Huh of the day

I am seriously considering making Huh of the day a regular feature on this blog. Today's Huh-- joining Joe Browns' unexplained CD WOW promotion and Pixmania's foray into fragrance--is from Borders.

With tenuous links like "Find your happily ever after..." and "Start a new chapter in your life..." Borders is moving into online dating.

I don't know about you, but to me it just seems a bit weird. A mismatch in matchmaking. As they say in dating, "I wonder how long this one will last..."--MT

Communication breakdown

Earlier this month I wrote about how Waterstone's managed to turn a customer service failing into a customer service win. Fashion cataloguer Gudrun Sjoden recently managed to do the same--except the failing shouldn't have happened in the first place.

On Saturday I tried to place an order on the Gudrun Sjoden website. When I came to the end of the checkout process, instead of receiving a message saying "thank you" or "your order has been processed", I was shown a screen of the home page. Uncertain whether my order had indeed gone through, I went to my email inbox; no confirmation message awaited. And when I returned to the Gudrun Sjoden site, my shopping basket still had my two items in it. So I went through the checkout process again, and again ended up with no confirmation, just a screen shot of the home page. This time, though, my basket was shown to be empty, so I emailed the company asking if my order went through.

Sunday morning my credit-card company rang to ask if I'd placed two back-to-back orders with Gudrun Sjoden. Well, at least I had confirmation that my order had gone through--but the confirmation wasn't from Gudrun Sjoden, and the confirmation showed that I was being billed twice. Later that day Gudrun Sjoden responded to my email, letting me know that yes, my order had been processed and I'd be receiving it within 10 days. I wrote back, asking about the double billing.

Late Monday morning I received another response from Gudrun Sjoden, reassuring me that I was being billed just the once. The wording was very professional, and I was satisfied. Sort of.

The thing is, in this day and age there's really no excuse for an ecommerce site not to end the checkout process with a confirmation screen. Likewise, there's really no excuse for an ecommerce site not to send an automatic email confirming the order and letting the customer know when to expect the goods. Nor is there really any excuse for a company not to immediately respond to an email query, even if it's just with a message along the lines of "Thank you for your email. Our customer service department is now closed, but as soon as it reopens we will respond to your query."

By failing to communicate with me properly, Gudrun Sjoden risked losing me as a customer, as well as risked my shouting throughout cyberspace about my dissatisfaction. What's more, it had to spend resources, in terms of customer-service manhours, in having two agents respond to me manually.

So many articles (including a number of those in Catalogue e-business) discuss advanced email tactics and ecommerce strategies. It's worth remembering, though, that such sophisticated enhancements are all for naught if you don't even get the basics right.--SC

Butcher, baker, candlestick maker?

What springs to mind when you think of Pixmania? I would like to wager that it’s not drills and lawnmowers, right?
Parent company DSGi describes Pixmania on its corporate website as “the only pan-European etailer of digital photographic and consumer electronic goods.” So why on earth has it branched out into garden products and power tools? It’d make sense if it could benefit from product synergies with a sister company but as far as I'm aware Dixons, Currys, and PC World all stick to their core business, not a hedge strimmer in sight.
In addition to tools and garden merchandise, Pixmania has also diversified into offering watches and jewellery, health and beauty products, and toys and games. Only one of those seems logical to me, and only if it were just selling computer games.
In the June issue of Catalogue e-business I wrote that multichannel retailers must Diversify or die, but there’s a flipside to consider, as Sherry pointed out in the Eddie Bauer post: Dilution = death. Where is Pixmania heading?--MT

Cutting through the geek speak

All you wanted to know about IT but were afraid to ask:
Catalogue e-business will feature a Q&A with an IT and web support manager in an upcoming issue and is calling on readers to submit their IT-related questions. So if you're a cataloguer or online retailer and have been wondering what the difference really is between .php and .NET, please don't hesitate to ask.
If you'd rather put your question forward anonymously, you can email miri@catalog-biz.com.
We look forward to hearing from you!

Timing is everything

To be effective, that is to encourage click-throughs and increase sales, an email has to be sent to the right people with the right message at the right time. Undoubtedly, that’s easier said than done, but there are some obvious pitfalls marketers can avoid. Something Field & Trek didn’t think of when it sent me an email called “Gear up for Glastonbury this weekend + New Garmin Oregon 300 Bundle!‏” on Wednesday, 24th June.
The Glastonbury festival starts Friday 26th June, with the majority of ticket-holders arriving tomorrow. How exactly does Field & Trek propose shipping tents, sleeping bags, and other festival basics before the first act takes the stage on Friday morning? Even next-day delivery wouldn’t make it in time.
It’s a nice idea Field & Trek, but you should have sent this email last week. A change of subject line to something more like Hurry! Order all your Glastonbury camping essentials today, and possibly the offer of free next-day delivery for orders above a certain monetary threshold, might have been a good move too. Just a thought.—MT

Who (k)new?

Here at Catalogue e-business we receive dozens of catalogues every week. So when a new catalogue crosses our path of course we like to investigate and find out more about the company, its owners, their backgrounds, and the role the catalogue plays in the overall marketing mix.
A couple of weeks ago we received a catalogue that we’d never seen before--it will rename nameless for the purposes of this blog. The director’s letter on the inside front cover read: “…we have built a loyal following and are now delighted to launch a catalogue to complement our website.” All well and good, we thought. It might make an interesting story for the magazine, something along the lines of why it waited so long to move into print, and what finally persuaded it to mail a catalogue.
But upon contacting the company’s press officer I was told that the company’s catalogues “have been in print for a good few years now, so I’m afraid you must have seen an old one.” I don’t think so: The one on my desk is dated Spring/Summer 2009. When pressed further on the matter, the company told me it was “not interested in following through”.
I wasn’t going to run a Donal MacIntyre-type exposé on the business. This was a news piece on a catalogue launch. So why the secrecy? Is the catalogue new or not?—MT

Email we love: Lakeland

I always open my emails from Lakeland. Here’s why:

Great merchandise
On 22nd May Lakeland made housework look like fun by listing five labour-saving ideas to take the chore out of cleaning. Each idea had a timeframe, so you knew exactly how long each task should take. Also in the email Lakeland highlighted its favourite household innovations, I like the stamp that obscures details on personal documents. Lakeland calls it “risk-free recycling”.

Themed emails
A holiday-themed email was sent on 14th June. Promoting space-saving solutions to help when packing a suitcase and digital luggage scales to weigh the load. Non-selling copy included a fun “did you know” feature all about travel.

Added extras
The latest email, on 21st June, featured outdoor entertaining tips. As well as promoting cool bags and “party-proof glassware”, Lakeland also posted a recipe for mixing the perfect jug of Pimm’s. What more could you want?—MT