零售业面临的挑战分析[Challenges in retail]
06-13, 2015
Challenges in retail
Web 0.2技术给所有行业带来了一场全面性改革，如零售业、金融业、教育业等。本文将重点关注这些技术给零售行业带来的影响。提出的问题就是为什么零售业需要Web 0.2技术，这是值得深思熟虑的问题。我们要在第一时间获得竞争优势，当竞争对手应用这些技术向客户提供一个独特的体验服务，那么其他零售商则必须采取行动，如果他们想继续在商业界立足。同时，随着客户可以得到越来越多的产品信息，零售商应该改变产品销售途径，以满足其客户的高期望。另一个问题是，客户已经养成了注重环保的意识，那么最后结果就是要有一个可持续发展的产品。另一个重要的原因是，正确使用上面提到的技术，创新和提高生产力。Web 0.2技术对“结构—实施—绩效”这一范例有了更好的理解，这是引用了梅森和贝恩的观念。
The Web 0.2 technologies have brought a revolution in all of industries such as retail, finance, education, etc. This essay will focus on the impact of those technologies on retail industry. The question that is raised is why the retail industry needs to take the Web 0.2 technologies into great consideration. At the first place we have competition. When the competitors apply these technologies offering to customers a unique experience, then the other retailers must act if they want to continue to exist in the business place . Also, as an increasing amount of information becomes accessible to customers, the retailers should change product distribution in order to satisfy the high expectations of their customers. Another issue is that customers have become environmentally aware. As a result there is a tendency towards more sustainable products. Another important reason is that the proper use of the technologies mentioned above lead to innovation and increasing productivity. Web 0.2 technologies improve the paradigm “Structure - Conduct - Performance” which was introduced by Mason and Bain .
The Web 2.0 was firstly introduced by Tim O'Reilly in the O' Reilly media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. Web 2.0 includes new technologies such as social networking, blogs, wikis, RSS, mash-ups, folksonomies, forums and other communication tools. The technologies of Web 2.0 affected the World Wide Web and focused more on encouraging the users to interact with each other. This radical change could not leave business unaffected.
Definitions of the technologies are going to follow.
社交网络—Social Networking
In social networking there are groups of people who share information. In business, social networking is very beneficial for the employees. According to a survey , employees communicated with each other efficiently. They also had the opportunity to collaborate easily with each other. This collaboration is a key factor for business leaders. IBM conducted research that showed that the main source of innovation is the collaboration of employees . Furthermore, collaboration leads to faster decision making.#p#分页标题#e#
Another significant advantage of social networking is that businesses can discover their most important customers and build a strong relationship with them. Consequently, there is a new trend to combine social networking with CRM systems.
Marketing is the part of business that is affected the most by social networking. Businesses have the opportunity to be aware of their customers' opinion and thoughts about their products. Through this social networking, businesses can gather information in order to generate innovative ideas about their products. In addition, enterprises can use social networking to increase brand awareness. Knowing the reaction to new things, the enterprises can make better decisions about their products.
However, a business should always think about its competitors. With social networking, it can track the moves of the competitors. What is more, feedback can be obtained through social networking which helps businesses to evaluate both their products and their services and tailor the to their customers' needs.
Social networking is having a considerable impact on advertising. Nowadays, advertisements do not attract customers' attention as in the previous years. According to this trend, a company should not spend its money on advertising campaigns. Customers are interested in comparing products in order to find the most suitable for them rather than looking at advertisements . Another advantage of social networking in e-business is that customers can read reviews for the products they want from “trusted sources” . This is a much more effective advertisement and inexpensive for the companies.
It is of paramount importance to understand that prediction of market trends can be found by social networking especially by these recommendation systems [5]. To be specific, as mentioned before, e-businesses are interested not only in identifying the most powerful customers but in finding their opinions, as well. Both of these can be accomplished when using social networking. That means that e-businesses can adjust their strategy according to the needs of their influencers, thus, achieving high sales and effective marketing.
Social networking facilitates targeted marketing and advertising. When a customer uses search, then the system keeps record of his searches. This means that every customer has his/her own search history. Retailers can exploit this feature in order to provide targeted marketing. In this point security of information should be taken into consideration. The databases must be very reliable in order to convey a feeling of trust. In this way, the customers will be more willing to give personal information . Moreover, consumer power will become clear through blogs, forums. etc. The companies can easily organize campaigns in a more effective way .
