Bringing offline merchandising to the online world

Bringing ofﬂine merchandising to the online world

We are Create with Context We are a strategic design ﬁrm, helping companies create innovative digital products and services based on deep customer insights  Extensive experience in complex, strategic innovation projects  Targeting web, mobile, consumer electronics, and packaged software  Clients range from the Fortune 500 to technology startups  Headquarters in Santa Clara, California  Established in 2005 Consumer behaviors • ecommerce • social media • mobile • social ecommerce • internationalization • consumer electronics • strategy 2 Copyright © 2008 Create with Context, Inc. All rights reserved.

Selected clients “Create with Context [brings] you a team of seasoned experts that understand the intricacies of designing interactive products with the end user in mind.” Armando González Director of Design, eBay “Implementing their ﬁndings ... has shown measurable results to the bottom line.” Bob Gager, Adobe “Create with Context ... always over-deliver and have become one of my key strategic partners.” Edwin Wong, Yahoo! Copyright © 2008 Create with Context, Inc. All rights reserved. 3

Why we’re here • Physical merchandising today is a reﬁned science • Store design • Shelf, endcap, and checkout placement • Package design • Floor layout design • Retailer may share cost of shelf space • Now look at ecommerce • A splash page, maybe a lifestyle picture or two • Flat database view of products • Retailer carries the entire cost of the experience • What can Accenture Technology Labs do? • Apply existing technologies to new problems • Create new technologies to solve them Copyright © 2008 Create with Context, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 6

Create a mood, reflect a lifestyle 7

Do my friends like this place? Who else shops here? What else is there for sale? How big is this store? What’s their quality like? Are they substantial? Copyright © 2008 Create with Context, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 12

Create a mood, reﬂect a lifestyle • Who hangs out here? Are they like me? • What other things (online or ofﬂine) are related to this store? • How do you show depth to the store? Its product selection? • How do you show a sense of activity, others in the store? Copyright © 2008 Create with Context, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 15

Databases are for sysadmins 16

How are these related? Wait - how did I end up here? Which ones do my friends like? Which of these is Would my body thin? Coarse? look good in these? Copyright © 2008 Create with Context, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 22

Databases are for sysadmins • Walking into a store, I know what’s important, what’s highlighted • Going through the aisles/racks, I see what’s in fashion, what’s new • How can you cluster products by theme? • How to clearly display a lot of products, without the database grid? • How can you highlight speciﬁc products or beneﬁts? • How do you distinguish small but important differences in products, like weight or sheen of the material? • How do you surface other customers’ impressions into the experience? Not direct feedback, but their gestures/reactions? • In the store, I can quickly narrow down 1000 items to the 10 you’re interested in - how can this be replicated online? Copyright © 2008 Create with Context, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 24

Help people bump into stuff 28

Help people bump into stuff • How can you reinvent the endcap? The checkout line goodies? • How do you get the “Costco effect”? • How do you engage people with items off of their path? • What’s the next generation of “you might like”? • How can you display related items in a more natural manner? • How can we efﬁciently manually merchandise? • How can we make algorithmic merchandising ‘feel natural’? • Stores make sales items visible, but not too visible ... and they merchandise them differently • How do you surface what’s new, what’s a deal, and what’s a steal, without detracting from the rest of the content? Copyright © 2008 Create with Context, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 40

Highlight the product, not the transaction 41

Highlight the product, not the transaction • Think of the store: the product is the focus, transaction is secondary • Pick up the object, touch it, compare it, interact with it • Online, it’s the exact opposite: transaction ﬁrst, product second • Is all of the commerce ‘chrome’ really necessary? • How can we effectively show multiple, large pictures, as well as detailed product information? • How can we make the ‘add to cart’ process more lightweight? Copyright © 2008 Create with Context, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 48

People still love catalogs 49

People still love catalogs • What is it about a paper catalog that’s appealing? • Quickly get a sense of the breadth of offerings • Large pictures, multiple views • Browse extremely quickly, placehold until next time • Lifestyle photos and related merchandise • How can we get the important characteristics online? • What if the site was at the same ‘page’ when someone came back? • Why doesn’t a catalog feel like a long list of product? Or does it? • In catalogs, each page often has a different grid or layout approach • How can we replicate that online? Do we want to? Copyright © 2008 Create with Context, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 54

‘People like me’, or ‘my people’? 55

‘People like me’, or ‘my people’? • How do you get beyond ‘people like me’, and integrate ‘my people’? • Connect to my social community • How can you show me pictures of my friends using the product • How do you meaningfully pull from Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and the long tail? Copyright © 2008 Create with Context, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 58

Bringing offline merchandising to the online world

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