Toys R Us Fails as an Online Store

To be successful as an online store, people have to actually buy things. Toys R Us has made what may be a fatal error in their holiday online strategy.  The site promotes purchasing items online and then picking up in store.  The problem is, many of the items aren’t available to purchase online or at the store.

The site promotes finding the items in their stores, if not available for online purchase by inputting your zip code to list the stores to locate the item.  Well not really…my recent search for gifts added to my grandson’s wish list resulted in many items not available online, not available at any store in 50 mile radius of two major metropolitan areas (Columbus, OH and and New York City).  Of course, the site suggested actually going into the store and seeing if by chance the desired item is in the store.  I don’t think so.

After my experience last year, where the stores were packed with people and the shelves were empty of toys and  sales people who had a clue, and my husband struggling with another customer over a toy in the back of a bottom shelf, I swore I’d never step into another Toys R Us store physically.  I also instructed my  daughter not to put items that were only exclusive to Toys R Us on the kids wish lists, which is how we ended up in the stores, since they weren’t available to purchase online last year. No toy is worth that kind of effort and misery, even for  a dedicated grandparent.

So when none of the items, my five grandchildren had selected were available to order online at Toys R Us, I was done. Amazon.com to the rescue. I found all the items I needed from at least one source on Amazon.com, in stock and at the same price or cheaper on all but one item as Toys R Us with free shipping on four of the five items.  All items were to be shipped in 5 to 7 days and all five items arrived in less than 4 days.  What’s not to love about Amazon.com and why Toys R Us fails as an online store.

Successful online sites are not only about the ease of navigation and finding the items you want.  It takes successful operations as well.  Deliver on the promise to deliver the goods.  What good is a pretty picture on a fast site, if I can’t buy it.  Duh!

So if the demise of Best Buy is because people are searching their phone for cheaper prices for items on the internet while in the store, the demise of Toys R Us will be because people can actually buy the items on another site.

If other customers find themselves in the same situation, Toys R Us will have miserable holiday results.

But me, I’m showing great results for the holiday season. I’m one week into my holiday shopping and have knocked out a major portion of my gift buying, thanks to Amazon.com, which knows how to do eCommerce right.

Five things online stores should deliver on for success:

1. Wish Lists should indicate whether an item is available/in stock or has limited availability.

2. If an item is only available in a particular location, color, size, don’t make the consumer guess by inputing a parameter.  Tell/show them…Only available in XL, Only available in Green, Only available in Fargo, ND store, etc.

3. Show a date on when the item will be available for ordering online.

4. Display how many items are available…5 Left.

5. When an item is no longer available and consumers have the item in their cart, remove it and display a notice on the screen until the user closes the message window by offering Continue Shopping or Check Out  Now buttons (The following item is no longer available and has been removed from your cart) to ensure they know the item is not going to be in their cart when they check out.

An online store’s physical operations are equally as important as their online presentation.

What has your Toys R Us experience been?  Any better luck?

 

Travel Discount Coupons…Savings or Scam?

Travel Discount Coupons

Need a little rest and relaxation? Thinking about using the internet to purchase a travel discount coupon from one of the mega-popular coupons sites?  Now with more and more coupon sites popping up all the time, a dose of skepticism is the consumer’s best defense for a relaxing vacation and purchase experience.  I’ve used Groupon over the years and haven’t had any issues redeeming the coupons.  I’ve recently started using Google Offers and have been happy with that experience as well. But I have not and probably will not purchase a travel discount coupon. Plus lots of sites are trying to leverage Groupon’s and Google Offer’s success and a gazillon of these coupon sites are popping up. It’s easy to use technology to create a great looking coupons site, but looks can be deceiving and discount travel coupons come with their own set of problems.

Travel Discount Coupon Problems

Discount travel offers have been popping up on all the sites coupon sites now, including Groupon, Google Offers, Living Social and a whole host of newcomers and I’m very skeptical of these.  The devil is in the detail and the integrity of those merchants. And as we’ve come to learn, the internet is chock full of merchants that lack integrity or are just outright frauds.

