web store manager for Bothell, Wash.–based athletic-apparel and running-shoe company Brooks Running, said his company is approaching mobile from an informational standpoint.

“We pared everything down for mobile, so it’s more geared around information than conversion [converting browsers to paying customers],” he said. The mobile site allows shopping, but instead of making the site a high-tech shopping experience with lots of bells and whistles, it focuses on providing information about products, stores and reviews. In the future, the company may change its tactics, but for now, it wants the mobile site to remain a more simplified informational tool and focus more on its website and stores, Minas said.

Paring down certain platforms is one of the ways that companies can avoid spreading themselves too thin or risk poaching customers from themselves (losing customers from stores to online, or from online to mobile or tablet).”

One of the advantages to tablet-specific sites is that they can be used to “take the shopping experience to the next level,” said Ashley Bistran, director of client projects for the Boston-based tech company Zmags, which is used by companies such as Neiman Marcus, Kenneth Cole, Ralph Lauren and Burton Snowboards.

Zmag’s software embeds in a retailer’s website to interact with the consumer to help them discover more products and create a more immersive magazine-like experience with editorial layouts, where the consumer can virtually flip pages.

On average, on the sites that use Zmag, customers spend more time interacting with the brand and have a higher order value when compared with before, Bistran said.

Making social media work

One of the biggest challenges retailers face is where they should invest their time and resources when today’s consumers expect to see them on multiple social-media sites—such as Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube—in addition to the company’s website, mobile and tablet sites.

Poor planning and not enough resources are what trip up many companies, said Lisa Grimm, digital brand manager for the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn.

Along with social media, video is also becoming an increasingly important component in retailers’ digital strategies, said Kevin Moffitt, director of e-commerce for Dillards.

“People don’t believe me when I tell them that YouTube is the No. 2 search engine in the world,” said Moffitt, highlighting the advantages of creating video content.

Much talk at the conference surrounded Facebook as a tool that works for branding, marketing and engagement—but not for commerce.

“Facebook doesn’t work for commerce; it’s about retaining customers,” Ice’s Gniwisch said.

In addition to helping a brand establish a clear identity and retain customers through online engagement, social media also helps with recognition.

John Mulliken, vice president of strategic initiatives for home decor site Wayfair, said the huge social-media buzz from a Trina Turk pillow sale brought awareness to the site that was far more valuable than the direct revenue. “That eclipsed anything we could have ever imagined.”

Not only does social media provide exposure, but it also provides advocacy from loyal consumers who spread the word. “A brand can’t speak to me the same way a friend can,” he said.

Despite varied financial success stemming from Puma’s Facebook pages, the company’s head of digital strategy, Jay Basnight, considers Facebook “a tremendous component” to its overall digital approach.

The German sportswear company launched a massive site redesign in 2010, seeking to create a more unified customer experience across its Web, mobile and social-media sites.

“Different countries are experiencing better results from driving traffic directly from social-media sites to their online stores than others,” Basnight said. “Overall, the [Facebook] page is still primarily a brand destination for community growth and can drive considerable traffic to Puma.com related to brand traffic.

Puma.com, in turn, is more designed for turning content consumers into customers at this point.” 

Engaging and retaining consumers

Strategic email marketing is one of the ways that retailers can land new customers and hold on to existing ones, said Greg Bettinelli, chief marketing officer of Hautelook, which won eTail’s “Social-Media Best-in-Class Award” this year.

The email has to have value beyond just offering a deal, such as editorial content and beautiful imagery, he explained.

Online surveys are also important for retaining customers. Scott Cohn, director of merchandising and sales for Bakers Footwear, said online surveys give businesses the chance to receive positive feedback and also turn a negative customer experience into a positive one. “The strongest customer referral is someone who had a negative experience and was able to have it changed to a positive one,” he said.