CWU warns: more strikes to come

A three-day postal strike is underway as talks between the Communications Workers Union and Royal Mail failed to reach agreement last night. And although the union is saying that future strikes can be avoided, some newspapers and TV news channels are reporting that strike action will only get worse in the coming days and weeks.
The Guardian and Telegraph quote the CWU’s general secretary Billy Hayes as saying: "We will be upping the dispute. We will not be scaling it down. There is every prospect that we will increase the action and we could be looking at longer strikes." To the BBC, Hayes said: "I don't think we're going to put up with this messing about."

And messed about is how I expect many retailers are feeling as they scramble to put their contingency plans into action. Tell us, how have the strikes affected your business? What are you doing to ensure your customers still get their orders in time? Have you had to rethink any Christmas print marketing campaigns? Do you have a postal strike horror story to share?--MT

Season’s e-greetings

It’s official, Christmas is here, or so Argos would have you believe now that its Christmas commercials have started airing on television. And late last week I received my first Christmas email marketing piece.
It wasn’t from Argos, whose only mention of Christmas in an email to me recently was an opportunity to win a trip to see A Christmas Carol at the cinema next month. No, whilst most retailers are still busy touting spooky Halloween merchandise, The White Company sneaked in the first Christmas email: “No mad rush. No silly price. No shortage of ideas. Just the perfect Christmas, starting right here”. It also offered a discount of 15 percent for enewsletter subscribers.
I wasn’t expecting The White Company to be the first company to get in touch, and for me it’s far too soon to start worrying about buying Christmas gifts (there are two family birthdays in November for a start). But what I am keen to find out is whether now the first email has landed in my inbox there will follow a flood of Christmassy missives. Or do retailers have too much on their minds with the postal strikes to start their Christmas campaigns just yet?--MT

The good, the bad, and the huh?

A few comments on catalogues and emails that arrived at Catalogue e-business HQ this week.

First, the good: “Do we look good naked?” retail supplies cataloguer Morplan asks on the inside front cover of its October issue. It had mailed the catalogue without a plastic wrap, you see. “Did your copy arrive in good condition or should we stay covered up” the note continues. “Please let us know at naked@morplan.com.” I like this for two reasons: 1) Mailing without a polybag is more environmentally friendly, and 2) Morplan is asking for customers’ feedback on the move. Much as I loathe when catalogues come entombed in plastic (it’s just more flotsam to rip open and discard), I can appreciate that not everyone agrees with me. By asking its clients for feedback, Morplan shows that it values their input and, by extension, their custom.

Next, the bad: “We've noticed that customers who have purchased or rated The Wanderers (Bloomsbury Classic Reads) by Richard Price have also purchased Rays by Richard Price,” begins an email from Amazon.co.uk. The message includes a link to Rays, which is scheduled to be released next week, and suggests I preorder a copy. Now, if Rays has not yet been published, how could people have already bought it? And more to the point, the Richard Price who wrote The Wanderers, a gritty novel (and one that I gave four stars, by the way), is not the same Richard Price who wrote Rays, a book of poetry described as “a wry and tender lover’s gift”. If you were to draw a Venn diagram of readers of Richard Price I and Richard Price II, the circles probably wouldn’t even touch, let alone overlap. I’d complained about Amazon’s dodgy product recommendations before; this seems to confirm that while it owns leagues of customer and product data, Amazon doesn’t really know what all the info means.

And now, the huh?: A 20-page Christmas edition of the Viking Direct catalogue includes two pages of Wii games, two pages of additional games, a page of kiddie electronics, and a page of DVDs. Viking, of course, is a direct seller of office supplies. Is the company really suggesting that office managers should stock up on boxed sets of Shameless DVDs and Hannah Montana karaoke systems in addition to wall planners and toner cartridges?--SC

Delivering info about deliveries, take two

Last week I went on a bit about how few companies were posting messages on their home pages reassuring customers about deliveries in the event of a Royal Mail strike. But I’m pleased to report that during the past day or so, eight of the 17 marketing emails I’ve received have included some sort of note about delivery. (Okay, I’d be even more pleased to report that the Communication Workers Union won’t be striking against Royal Mail tomorrow, but hey ho.)