Travel Coupon Redemption Dates

The redemption dates are one of the problems that can arise when redeeming a travel discount coupon.  Many of the  travel discount coupons have black out dates and are subject to availability.  These means that you cannot use the coupon during the black out dates and that only a limited number of travel discount coupons may be able to be used at any given time at the merchant for that specific period.  This is a normal business process and helps protect the merchant, so that an entire week of stays at, say a bed and breakfast aren’t all half price making the cash flow for the B&B very difficult.  By limiting the number of travel discount coupons the merchant takes during any given time allows for more discounts to be offered without impacting the business’ financial stability.  But this means that you have to be lucky and/or flexible with the redemption dates.

Typical black out dates are during holidays and school vacation periods such as Spring Break, Christmas vacation, Easter week, etc. and local observance of when and how long these periods are vary.  Check the details of the coupon and call the merchant to be sure you understand the observation of the black out dates if not specifically spelled out on the website.

Travel Coupon Expiration Date

You also have to be aware of the travel discount coupon’s expiration date.  If you can’t find a date that fits your schedule within the redemption period before it expires, you need to know what your recourse is.  Will the issuer provide a refund or credit for the amount you paid?  Are you out your money?  Do you get a get a site credit from the issuing site only?  Do you have a limited number of days to request a refund or credit after purchase?

With so many people on limited incomes and the economy taking a  bite out of everyone’s budget, it could be very tempting to purchase a travel discount coupon.  Your first line of defense is to be sure to check out the site offering the travel discount coupon.  Are they reputable?  Check the the BBB or the Complaint Board for complaints lodged and resolutions.  A travel discount coupon could be just the ticket to a peaceful interlude or stress-reducing break from everyday life, but to make sure that it doesn’t do the opposite and send you over the edge, know these 5 things before purchasing your travel discount coupon.

5 Things to Know Before Purchasing a Travel Discount Coupon

1. What are the black out dates?
2. When does the travel discount coupon expire?
3. Are their complaints lodged about the issuing site and are you comfortable with the outcomes?
4. What are the processes for requesting a credit or a refund from the issuer?
5. What are the cancellation policies of the travel location (Hotel/B&B/Cruise Line) and is trip insurance available?

Be prepared for the Up-sell

The other thing that can happen when you purchase a travel discount coupon is the up-sell pitch.  When you go to redeem your travel discount coupon, the merchant tries to up-sell you to a more costly stay.  A nicer room, a better view, or other features not included in with the travel discount coupon you purchased.  Now, this again is a standard practice and can be good for the consumer as well.  It’s always good to know what your options are.  The problem comes when the travel discount coupon you purchased can’t be redeemed without purchasing an up-sell.  Sometimes this is subtle persuasion, sometimes it’s a hard sell, sometimes it can be an out right refusal to honor the travel discount coupon without purchasing the up-sell.

If the merchant won’t redeem you travel discount coupon without purchasing add-on items or is delivering a hard-sell and providing a bad redemption experience, contact the issuing site and make sure the merchant is operating under their agreement and that the issuing site is aware of the behavior.

Know your rights and options and exercise them appropriately.  You need a break, not more stress.

Coupon sites are great for introducing you to new merchants and savings.  But a smooth redemption process is helped by knowing the rules, issuing site, your rights and options. And as always use a credit card to purchase your travel discount coupon to provide the most recourse options instead of a debit card.

 

What to Watch Out for When Holiday Shopping on the Internet

If your shopping the internet for the best deal. Be careful. Not all companies on the internet are reputable.  Fraud is not just exclusive to Wall Street, the mortgage industry, or well a whole host of others.  Now  to most of you that is just common sense, but many people who aren’t techno-geeks are easily impressed by the great marketing out there.   Some sites may not mean to take your money and run.  Some may just be victims of their own success and they haven’t thought through all the processes and systems needed to support a great eCommerce site. Others are just down right deceptive.

