Slides from presenters at the Ecommerce UK LinkedIn Group's Making Christmas Count event: - Martin Newman, Practicology - John Bovill, Monsoon Accessorize - Mo Syed, Amplience - Nadine Sharara, Thomas Pink - Kristian Bromley, Firebox - Kerry Okikiade, Firebox - Kana Butkovic, The Swiss Digital - Neil Sansom, Moss Bros - Myles Dawson, Adyen

1. eCommerce UK
Making Christmas Count
Martin Newman – CEO Practicology
Tonight’s hashtag: #makingxmas
Venue wifi code: Comm3rce

2. Thank You’s
• The attendees, without you, we have no one to
share insight with
• Presenters for sharing insight
• Tonight’s sponsors without whom this event
wouldn’t take place: Amplience, the Swiss Digital
and Adyen
• Practicology team here tonight: Mark, Nupur,
Nicola, Joanna, James, Volha, Raimundo, Beata,
Sara, Laura (My wife)

3. Thank You’s
•
•
•
•
•
Thanks to Joanna for moderating
Cathy Crawley, my co host
Jonathan Hall and Cranberry Panda for filming
Dan Barker for tweeting
Antony Alexandrou for
photography www.3aphotography.com

4. Agenda
• Introduction: Martin Newman, CEO Practicology
• Presentations:
• John Bovill, IT and eCommerce Director, Monsoon Accessorize
• Mo Syed – Amplience
• Nadine Sharara, Head of eCommerce, Thomas Pink
• Kerry Okikiade, Commercial Director & Kristian Bromley, MD,
Firebox
• Kana Butkovic, MD - Swiss Digital
• Neil Sansom, eCommerce Director, Moss Bros
• Myles Dawson – Adyen
• Q&A
• The bar

5. Introduction

6. A shameless plug…

7. What makes us special?

8. Deep experience of the team:
We’ve all been at the coal face!

9. What Practicology does
Strategy
Development
Commercial
Planning
Technology
Selection
Organisational
Change
Analytics & BI
Conversion
Rate
Optimisation
Customer
Insight
UX & Usability
Site Design
Digital
Marketing
Trading
Services

10. Who we do it for

11. Some thoughts from me about
peak…

12. For some categories online sales were
the only reason year-on-year sales
rose over the summer months.
Online sales will drive peak trading too

13. 112 million UK web visits on Cyber
Monday last year - the second biggest
online shopping day ever. This year:
Cyber Monday - Dec 2nd
Panic Saturday - Dec 21st
Mad Monday - Dec 23rd

14. Web penetration
Web shopper 1996
Web shopper today

15. Older customers buy online at Christmas

16. Acquisition & Conversion

17. Acquisition Marketing
• Check SEO and PPC
landing pages for out
of stocks, price
changes, offers etc –
particularly if you are
running last-minute
promotions

18. Findability
• Visitors will be
coming to your site
for the first time
• A gift category
• Stocking fillers
• Compelling CTAs Bestsellers
• Redirects for misspellings gift buyers
might put into your
search box

19. Buyability
• When’s your cut-off
date? – Christmas is
on a Wednesday
• How will you
highlight click &
collect if this is an
option after your
delivery cut-off
• Contingency plans –
Royal Mail strike?
• Gift messaging/gift
wrap

20. Site Performance
• Regular checks for
broken links, pages
not found and
download times –
also optimise your
Page Not Found
• Don’t wait for
customer complaints
before doing
anything about it –
explain problems

21. Mind your language

22. Don’t forget…a customer’s not
just for Christmas!

23. Retention

24. Retention Marketing
• Trigger email
campaigns…
• For instance, you
could offer
customers who’ve
purchased in the run
up to Christmas with
the first opportunity
to buy merchandise
once you go on Sale?

25. Customer Service
• Already ramped up
your contact centre
team to cope with
the Christmas rush?
• What about staff in
stores who are
trained to help
customers order
online?
• John Lewis 50
Eleventh-Hour Elves
in 5 biggest stores
for panic Saturday

26. Supply Chain
• If you don’t have a single stock pool, how easily
can you reassign stock to online?… the % of
sales taken online tends to rise during peak
trading

27. January Sale (in December)
• When are you going
on Sale online?
• Christmas Eve,
Christmas Day and
Boxing Day can be
some of the top
online trading days
during peak while
stores are closed

28. Analysis
• Even if it’s too late to act on your data during
peak, make sure your site tagging is set up so
you can analyse and improve next year

