This year we attended the GPeC Summit, where we took notes like diligent students. We published them in a liveblog followed by several hundred people, and if you were among them, thank you! If not, we invite you to find out what was discussed at the conference in the transcript below.
Below, you can find the entire GPeC Summit liveblog from November 15-16, 2016:
Day 1
MARIUS COSTIN – ALL ABOUT THE MONEY
The reasons are based on trust: one of the parties involved in the transaction does not trust the other. If the level of trust is high, customers accept payment in advance. Those who lack trust prefer cash on delivery.
In Romania, online payments represent 2%, compared to some foreign merchants at 30%.
Advice for online retailers: Introduce Trusted logos – a trust benefit, relevant payment methods in the market; it is recommended to choose a PSD-authorized payment processor.
Dialogue with Iulian Stanciu – CEO eMAG
Estimates for Black Friday 2016: 50 million euros
Commerce is becoming global: AliExpress is in 2nd place in Romania, after eMAG. Growth following a “less orthodox” method – not declaring the real value of the package, given that no customs duties or VAT are paid for any product under 20 euros.
China and India are just two steps away: many opportunities in product development: “I went to an IT fair in Hanover, spoke with Chinese factories, and created my own products.”
It is not an e-commerce market, but a commerce market: what you sell, at what price, and the additional services. Competitors also include Kaufland, Altex, etc.
Business Intelligence is an essential component for ensuring development. eMAG has a team of 50 people in BI. Technology investments are 25 million euros per year. 600,000 euros are in BI.
There are over 2,000 stores in the eMAG marketplace. In 2016 – 600 million RON revenue for them. A traditional store needs investments in location and setup. In a marketplace: you attach the store to the marketplace, pay a commission, and start making sales.
Advice for online stores: sell as much as possible through all marketplaces in Europe.
As the standard of living increases, so does the average shopping cart value. The same goes for the average value of products.
25-30% are card payments at eMAG, increasing, also correlated with campaigns encouraging this payment method. Card on file: a feature to save the card in the customer’s account (it’s a matter of trust, secured, otherwise you risk failing). Then, that customer’s purchase value increases by over 20%. We launched the feature without requiring a purchase.
Dedeman: the Romanian entrepreneur I admire the most: modest, focused. They reached a 1 billion turnover and 100 million net profit because they have 60% private labels, built by them.
STAGE ON FIRE: THE STORY OF SUCCESSFUL ONLINE SHOPS WITH FACTS AND FIGURES
Why they prefer cash payment: not because of distrust in online transactions, but because they do not trust the stores, which might not deliver on time if they receive the money in advance.
ELISABETA MORARU – Country Manager at Google Romania:
“Black Friday – In Google searches, Romania was dethroned by Brazil. Romanians search 5 million times for: televisions, Emag, Altex. In Poland and Bulgaria, jewelry is searched for. In Hungary, console games. In Romania, televisions.
Searches start long before in fields such as fashion, home & deco, taking place throughout the month.
Searches continue even after Black Friday for electronics and appliances. Presence is ensured even after Black Friday, for at least 2 days (intense searches).
1 in 4 search for product information on YouTube, a message that explains the product / brand.
ANTONIO ERAM – CEO & Founder NETOPIA mobilPay:
In Romania, every month, bitcoin transactions worth 1 million euros are made.
DORIN BOERESCU – CEO 2Performant:
Sales for cosmetics and perfumes have increased online.
Home & Deco: the average order is 100 euros, compared to 50 euros average order for the rest of the products.
Online store recommendation: do 30x traffic tests for Black Friday, so your sites don’t crash!
Talia Wolf – Conversion optimization and online marketing
60% of visitors expect sites to load in under 3 seconds. Every additional second generates: 11% fewer views, 16% decrease in satisfaction, 7% fewer conversions
If the focus of the message is on the consumer, they will immediately understand what the benefits are (know what’s in it for them) and will buy more easily.
Use a strategy based on the message conveyed by colors, images, and texts; they are all important.
Ask your employees about customers, see more perspectives related to: what complaints exist? how do you convince them? how do they buy your products? what could you do better? what customer “pains” could you still solve?
The most common mistakes: a lot of work based on opinions, without methodology, without research.
Research and the customer in 1st place are the key to success.
taliawolf.com
VLAD TĂUȘANCE – HOW TO SELL CULTURE ONLINE?
A hard-to-digest topic: how hard is it to sell culture online?
Why do people click “attending” for an event, and out of 300, only 30 show up?
Why don’t Romanian movies exceed 15,000 fans on Facebook?
Why don’t theaters exceed 30,000 fans on Facebook?