Quick Tips

• Choose a company that’s been in business for a while
• Look at the store’s rating on http://www.bizrate.com/ratings_guide/guide/
• Check out http://www.complaintsboard.com/
• Search the Federal Trade Commission’s information on consumer rights and scams at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/index.shtml

About Deception

Anyone, yes, anyone can grab an image off the internet and add it to their website without permission. Making you think they are legit and in good standing, but really they’re just deceiving you. Of course it’s not legal.  It breaks all kinds of rules, but someone has to catch them and punish them, which is a very big job in a very big internet. So how do you know if you’re doing business with a good company?  Read the review, although even these can be bought and paid for. Look at the merchant ratings, and read what people have to say that have bought multiple times.

They’ve put images of the BBB seal of approval on their website and they don’t even know what BBB stands for much less abide by their rules.  This applies to other signs of trust as well, such as Verisign, or eTrust.  Make sure the image links back to the originating site by clicking on it and look up the store’s/site’s name in their member directory.

Know Your Rights

If the company posts on their website that shipping takes 7 to 10 days, if they charge your credit card the merchant is subject to penalties if the item is not delivered within that time frame and you are not notified and agree to the delay. If the merchant does not post a specific shipping/delivery time, they must delivery within 30 days of a completed order.  I, personally would not do business with a company that doesn’t tell me how long an item I’ve ordered is going to take to be delivered.  Be sure to check the FTC’s Consumer Protection site if you have any doubts on what your rights are.

But you have to realize that everyone is not Amazon.  Apple and Amazon.com set the standard for shipping and delivery.  But not all companies have the volume to implement the systems and processes they do.  It can take companies sometimes 2 to 3 days to process an order and sometimes up to 5 business days to get it picked and packed and on the shipping dock.  Needless to say, these companies can use some help updating their systems.  Technically, there is no reason why it should take more than a minute for the order to go from a website to the warehouse for picking and packing, so look closely at order processing and delivery times, which must be added together to get the actual time that you’ll receive your order.  So orders processed within 1 to 2 business days, means it will ship within 2 business days of your placing the order on the website.  Then you have to add the shipping time, based on the method you choose (same day, next day, two day, ground 5 – 7 days, etc.).  That’s when you’re most likely to get your order, unless the UPS truck catches fire, there’s a tornado, hurricane, earthquake, etc.  Well you get the picture.

Marketing

Just because you say it on some daytime TV show doesn’t mean that those people know any more about the site than you do.  They can be a paid sponsor.  Which means that for a promotion fee (they paid money) to get that show to say “blah, blah, blah” about the site.  It’s no different that the years of radio and TV ads with other movie stars have promoted insurance, grave sites, vitamins, etc.  But for whatever reason, when it comes to the internet, somehow people can be adamant that “it’s true”.  It could be, but hey, I could be jaded and cynical. I put faith in results.  The company does what it says within the time it says it will do it.  It takes care to get me my stuff with care and treats me like a human being with respect when I call and let them know that they missed a step some where along the way.

With so many bidding, auction, deal-a-day sites out there.  Everyone trying to make a buck and at your expense, it just pays to be a little cynical.  It it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Now go out there and hit the last of the Cyber Monday sales. Be vigilant, protect your self, your privacy, be cynical and get the best damn deals out there.

 

Cloud Computing and IT Strategy

Last night I attended a seminar on cloud computing presented by Sogeti and Microsoft. You may think cloud computing is another one of those buzz words that gets thrown around by IT people to confuse everyone or is some ambiguous thing, like the Jetson’s flying cars, or that is so far out in the future that it doesn’t really involve you. Like most things in technology these days, cloud computing is quickly going from an “out there” thing to a “dah” thing. 

Now more than ever, there seems to be a great divide between people you have grown up with technology and those that were born with it. Those that still cling to the idea that all software applications are better built internally or that the organization is so unique that even common functionality be built in-house, contrasts against the current generation that was born with technology whose expectations are focused on the experience/result and not ownership.

Cloud computing has become an everyday reality with Google, Salesforce.com, Amazon, Skype, RackSpace and a host of others and the future holds thousands more. Businesses that want to stay competitive are looking at incorporating cloud computing into their IT strategy. It’s a dollars and cents thing. The question of what value you receive from your investment will hit home when you look at software and services in the cloud.