For instance, in its email the day before the scheduled strike, NotontheHighStreet.com included a “Postal Strike Update”. The note was a bit ambiguous: “While any postal strike will inevitably affect some of the delivery times stated on our product pages, many of our deliveries are by courier and will be unaffected. In addition, we will do everything we can to get your order to you as quickly as we can.” While I like the idea of the beautifully groomed NotontheHighStreet founders pedalling a bike in high heels to personally deliver a gift to a customer, that’s probably not what they had in mind by “we will do everything we can”.

The postal note appeared about three-quarters of the way down the NotontheHighStreet email; I didn’t see it until I’d hit the Page Down button 13 times. I also had to scroll down, though just a bit, on the email from Baker Ross to read that “Your order will NOT be affected by a Royal Mail strike”.

Great Little Trading Co, on the other hand, put its notice right at the top of its email. So did Great Universal, which kept its message short and sweet: “Rely on us—we won’t be affected by the Royal Mail strikes.” Others that featured reassurances regarding delivery on the initial screen of their emails were The Book People, The Healthy House, and Vertbaudet.

Next and Joe Browns even used the occasion of the impending strikes to contact their subscribers just to let them know that delivery would be unaffected.

Another eight retailers made no mention of the Royal Mail strikes or delivery options in the marketing emails they sent out on the Tuesday and Wednesday prior to the scheduled strike. Maybe that’s because they are Royal Mail customers and have no contingency plans.

Then again, Petmeds uses Royal Mail, yet it emailed customers an update about delivery. “Due to ongoing Royal Mail Postal strikes we ask if you could allow extra time for orders to be delivered. We are currently working on using an alternative postal provider and will update you when this is in place,” the message began. It proceeded to remind readers of its expedited service options and added, “We really value your custom and appreciate your patience at this time”. Come on, everyone: Aww…

Petmeds knows that consumers would rather be kept informed, even if the information isn’t ideal. It also knows how to position that less-than-ideal news, in this instance by couching it as a “we’re all in this together” situation. After all, very often it’s not what you say but how you say it--and that you say it--that counts.--SC

Mixed message

A recent marketing email from Big Man's Shop made me wonder whether it was trying to win my business or warn me off.

"Fantastic Half Price Sale" read the headline, below which were pictures and descriptions of some of the items on sale. So far so good.

Then, in the left-hand column, just below the company contact info, was a caveat: "Some of the special offers promoted via this newsletter are very limited stock end of line ranges. As such we cannot guarantee fulfillment of all size/colour options. We do apologise for any inconvenience." Instead of apologising and setting up the expectation of disappointment, Big Man's Shop might have been better off positioning the limited stock as a reason to rush to the website, with text along the lines of "Stock is extremely limited, so hurry today for the best selection".

And below that copy block appeared this customer service nugget: "To return goods to us please enclose the returns form with your instructions. Return goods by Royal Mail obtaining a certificate of posting. Return postage costs are the responsibility of the customer."

First off, I question whether this information even needs to be on the email. Here you are, talking to people who haven't yet made a purchase, and you're already telling them what they need to do should they be dissatisfied with their purchase. Second, the returns process sounds onerous and even punitive: "Because you were naughty, the return postage is your responsibility. That'll teach you." Yup, that'll teach 'em, all right--teach 'em to think twice about clicking through to the site and ordering from Big Man's Shop.--SC

Delivering info about deliveries

When I searched for "Royal Mail" and "strike" this afternoon, Google News delivered "about" 2,368 news stories as results. (I love how Google News won't pin itself down to a specific number of stories but instead feels the need to qualify the number with "about".) A sampling of the headlines: "Royal Mail national strike would cause havoc with Christmas post" (The Telegraph); "Firms' fears over post strike threat" (Scunthorpe Telegraph); "Prepare for disruption" (Burton Mail); "The last post" (The Independent).

I figured that lots of direct sellers would be responding to the fearsome headlines with messages on their websites reassuring customers that even in the case of a national strike, their orders would be delivered on time.

Once again, I figured wrong.

Of the 20 ecommerce sites, both b-to-b and b-to-c, I visited, only four had some sort of disclaimer on their home page.

Office supplies cataloguer/retailer Staples placed its message front and centre, just below its logo: "Your order will not be affected by any Royal Mail strike action. For your peace of mind, remember that your order is NOT delivered by Royal Mail and will continue to be delivered next day as usual."