29. John Bovill

30. Mo Syed

31. Responsive
design & ecommerce
What it means for
experience, cost & sales.
by Mo Syed
Head of UX
@uxmo
mo@amplience.com

32. new
consumer
journey

34. a multiscreen journey
http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/insights/featured/new-multi-screen-worldinsight/

36. Multiscreen
Complexity

37. the promise
of

38. Cost reduction

39. maintenance,
development &
optimisation

40. Consistency of experience

41. Full fat on every channel

42. Responsive

43. Grids

44. Breakpoint
s 768 px
768-1279 px
1441+ px

45. changes across
breakpoints

46. changes across
breakpoints

47. changes across
breakpoints

48. Changing elements
topbar
topbar
topbar

54. adaptive
media

55. Show products in context

56. Use Zoom & Spin

57. 81KB
26KB
12KB

59. Bench +100% on mobile
Lovehoney +60%-100% all devices
State Farm +56% on all devices
http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/63185-14-brands-that-increased-conversion-rates-viaresponsive-design

62. Nadine Sharara

63. Cross Channel Integration For A Seamless Customer Experience
Twelve Tips for Christmas Readiness
Nadine Sharara, Head of Ecommerce

64. Twelve Tips for Christmas Readiness…
In these ultra-competitive times the peak Christmas period
can be make or break for retailers. With up to 40% of sales
happening around this time, under performance doesn’t
just harm your company, it could be fatal to your business.

65. 1. Have a Plan
“To fail to plan is to plan to fail”
Know your targets
Set a content plan
Track and measure

66. 2. Know Your Product
• What are the hero items?
• High ticket, high margin, high volume
• Stock levels and allocations

67. 3. Involve the People
• Overtime schedules – call centre, fulfilment
• Team motivation

68. 4. Tick off the Ops Checklist
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




Last order dates confirmed
Enough boxes and packaging
Order enough gift wrap
Extend returns policy and hassle free returns
Store opening times updated
Click and collect timing and availability

69. 5. Plan your Promotions
• Promotion types
–
–
–
–
Free delivery, express delivery for VIPs
Complimentary gift wrapping
Black Friday seasonal offers
20% off event days
• Dates, volume and ROI targets,
• Channels and execution

70. 6. Optimise the Website
• Gifting navigation
• Optimised landing pages from search or email
• Clear promises to customers: delivery options,
delivery dates, returns policies, store notices,
customer service contacts

71. 7. Make Gifting Easy
• Complementary gift wrap
• Gift category navigation
• Gift vouchers

72. 8. Provide Content
• Relevant
• Rich, imagery, video,
SEO optimised
• Device ready
• Social

73. 9. Be Tactical
• Optimise paid search: PLAs, long tail keywords, contextual ads and
landing pages
• Banker promotions – email, affiliates
• Context: Optimise landing pages with relevant experiences across
all entry touch points
• Measure, respond to demand

74. 10. Get ready for SALE
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•
Targets
Stock package
Launch timing
Communication plan
Preview for loyal customers?

75. 11. Don’t forget Performance
 Notify platform support to manage peak traffic

76. 12. Don’t Forget to Celebrate
Christmas should be fun
Happy team = better productivity

77. Thank You and Merry Christmas
Q&A
@nadinesharara
nadines@thomaspink.com

78. The Coolest Things You Can Buy
Optimising Peak

79. The Coolest Things You Can Buy
Kristian Bromley Managing Director
Kerry Okikiade Commercial Director
We source exclusive, on trend, shareable, cool,
hard to find products.

80. The Coolest Things You Can Buy

81. The Coolest Things You Can Buy
Some numbers
Launched in 1998; older than Google.
29 permanent Staff.
1200 live SKUS.
Over 2/3 of our turnover arrives in 8 weeks.
Our NPS is consistently over 70%.
Over 300 active suppliers.
Over 40% of our traffic is mobile/tablet
28% of top 50 products are exclusive/own brand

82. The Coolest Things You Can Buy
The climax to our trading
year
We have an operational
model that is flat for 10
months of the year and then
increases 2000%+ for peak.

83. The Coolest Things You Can Buy
Case Study: PR HIT
Should trigger the following.....
• Tech – traffic spike.
• Marketing- PPC optimise product,
add content.
• Design- raise homepage product
profile.
• Buying- supplier update, margin
opportunity.
• Inventory- volumes available, lead
time.
• Warehouse- orders spike, pre order
build up.
• Customer Service- phone orders,
product info prep.
• PR- associated features.
Maximise every opportunity you can, practise...