Some key thoughts on cloud computing, I took away from the Sogeti/Microsoft seminar are that the IT investments you make in-house really need to provide innovation and differentiation.  Generic infrastructure and standardized applications are those things to look at to move to the cloud, outside your organization. Here are some others:

• The IT strategy should include making it easy to hook up with partners at any time
• Social networking will be adopted as the “normal” and incorporated into everyday tasks and enrich the value of how we do things
• IT we be less IT-like and be more business-like
• Business users will become more autonomous and less dependent on IT for services/applications
• IT’s role will be to facilitate, support, enable and broker services
• Focus will be on securing and recommending external services/applications and provide guidelines on use/secure practices
• IT should be an active player and not a roadblock
• Pave cow paths – meaning leverage pricing of cloud services if you see repeated use among your users

Now, if you’ve bee reading this and haven’t quite wrapped your mind around what is cloud computing, the definition has been expanded beyond software or computing services consumed on-demand through the internet, but  include Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaP), and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaP). Generally, any application or service consumed outside the firewall falls into the expanded definition of cloud computing now.

It’s not only the latest buzz word, but as a real-life example, yesterday, the Obama Administration announced a major cloud computing initiative. The benefits from utilizing cloud computing resources the Administration realized in revamping the General Services Administration’s USA.gov site was a savings of$1.7 million per year and a reduction of implementation time by 96%. The cost was $800,00 a year and took just one day. Using a traditional approach to add scalability and flexibility, it would have taken six months and cost the government $2.5 million a year. These kinds of savings are difficult to ignore, even for corporate IT and if the government can obtain this kind of savings, just think what’s possible for the rest of us.

Money talks not just in Washington, but in corporate America and IT departments that aren’t looking a cloud computing as part of their strategy will be at a distinct disadvantage competitively in the very near future.

 

Social Media: Part II of How Can Web 2.0 Help You?

 If you’ve been wondering about tweets and whuffies, let me assure you, they have nothing to do with sex.  And if you haven’t been wondering about them, you should be. They are changing the way news is delivered, products are marketed, and how we think as consumers.  As we talked in “How Can Web 2.0 Help You”, it’s about interaction and tweeting, blogging and whuffie are all about engagement and communication.  But social media is a big topic, so I’ll break this down to the real basics, because there really is enough to fill tons of books.

Key things that will help you with social media:

• Be authentic, because skunks stink even on the internet and no amount of perfume will make you a cat.
• Be transparent, because smoke and mirrors are not how you win followers.
• Be honest, because with literally millions of eyeballs watching you, someone knows the truth and will spill the beans and word will travel faster than a Paris Hilton sighting.
• Provide something of value, because we could be watching mentos make diet coke erupt instead.
• Build social capital, and “whuffie” (the new Web 2.0 term for trust and value) by committing to engaging and interacting.

Facebook

My guess is with over 200 million users that there are few teenagers or college kids who don’t have a Facebook page and with 6 million users becoming fans of pages each day, more and more business are tapping into this social media.

Facebook requires that the use of  your real name for an account.  So you can’t setup an account for Daffy Duck or Johnny Quest, even if your mom thinks it’s a hoot when they announce your birthday over the intercom at TGIF Friday’s.  Your Facebook account lets you setup a profile and share lots of information about yourself, publish pictures, maps on where you’ve been, etc. A business can set up a page with information and post messages that its fans will see when they log into their Facebook accounts or receive via text message. You have to create a personal account (real name) and then you can setup a page for your business.  You can add administrators to the page, who will have access from their accounts to the page and can make changes, add content and pwhuffost messages, so you don’t have to do it all yourself. 

Once you have your business’ page setup and published, Facebook users can treat you like a movie star and become a fan.  As a fan, when new messages are posted, they have the opportunity to interact with you.  They can respond to your messages by posting comments, or selecting the “I like this” button to express their thoughts.  Facebook tracks and publishes the comments to each post and the number of people responding that they liked your post.

