Has the internet changed the nature of the way shopping occurs in stores these days? more
The concept of session metrics is well known in ecommerce. For example Amazon.com does the analysis of the click-stream behavior of its customers so it knows what pages on the site you visited, what products you looked at even if you did not buy, and how long you spent on their site. It then customizes the site for each individual based on the click-stream analysis or session metrics of other.
Have you ever heard of FOAF? If you look up social networking on Wikipedia you will find lots of cool new acronyms, but this one really caught my eye. FOAF means “friend of a friend” – and this is the engine that fuels most social networks.
So what if we take FOAF in a slightly different direction – say, using your own personal buying habits to create a personal network of retailers who compete for your business by making you special offers tailored to your personal preferences? For social networks and retailing to merge in this way would require a link between your personal information and the retailers who have products and services you might want. Is this the stuff of dreams? Not really. Let me give you an example.
Say you are a golfer who likes red wines and French food. Just sharing this information with your online social network, like Facebook, is limiting. It only allows marketers to send you a certain amount of targeted advertising via their Beacon platform, assuming you allow that on your Facebook account, based on the thin slice of information you share online.
But what about all of your offline experiences? Wouldn’t an understanding of those help retailers better target offers to you? What if there was a way to collect this offline data passively so that when you frequent your local French Bistro, buy reds from your local wine store and enjoy a round of golf at the any of your favorite courses, the data is collected in an online profile that you could control! This way, when Bastille Day or The Masters tournament comes around, a fine French restaurant could target you with a special offer to come by and get a free glass of red wine or your favorite golf course could discount their greens and golf cart fees.
While this may sound like it is off in the future, much of it is already in play! Google and Yahoo have been compiling data like this for years on your search habits, only recently agreeing to destroy data that is older than two years. If you could combine such data with a profile of your GPS cellular locations, you begin to get a truly rich picture of your total shopping habits. Then retailers would only need to form a relationship with Facebook to get access to this data and make it happen.
All it would take to make this a reality would be a widget you download off your Facebook account that connects to your cell phone (say iPhone) and you are off to the races. Then you could selectively open up your profile to advertisers who want to pay you for the privilege of showing you their messages. This puts consumers in total control of their data and lets them make some money to boot. Now that would be redefining exceptional customer service!