I worked at Baia Mare – European Capital of Culture. We didn’t succeed, but we had better communication than the current capital.
The internet is a reactive environment, it’s not a good environment for building. But good things happen in social media too.
The following brands have the highest online engagement, in order: Voltaj, Sorinel Copilul de Aur, Nicolae Furdui Iancu, Untold.
58% of us do not participate in events in our cities, and some haven’t even heard that such things exist.
75% only participate in city days, and 44% say they don’t use the internet (although it should be considered that FB is not considered “Internet” – !!!)
Studies, analyses, courses receive the highest online engagement rate.
STAGE ON FIRE: THE CALM BEFORE… BLACK FRIDAY
Roxana Magopeț, Fan Curier: Courier companies are looking for solutions to deliver without a courier, through delivery to collection points. We will run a pilot in Bucharest after Black Friday. The second project is lockers; there is a pilot in Promenada. Fan Curier lockers will be in 24/7 locations.
Lucian Aldescu, DPD: SMS notifications work with an accuracy of 1 hour in Bucharest and 2 hours in the rest of the country. For us, it is a KPI for next year.
Ionuț Grosu, Service Return: We have a platform that manages warranties and returns. Integration with retailers, distributors, and final consumers – online and offline.
Andrei Radu, GPeC: Large stores – like Amazon – tend to internalize, while you offer outsourcing solutions. Why? Are your solutions suitable for certain volumes?
Cătălin Ciurezu, Mediapost Hitmail: Large stores can develop their own infrastructure. Stock rotation matters. Carrefour France outsourced returns and after-sales services. Amazon and others developed their own after-sales services because there were no provider companies for such things.
Bogdan Colceriu, Frisbo: We managed the integration with the eMag marketplace as of yesterday. We have clients who have reduced their online operational costs by between 50% and 75%.
Andrei Radu, GPeC: We are starting to have mobile POS (mPOS) for couriers, but it’s not spectacular.
Lucian Aldescu, DPD: We need the consent of clients (retailers) to use mPOS. They are too new as a collection method, which is why there is some reluctance. However, the money transfer time and commissions are the same or lower.
Roxana Magopeț, Fan Curier: Soon, available at Fan Curier as well. They will be introduced after the upcoming peak period. Orders will be delivered in the order they are received: 1,000 orders in 24 hours, from 1,001-2,000 in 48h, etc. We have learned from the lessons of previous years.
Andrei Radu, GPeC: How do you ensure that you protect customers’ confidential information?
Cătălin Ciurezu, Mediapost Hitmail: We have over 300 clients in Romania who have trusted us. This is the guarantee.
Bogdan Colceriu, Frisbo: Contract clauses, the software we use.
Ionuț Grosu, Service Return: NDA, the trust our clients give us. We are used to not trusting people we don’t know; the foreign market is more open.
Lucian Aldescu, DPD: No branch has the databases from its own country: for example, we have the data from Germany. I recommend this system; it ensures increased data security. We ensure that delivery is attempted using GPS. Last year we delivered all orders within 48h for Black Friday.
Roxana Magopeț, Fan Curier: Besides GPS and PDA, we have a balanced scorecard with KPIs: deliveries made, uncollected deliveries, based on which a score is given.
CRAIG SULLIVAN – GROWTH OPTIMISATION AND A/B TESTING FOR A MOBILE WORLD: GETTING IT RIGHT
Being responsive on mobile is not enough, you must have usability.
Eat your own dog food: Experience your customers’ experiences!
65% start on a smartphone, continue on desktop & tablet
25% start on laptop, continue on smartphone
It’s not mobile / desktop conversion, it’s people conversion!
People use more than one device, is a cross-device world.
You need a user tracking plan, now. Cross Device Tracking solutions will show you the user’s journey.
Stop obsessing about conversions! Intent is a more valuable indicator of your visitors. bit.ly/SeeThinkDoCare
The future of mobile is user context.
Diary studies give more context than any other analytics statistics.
Turn off the WiFi and see how slow is your website, on a shitty 3G connection.
Mobile is also a phone, so it can also make phone calls, trackable!
Defects are the most costly mistake. You testing lab for bugs: bit/ly/devicetesting
Stop copying your competitors! They might not know what the f*** they are doing. You might copy the most stupid things.
People don’t understand statistics. It’s not about statistics, but about business decisions.
People focus too much on one device and kill the experience for the others, because of conversion statistics.
70% of the coding effort is wasted, we have to stop wasting time on thing that don’t work or aren’t needed.
You can’t solve a mobile problem you don’t understand.
You don’t need to have a huge budget to win, only the good methods!
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