As you can guess there is some risk to exposing yourself.  As some job-hunters have found out, employers are checking Facebook and may not want to hire people who post pictures of themselves engaging in questionable behavior or being verbal jerks. If you are an employer, social networking sites are good place to get to know your applicants a little bit better.

To learn more about how to market with Facebook check out this article, The Facebook Marketing Toolbox from Inside CRM.

Other social networking sites are LinkedIn for business professionals, and MySpace, Friendster, Orkut and the list goes on and on. 

Twitter

Have you tweeted today? Twitter is a micro-blogging site. Blogging is the term used for posting articles on the Internet where viewers can respond and post comments.  So with Twitter, comments posted are called “tweets”. Tweets can only be 140 characters. Once you set up an account on Twitter, you can immediately start posting updates (tweets).  The “@” sign in front of a name identifies the twitter account (e.g. @pgood47). User names are limited to 20 characters, so if you have a long or common name, you’ll need to get creative. It also designates the URL to your Twitter posts, if you want to share them (http.twitter.com/pgood47).  Give the user name plenty of thought and how it supports your brand.

Accounts can be private or public.  If it’s public, anyone on the Internet can be become a “follower”.  A follower will receive your updates on their Twitter page and via text message, if they’ve setup that option. If your account is private, only those you invite can view your posts.  You also have the option of only allowing those you invite to follow you, whether you have a private or public account.

On the flip-side, you can follow others and get their updates. Businesses are starting to get the hang of Twitter and some good examples are available of how big and small companies are using Twitter for business. You don’t have to miss getting your taco fix, now that catering trucks are twittering their location, if you’ve signed up to be a follower or coupons from Dell.

Blogging

Many people who don’t know what a blog is have read a blog.  Much of the content, articles today are published to the Internet through blogs.  There are many blog software tools available and WordPress, Blogger and TypePad are popular, but the list goes on. You can setup a blog and start publishing content to the Internet in less than an hour.  The blogging software provides content management tools, to format text, add pictures, video and podcasts to your post, making blogging one of the fastest growing Social Medias.

To learn more about blogging check out Blogging in Plain English.

Social media can help you build stronger relationships with your customers,  business partners,  employees and your friends. Take a look at each of these Web 2.o tools to help you build deeper, engaging relationships.

 

How Can Web 2.0 Help You?

Web 2.0 is about interaction. About engaging the user and giving them purpose and allowing them to communicate with you, not just hear you. Rich media, Ajax, widgets, mashups, tags, RSS, blogging, twitter, are all part of the Web 2.0 toolbox. But the real question is which tool is the right tool to use and how can it help you.

Deciding what part of Web 2.0 to engage your audience is like any other decision making process, it starts with goals and priorities. In setting priorities, let’s look for the pain points. What is the most painful issue you or your audience has to deal with?

• Do your users keel over from exhaustion before they track down their order history?
• Has customer service convinced your users they have Alzheimer’s, because similar things have different processes, but it’s explained as short-term memory loss rather than poor usability?
• Can users watch an entire episode of DiggNation in the time it takes the form to refresh once they’ve input their name to receive your newsletter?
• Are your web stats as flat as the desert without even a cactus-looking spike?

Web 2.0 can help and we’ll look at how to use these tools, but you’ll still have to decide which pain point makes you reach for the Advil first.

If your users are popping a bag of microwave popcorn waiting for the form on your website to refresh before they complete the next one, Ajax is for you. Ajax will allow you to speed up the time a user spends filling out a form, which makes them happy and they’ll get your newsletter sooner. Ajax really helps from the user’s standpoint if the form has a lot of fields to complete. The more fields, the stronger the case for Ajax. You’ll get other benefits from using Ajax on a form, and the article, Measuring the Benefits of Ajax provides great info. The meaningful benefit, though, is that you’ll provide a better user experience. Users will be productive, allowing them to go on and engage in your site more, helping you to meet your website strategy goal of not having web stats that look like the desert.

To see samples of how Ajax is used on AjaxDaddy click here or watch Matt’s video below.

More on Web 2.0 soon.