博客—Blogging
There are plenty of types of blogs inside a company. The following figure gives an understanding of the different kinds of blogs.#p#分页标题#e#
The leaders of the business write CEO blogs. Through their blogs they are trying to convey their point of view about the strategy of the business. Moreover, they share their vision or personal information. As the information flows in the company the management of projects is facilitated. Another important point is that the leaders can discover the importance of their ideas by measuring the reaction of their employees.
Not only do the leaders express their opinion but the employees, as well.
The company blogs allow employees to convey their thoughts about business's processes and products. Because of this, innovative ideas can be produced as the employees are able to express their thoughts very freely.
One type of employee blog is the expert blog which is usually maintained by one employee who is an expert in a specific field. This type of blog contains information on a specific subject and its aim is to help other employees learn about this subject. The expert shares his/her knowledge and experience about products or services with other employees and this leads to a better understanding. In this type of blog the expert lends weight to the quality of the information.
Unlike the expert blog the guru blog can be written by someone who is not employed by the company. It is maintained by someone who knows about specific things. This is very important for the company because the person will convey neutral opinions about specific areas.
The topic blog is the same as the expert blog but the difference is that it is maintained by more than one employees. The main aim is to gather a large number of experiences, opinions, thoughts about a product or a service. Through this blog, other employees are made aware of a very large range of opinions about a specific subject ****.
In the industry blog people from other companies can participate. To some extent, it encourages conversation with the competitors.
One advantage of blogging is who people that want to join the company can obtain an idea of the culture of the company. The recruitment office can track potential employees and offer them a place in the company. For example, Jason Throckmorton, a co-founder of LaunchSquad, said «If we were going to attract the candidates with the skill sets we wanted, they had to be active within social media before they even came on» . In addition, blogging “affects staff morale” . When employees are participating in discussions with the managers they feel are respected and these feelings encourage them to find new ideas and to work efficiently.
Customers can also participate in blogs. This gives the company the opportunity to discover their preferences. Blogging can be a good way to build a good reputation and expand product awareness.
However according to Business_value_of_blogging.pdf not all the previous blogs are important. The blogs that are more efficient are the CEO and topic blog as shown in the following figures.#p#分页标题#e#
Another important issue that is emerged by blogging is that companies can search (using Google) other blogs that are similar with their strategies. In this way they have the chance to introduce their products and services to other consumers that may be interested in .
Retailers can use blog in order to get customer's feedback for their product and services. For example, Del gives customers the chance to express their complaints for products. In addition, they can announce new products or offers to their customers. Retailers can also guide their customers on how to use their products. This means that trust is built amongst retailers and consumers. Another point is that the retailers can write reviews about their products. To be more specific, they can provide their customers with further information on a product thus helping them to decide if they want this product.
维基百科—Wikis
Another important tool of web 2.0 technologies is wikis. The use of wikis retail companies to a great extend. First of all, the email traffic is limited. When there is lack of collaborative tools in a company, employees use the email to communicate, ask questions or express their opinion. In this way, the individual is loaded with lots of emails which he/she cannot read effectively. With wikis the use of email is reduced and communication is enhanced in an effective way.
What is more, the email is private. That means that useful information flows to a specific number of people. With wikis the information is not limited to a small number of people but is available for all. According to research, wikis as themselves are not so effective for a company if the company does not manage them in an appropriate way. The research suggests that the company should update wikis in order to exploit full benefit of them. It also, points out that the management of wikis should include the management of interrelationships of wikis with sub-systems of the company, such as people, culture etc.
Wikis are also easy to use. This means that retailers would not spend money on training their employees on how to use them. In addition, wikis can be used to store information that is useful to others, eg. how to perform a task .
According to the previous, collaboration tools have a lot of benefits for retail industry. For example, Tesco plc used collaboration tools and its managers were very pleased by the results. The collaboration tools benefit the industry in matters of innovation, decision making, knowledge sharing and productivity. As far as innovation is concerned, there was a discussion forum where employees could post their ideas about specific subjects. Those ideas were being evaluated by executives and the most innovative ideas were being chosen. Tesco plc is consisted from UK and India representatives. This means that it's quite difficult to arrange a physical meeting in order to discuss about main issues of their industry. Collaboration tools brought them together and the decisions made in a much less time. What is more, collaboration tools facilitated the spread of knowledge throughout the industry, especially when new employees should be trained efficiently. As a result, Tesco plc increased its productivity as it gained a structure that circulates information and business processes in an efficient way .#p#分页标题#e#
检验—Reviews
Reviews are an important technology for retailers as they can know the opinion of their customers. Also, retailers can track the credibility of their products by checking the reviews. If they noticed that a product does not have a lot of reviews or its ranking is very low, they would remove it or order fewer products from the suppliers. In this way they can lower the cost of orders to a great extend. Another advantage is that the customers take the reviews of the product they are interested in, into great consideration before they make their final decision. In this way, the customers decide the product they want at early stages. As a result, they buy the product and the traffic of the site is reduced. As the customers have bought their products, the research showed that is highly unlike to return the products. This means that good reviews lead to successful trades. In this way a twofold aim is accomplished: the customers are satisfied and the cost from product returns is decreased. The research also points out that the customers that use reviews tend to buy more frequently and from sites that offer this feature. So reviews lead to loyal customers.