On the other three websites, the messages appeared below the fold. Even so, they were difficult to miss. Fashion etailer Asos went with a bold albeit somewhat ungrammatical "Royal Mail Strikes Delivery Unaffected". Fellow apparel merchant Cotton Traders, which caters to an older audience, posted a genteel "For complete confidence your order will be delivered by private courier". And general merchandiser Littlewoods tied its message to a reminder that "Standard delivery is free on all orders. Don't forget... our deliveries are not affected by any postal strikes".

So of my informal survey, 20 percent of the websites were addressing what is undoubtedly a concern of many consumers. As for the other 16 websites, several of them (Amazon.co.uk, Marks & Spencer, and Liberty) prominently promoted free shipping offers, but they didn't reassure shoppers that the orders would actually arrive. For the others, it was business as usual.

Some of these companies may still be scrambling for delivery alternatives and therefore can't promise uninterrupted service. But department store John Lewis issued a statement this week stating that it has switched its parcel deliveries to other carriers--so why not post this info on its website?

Maybe John Lewis and some of the others are afraid that by mentioning the strikes on their sites, they're planting a fear in the minds of consumers and that therefore the less said the better. Or maybe they feel it's too early to start pounding the message.

A former editor of mine said that when writing a feature or a presentation, you should "tell the audience what you're going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them". In other words, you can't repeat your message too early or too often. For consumers who are already a bit hesitant about parting with their hard-earned money, it's not too early to reassure them that they'll actually receive the merchandise they've opted to spring for.--SC

Quick ecommerce takeaways from Amy Africa

The title of Amy Africa’s ECMOD session “Ten Simple Things You Can Do to Improve Website Performance” was erroneous; she delivered nearly three times as many tips and takeaways—too many for one lone scribe to capture. Here, then, are some highlights from the ecommerce consultant’s session:

• Design your web page as a three-column format, though the columns do not need to be of equal width. In fact, you want the centre column to be widest, as that is where you should place the most important elements of each page. “We look at the left if we need more help,” Africa explained. “We look at the right if we want to leave. For everything else we look in the middle.” That’s why product category indices are almost universally on the left. And that’s why you should place elements designed to prevent viewers from leaving—previously viewed items, best-sellers, special offers—on the right.
• Don’t place your text search box in the top right corner. “If your site is good,” Africa said, “it should work without people having to use text search.” This is especially important when you consider that, according to her research, about two-thirds of people who abandon a site do so while in the search process. So rather than prominently feature search in the prize upper-right spot, move it to the left-hand navigation column.
• “You can only ever count on 30 percent of users scrolling down a page.” Therefore you need to make sure your key elements and messages appear on the top of every page. These would include the email sign-up box (“Sell you soul to the devil for your users’ email address,” Africa advised) and the perpetual shopping cart. And make sure that you feature at least three products above the fold on your landing pages.
• Add an image carousel to your landing page. Carousels are revolving slideshows of images. According to Africa, “They help refresh the eye in a positive way and tell the user, ‘These are things that you need to look at’.” In addition to an image, each slide should have a call to action, such as “Click here now”, and a catchy headline.
• Use instigated chat on the pages where it matters most. Instigated chat is a proactive form of live chat; rather than waiting for the user to contact the etailer for a chat, a customer service rep contacts the user via a pop-up box if the user seems to be having a problem—for instance, if he has been on the same page for more than one minute without taking any sort of action.
• Leave abandoned shopping carts open indefinitely so that when the user returns, no matter how long the absence, he is shown the cart with his selections. And while we’re on the subject of abandoned carts, bear in mind that abandoned-cart programmes, in which you contact visitors who have abandoned their carts via email reminders or offers to encourage them to return to complete the transaction, “are programmes,” Africa said. “Sending one email does not count.”
• Put your perpetual shopping cart in multiple places throughout the site: the upper right-hand corner, of course, but also on the bottom of the page and somewhere in the right-hand column.
• Add a “temperature bar” at the top of your checkout pages so that customers know how far along in the process they are.
• “Choose brains and brawn over beauty” when it comes to website design. “Esthetics doesn’t make a lot of money online,” Africa insisted. “You want to do something for your site today? Add more ‘checkout now’ and ‘add to cart’ buttons.”--SC