84. The Coolest Things You Can Buy
Inside your control...
Be flexible as late into peak
as possible with:
•
•
•
•
•
Hiring seasonal staff
Inventory orders/multiple drops
Discounting
Delivery cut-offs
Homepage messaging/newsletter
content
• Variable marketing commitment
• Partnerships & other marketing
opportunities i.e. online gift guides,
leads are shorter now.
Forecast, reforecast, react fast.

85. The Coolest Things You Can Buy
Outside your control....
• Inclement weather
• Carrier capacity
• The ‘Economy’
• Supply Issues
• Competitor discounting
Spread the risk where possible, consider the ‘what ifs’.

114. MAKE CHRISTMAS
COUNT
Neil Sansom
Ecommerce Director
Moss Bros Group PLC

115. Moss Bros Group PLC
• 138 UK stores
• High Street and Outlet Centres
• 75% business retail – selling
• 25% Hire – probably what we are famous for
• Ecommerce for a number of years but very slow to invest
until recently
• Last year less than 2% of sales
• Half year ecommerce sales up 168%
• Hire and Bespoke not yet online

116. Background
• 17 months at Moss
• Ecommerce consultant
• 3 years MandM Direct
• 3 years Otto Group –Oli.co.uk
• Shop Direct Group
• Kingfisher/Freeserve and Shell
• Ecomm for too many years now!

117. PEAK – simple really
• P – Plan
• E – Execute
• A – Agile
• K – Consider (couldn’t think of a K!)

118. Plan
• Trading calendar:
• Key dates – promos, USA key events around
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
thanksgiving. Email frequency.
Gift shops create – when?
International last shipping dates
UK last cut-off date
Affiliate activity and marketing
PPC strategy
Third party channels – Amazon/ebay etc. exclusives
Mailings if you do them
Volumes – DC/CS – manning + STOCK

119. Execute
• Get ahead – email creative
• Site creative – step changes to full Xmas
• On brand – with store activity
• Content changes – opening hours, shipping dates, returns
amnesty etc
• Ensure other depts are ready – staff, packaging, opening
hours over bank holidays, warehouse opening to deal with
demand.
• Returns processing – fast!
• Get Sale in!

120. Agile
• Remain agile and review plans constantly.
• Change as required
• Take advantage of sensible last minute deals – they
•
•
•
•
always appear.
Keep some budget back for these.
Design/content may need to change – be flexible
Back winners – cut short losers
Follow store changes

121. K (c)onsider
• In New year – Consider what worked and importantly
•
•
•
•
•
•
didn’t
Do it whilst fresh
Learn for next year
Analytics – peaks, trends, actual vs forecast and costs
Promos/exclusives – review benefit
Timings – did you get it right?
Review other department performance too
warehouse/CS. Did they cope?

122. Myles Dawson, Adyen

123. Payments made easy
Adyen | payments made easy

124. ABOUT ADYEN

Founded in 2006 by the team that originally built Bibit

Global but local

150+ global employees
Adyen | payments made easy

125. ONE END-TO-END SOLUTION
Adyen | payments made easy

126. Simplifying the process
Traditional value chain:
Gateway
Risk platform
Merchant
Processing
Scheme
Issuer
Scheme
Issuer
Acquirer
Adyen:
Gateway
Risk platform
Processing
Merchant
Adyen | payments made easy

127. PAYMENTS MADE EASY FOR ...
Adyen | payments made easy

128. Check capacity
Adyen | payments made easy

129. Discuss campaign timelines
Adyen | payments made easy

130. Don’t forget internal IT
Adyen | payments made easy

131. Motivation at checkout
Adyen | payments made easy

132. Queue busting
Adyen | payments made easy

133. Adyen | payments made easy

134. Mobile checkouts

135. Infinite Aisle
Adyen | payments made easy

136. The Fiverun Solution Platform
For Associates:
For Self Service:
For Consumers: (Q1 ‘14)
Mobile checkout
Prompt product
information
 Suite of API’s and services
Online+Offline in a single
shopping cart
Expands display and
product capability
 Checkin: Allows consumers
to identify themselves instore for promotions / deals
Wish-lists & gift registries
Self-checkout from
anywhere in the store
(optional)
 Self-Checkout: Enables
consumer to checkout from
their own mobile device
Push product
promotions and sales
 Help: Enables consumers to
review and ask for product
help
Deep product data and
upselling recommendations
Sales dashboard
Source: Research Report by Accenture

137. Moss Pilot

138. eCommerce UK
Making Christmas Count
Martin Newman – CEO Practicology
Tonight’s hashtag: #makingxmas
Venue wifi code: Comm3rce