订阅RSS—RSS feeds
The customer has the opportunity to subscribe to data feeds. Consequently, when there is a new feed the customer is immediately notified. The customer can be informed about new products, book titles, offers etc. RSS feed is a good tool for retailers in order to keep their customers informed about things that they might be interested in.
Unlike the customers, the retail investors can benefit from RSS feeds. For example, Bayer IR uses RSS Newsfeed. The investors subscribe to those feeds and they can be kept informed about the latest news of the company .
插件—Mashups
The gathering of data in one mashup makes it a powerful tool for retailers. Retailers are very interesting in showing to the customers the location of their stores. They can simply use the mashup solution and show the exact location of the store to the customers . Furthermore, customers want to compare and contrast products. Mashups give them this opportunity as they gather product data . A new technology that is called mobile mashups allows users to choose products from their mobile phone.
The mashup solution benefits the business users, as well. The business users want to have access to a large amount of data that are continually being updated in order to make better decisions and be more efficient This means that the flow of data within the enterprise is facilitated. Also, the ROI is increased and the retailers can focus on other important things such as security or databases
媒体工具—Media tools
Media tools such as videos are essential to customers because they convey to them the living experience of being in a real shop. Retailers can use videos in order to present their products . What is more, videos that demonstrate products increase navigability. This means that it is better for the customer to add products that are presented in videos to shopping cart rather than add those products without having the video on the same web page . According to Bob Lane, cross selling and up selling could be increased when retailers use videos in order to promote their products .
Web 0.2技术给所有行业带来了一场全面性改革，如零售业、金融业、教育业等。本文将重点关注这些技术给零售行业带来的影响。提出的问题就是为什么零售业需要Web 0.2技术，这是值得深思熟虑的问题。我们要在第一时间获得竞争优势，当竞争对手应用这些技术向客户提供一个独特的体验服务，那么其他零售商则必须采取行动，如果他们想继续在商业界立足。同时，随着客户可以得到越来越多的产品信息，零售商应该改变产品销售途径，以满足其客户的高期望。另一个问题是，客户已经养成了注重环保的意识，那么最后结果就是要有一个可持续发展的产品。另一个重要的原因是，正确使用上面提到的技术，创新和提高生产力。Web 0.2技术对“结构—实施—绩效”这一范例有了更好的理解，这是引用了梅森和贝恩的观念。
The Web 0.2 technologies have brought a revolution in all of industries such as retail, finance, education, etc. This essay will focus on the impact of those technologies on retail industry. The question that is raised is why the retail industry needs to take the Web 0.2 technologies into great consideration. At the first place we have competition. When the competitors apply these technologies offering to customers a unique experience, then the other retailers must act if they want to continue to exist in the business place . Also, as an increasing amount of information becomes accessible to customers, the retailers should change product distribution in order to satisfy the high expectations of their customers. Another issue is that customers have become environmentally aware. As a result there is a tendency towards more sustainable products. Another important reason is that the proper use of the technologies mentioned above lead to innovation and increasing productivity. Web 0.2 technologies improve the paradigm “Structure - Conduct - Performance” which was introduced by Mason and Bain .
The Web 2.0 was firstly introduced by Tim O'Reilly in the O' Reilly media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. Web 2.0 includes new technologies such as social networking, blogs, wikis, RSS, mash-ups, folksonomies, forums and other communication tools. The technologies of Web 2.0 affected the World Wide Web and focused more on encouraging the users to interact with each other. This radical change could not leave business unaffected.
Definitions of the technologies are going to follow.
社交网络—Social Networking
In social networking there are groups of people who share information. In business, social networking is very beneficial for the employees. According to a survey , employees communicated with each other efficiently. They also had the opportunity to collaborate easily with each other. This collaboration is a key factor for business leaders. IBM conducted research that showed that the main source of innovation is the collaboration of employees . Furthermore, collaboration leads to faster decision making.#p#分页标题#e#
Another significant advantage of social networking is that businesses can discover their most important customers and build a strong relationship with them. Consequently, there is a new trend to combine social networking with CRM systems.
Marketing is the part of business that is affected the most by social networking. Businesses have the opportunity to be aware of their customers' opinion and thoughts about their products. Through this social networking, businesses can gather information in order to generate innovative ideas about their products. In addition, enterprises can use social networking to increase brand awareness. Knowing the reaction to new things, the enterprises can make better decisions about their products.
However, a business should always think about its competitors. With social networking, it can track the moves of the competitors. What is more, feedback can be obtained through social networking which helps businesses to evaluate both their products and their services and tailor the to their customers' needs.
Social networking is having a considerable impact on advertising. Nowadays, advertisements do not attract customers' attention as in the previous years. According to this trend, a company should not spend its money on advertising campaigns. Customers are interested in comparing products in order to find the most suitable for them rather than looking at advertisements . Another advantage of social networking in e-business is that customers can read reviews for the products they want from “trusted sources” . This is a much more effective advertisement and inexpensive for the companies.
It is of paramount importance to understand that prediction of market trends can be found by social networking especially by these recommendation systems [5]. To be specific, as mentioned before, e-businesses are interested not only in identifying the most powerful customers but in finding their opinions, as well. Both of these can be accomplished when using social networking. That means that e-businesses can adjust their strategy according to the needs of their influencers, thus, achieving high sales and effective marketing.
Social networking facilitates targeted marketing and advertising. When a customer uses search, then the system keeps record of his searches. This means that every customer has his/her own search history. Retailers can exploit this feature in order to provide targeted marketing. In this point security of information should be taken into consideration. The databases must be very reliable in order to convey a feeling of trust. In this way, the customers will be more willing to give personal information . Moreover, consumer power will become clear through blogs, forums. etc. The companies can easily organize campaigns in a more effective way .
博客—Blogging
There are plenty of types of blogs inside a company. The following figure gives an understanding of the different kinds of blogs.#p#分页标题#e#
The leaders of the business write CEO blogs. Through their blogs they are trying to convey their point of view about the strategy of the business. Moreover, they share their vision or personal information. As the information flows in the company the management of projects is facilitated. Another important point is that the leaders can discover the importance of their ideas by measuring the reaction of their employees.
Not only do the leaders express their opinion but the employees, as well.
The company blogs allow employees to convey their thoughts about business's processes and products. Because of this, innovative ideas can be produced as the employees are able to express their thoughts very freely.
One type of employee blog is the expert blog which is usually maintained by one employee who is an expert in a specific field. This type of blog contains information on a specific subject and its aim is to help other employees learn about this subject. The expert shares his/her knowledge and experience about products or services with other employees and this leads to a better understanding. In this type of blog the expert lends weight to the quality of the information.
Unlike the expert blog the guru blog can be written by someone who is not employed by the company. It is maintained by someone who knows about specific things. This is very important for the company because the person will convey neutral opinions about specific areas.
The topic blog is the same as the expert blog but the difference is that it is maintained by more than one employees. The main aim is to gather a large number of experiences, opinions, thoughts about a product or a service. Through this blog, other employees are made aware of a very large range of opinions about a specific subject ****.
In the industry blog people from other companies can participate. To some extent, it encourages conversation with the competitors.
One advantage of blogging is who people that want to join the company can obtain an idea of the culture of the company. The recruitment office can track potential employees and offer them a place in the company. For example, Jason Throckmorton, a co-founder of LaunchSquad, said «If we were going to attract the candidates with the skill sets we wanted, they had to be active within social media before they even came on» . In addition, blogging “affects staff morale” . When employees are participating in discussions with the managers they feel are respected and these feelings encourage them to find new ideas and to work efficiently.
Customers can also participate in blogs. This gives the company the opportunity to discover their preferences. Blogging can be a good way to build a good reputation and expand product awareness.
However according to Business_value_of_blogging.pdf not all the previous blogs are important. The blogs that are more efficient are the CEO and topic blog as shown in the following figures.#p#分页标题#e#
Another important issue that is emerged by blogging is that companies can search (using Google) other blogs that are similar with their strategies. In this way they have the chance to introduce their products and services to other consumers that may be interested in .
Retailers can use blog in order to get customer's feedback for their product and services. For example, Del gives customers the chance to express their complaints for products. In addition, they can announce new products or offers to their customers. Retailers can also guide their customers on how to use their products. This means that trust is built amongst retailers and consumers. Another point is that the retailers can write reviews about their products. To be more specific, they can provide their customers with further information on a product thus helping them to decide if they want this product.
维基百科—Wikis
Another important tool of web 2.0 technologies is wikis. The use of wikis retail companies to a great extend. First of all, the email traffic is limited. When there is lack of collaborative tools in a company, employees use the email to communicate, ask questions or express their opinion. In this way, the individual is loaded with lots of emails which he/she cannot read effectively. With wikis the use of email is reduced and communication is enhanced in an effective way.
What is more, the email is private. That means that useful information flows to a specific number of people. With wikis the information is not limited to a small number of people but is available for all. According to research, wikis as themselves are not so effective for a company if the company does not manage them in an appropriate way. The research suggests that the company should update wikis in order to exploit full benefit of them. It also, points out that the management of wikis should include the management of interrelationships of wikis with sub-systems of the company, such as people, culture etc.
Wikis are also easy to use. This means that retailers would not spend money on training their employees on how to use them. In addition, wikis can be used to store information that is useful to others, eg. how to perform a task .
According to the previous, collaboration tools have a lot of benefits for retail industry. For example, Tesco plc used collaboration tools and its managers were very pleased by the results. The collaboration tools benefit the industry in matters of innovation, decision making, knowledge sharing and productivity. As far as innovation is concerned, there was a discussion forum where employees could post their ideas about specific subjects. Those ideas were being evaluated by executives and the most innovative ideas were being chosen. Tesco plc is consisted from UK and India representatives. This means that it's quite difficult to arrange a physical meeting in order to discuss about main issues of their industry. Collaboration tools brought them together and the decisions made in a much less time. What is more, collaboration tools facilitated the spread of knowledge throughout the industry, especially when new employees should be trained efficiently. As a result, Tesco plc increased its productivity as it gained a structure that circulates information and business processes in an efficient way .#p#分页标题#e#
检验—Reviews
Reviews are an important technology for retailers as they can know the opinion of their customers. Also, retailers can track the credibility of their products by checking the reviews. If they noticed that a product does not have a lot of reviews or its ranking is very low, they would remove it or order fewer products from the suppliers. In this way they can lower the cost of orders to a great extend. Another advantage is that the customers take the reviews of the product they are interested in, into great consideration before they make their final decision. In this way, the customers decide the product they want at early stages. As a result, they buy the product and the traffic of the site is reduced. As the customers have bought their products, the research showed that is highly unlike to return the products. This means that good reviews lead to successful trades. In this way a twofold aim is accomplished: the customers are satisfied and the cost from product returns is decreased. The research also points out that the customers that use reviews tend to buy more frequently and from sites that offer this feature. So reviews lead to loyal customers.
订阅RSS—RSS feeds
The customer has the opportunity to subscribe to data feeds. Consequently, when there is a new feed the customer is immediately notified. The customer can be informed about new products, book titles, offers etc. RSS feed is a good tool for retailers in order to keep their customers informed about things that they might be interested in.
Unlike the customers, the retail investors can benefit from RSS feeds. For example, Bayer IR uses RSS Newsfeed. The investors subscribe to those feeds and they can be kept informed about the latest news of the company .
插件—Mashups
The gathering of data in one mashup makes it a powerful tool for retailers. Retailers are very interesting in showing to the customers the location of their stores. They can simply use the mashup solution and show the exact location of the store to the customers . Furthermore, customers want to compare and contrast products. Mashups give them this opportunity as they gather product data . A new technology that is called mobile mashups allows users to choose products from their mobile phone.
The mashup solution benefits the business users, as well. The business users want to have access to a large amount of data that are continually being updated in order to make better decisions and be more efficient This means that the flow of data within the enterprise is facilitated. Also, the ROI is increased and the retailers can focus on other important things such as security or databases
媒体工具—Media tools
Media tools such as videos are essential to customers because they convey to them the living experience of being in a real shop. Retailers can use videos in order to present their products . What is more, videos that demonstrate products increase navigability. This means that it is better for the customer to add products that are presented in videos to shopping cart rather than add those products without having the video on the same web page . According to Bob Lane, cross selling and up selling could be increased when retailers use videos in order to promote their products .
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