ETD: 920 GAP's user-friendly sites; At Wal-Mart, Emergency
Plan Has Big Payoff; EBay To Buy Skype
E-Tailer's Digest
etd_post at gapent.com
Tue Sep 13 14:05:21 GMT 2005
E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the Retailer
Issue #0920 September 13, 2005
George Matyjewicz, Moderator mailto:georgem at gapent.com
Published by: GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.etailersdigest.com
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CONTENTS
[1] Greetings
[2] GAP's user-friendly sites
[3] At Wal-Mart, Emergency Plan Has Big Payoff
[4] EBay To Buy Skype
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[1] Greetings.
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Hi All:
Lately I have been getting a lot of viruses which come in as read
only and cannot be deleted or quarantined by McAfee. Luckily, I use
Eudora and can delete them in the spool file. How many people will
this affect I wonder?
Jan Owens is back and offers news on GAP's new user-friendly
sites. Finally, somebody is listening to the consumer, who is saying
the Flash is not something that attracts them.
There was an article in yesterday's WSJ that I read and Jan provided
about how Wal-Mart marshalled it's resources to protect their stores
and to provide needed supplies to the victims of Katrina. FEMA needs
to take lessons from them.
Francisca de Zwager provides us with more information on Skype. It
looks like EBay will buy them.
Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.
Sincerely
George Matyjewicz, PhD
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, Ltd.
mailto:georgem at gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com
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[2] Comparison Shopping
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'Just to let you know that I am still lurking.
Today's New York Times reports an interesting article about
improvements made to the GAP's websites for its various divisions
(GAP, Banana Republic, Old Navy, etc.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/12/technology/12ecom.html
The reason I think it is insightful is that GAP focused on how people
really want to shop, i.e. fewer clicks, really understanding how
people want product and transaction information delivered quickly,
etc. This is in contrast to some of the bells-and whistles sites
that seem to be enamored with technology (e.g. having to type in a
bunch of measurements, and then asking how a garments "fits" -
ha!) This may work with tech-obsessed people who still like to
"play" with computers, but more and more of the web's shoppers (read:
busy women) have no time for such gaming. They want to shop
efficiently, quickly, and acquire the information they need. The
point: the bells-and-whistles may be useful to a certain target
market, but less and less does it describe the typical web shopper.
'Hope all is well,
-- Jan Owens
U of WIsconsin - Parkside
+++ [Moderator's Comments] +++
Glad to see you're back. We missed you.
I'm glad to see that GAP and other retailers are finally getting
smart. We are doing an engagement with a large company, part of
which is developing their website. We polled all the employees
(hundreds) and asked them for a free form idea of what they would
like to see on the site, and to point us to sites that they like, and
tell us why. Immediately we started getting responses, and the
feedback was excellent. Basically they hate the flash, images, and
excessive stuff on sites.
George
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[3] At Wal-Mart, Emergency Plan Has Big Payoff
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'don't know if you are allowed to reprint the article shown below
from the Wall Street Journal, or you may need to refer people to the
citation and have individuals track it down. Briefly, it describes
how Wal-Mart was able to deliver needed emergency supplies to
hurricane-stricken areas before many others could. No matter how you
feel about Wal-Mart, they are GOOD at logistics and planning.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency could learn some things from Wal-Mart.
----
On Wednesday, Aug. 24, when Katrina was reclassified to a storm from
a tropical depression, Jason Jackson, the retailer's director of
business continuity, started camping out in Wal-Mart's emergency
command center. By Friday, when the hurricane touched down in
Florida, he had been joined by 50 Wal-Mart managers and support
personnel, ranging from trucking experts to loss-prevention specialists.
On Sunday, before the storm made landfall on the Gulf Coast, Mr.
Jackson ordered Wal-Mart warehouses to deliver a variety of emergency
supplies, from generators to dry ice to bottled water, to designated
staging areas so that company stores would be able to reopen quickly
if disaster struck.
Then, when the hurricane knocked out Wal-Mart's computerized system
for automatically updating store inventory levels in the area, he
fielded phone calls from stores about what they needed. He also
alerted a replenishment team to reorder essential products, such as
mops and bleach. And by Tuesday, scores of Wal-Mart trucks, some
escorted by police, were setting out to deliver 40 generators and
tons of dry ice to company stores across the Gulf that had lost power.
Katrina is the biggest natural disaster Wal-Mart has ever had to
confront. Initially, 126 of its stores, including 12 in the New
Orleans metropolitan area, and two distribution centers were
shuttered because they were in Katrina's direct path. More than half
ended up losing power, some were flooded and 89 have reported damage.
But by this past Friday, all but 15 of the idled stores had reopened.
From Boutte, La., to Pass Christian, Miss., Wal-Mart frequently beat
FEMA by days in getting trucks filled with emergency supplies to
relief workers and citizens whose lives were upended by the storm.
Wal-Mart's speed in responding to Katrina underscores the extent to
which it and other big-box retailers like Home Depot Inc. have become
key players in responding to natural disasters. Whereas FEMA has to
scramble for resources, Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart has it owns
trucks, distribution centers and dozens of stores in most areas of
the country. It also has a specific protocol for responding to
disasters, and it can activate an emergency command center to
coordinate an immediate response.
The store on Highway 61, the main street in Laplace, lost power and
water like all its neighbors in suburban New Orleans. Mr. Stinson's
first call from his cellphone was to Mr. Jackson's emergency center.
The center sent six loss-prevention employees, who helped secure the
building and merchandise, assisted by local sheriff's deputies who
kept watch during the first dark nights.
The emergency center also arranged to send generators and got Mr.
Stinson's list of immediate needs. Laplace, which is 30 miles west of
New Orleans, suffered comparatively little flooding and damage, but
it became a refuge for evacuees who had. The center also supplied
such goods as cereal, peanut butter, crackers and water to area shelters.
After the storm hit, Mr. Jackson also took a call from Brian Boney, a
district loss supervisor from a part of Louisiana that hadn't been
hard hit. Mr. Boney volunteered to inspect stores in ravaged areas of
Gulfport and Pass Christian, Miss., spending the night in his car. He
reported back to Mr. Jackson that Wal-Mart needed to dispatch a full
trailer -- 8,000 gallons -- of bottled water and ice for police and
emergency workers in the area.
In addition to refilling its stores, Wal-Mart has donated $3 million
in basic supplies like diapers and toothbrushes to relief centers in
three states. The National Guard and relief agencies also
"commandeered" 20 trucks filled with water and other merchandise,
according to a federal relief worker who didn't want his name used.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will pay Wal-Mart $5 million
for that merchandise and has a contract to be paid for supplying more.
Sheriff Bob Buckley of Union Parish, La., has nothing but praise for
Wal-Mart's role. About 600 law-enforcement officers from around the
state gathered in Gonzalez to start rescue operations, he says, but
they had no supplies. They called Wal-Mart the day after the
hurricane hit and two days later, they got two truckloads of
flashlights, batteries, meals ready to eat, protective gear and ammunition.
-- Jan Owens
U of WIsconsin - Parkside
+++ [Moderator's Comments] +++
I had read that article also. FEMA should have marshalled the
resources of Wal-Mart, Home Depot and other large companies who know
how to deal with these situations. FEMA failed big time. Easy to
understand why the director resigned (read: got fired).
George
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[4] EBay May Buy Skype
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Our moderator wrote...
>Hot off the presses (as of 5:04 AM today) - EBay is looking to buy
> Skype, the free Internet telephony company. The big question I
> have is how does a company expect to make money on a product that
> has been free up to this point?
The answer: by providing other attractive services for pay (sound
familiar? isn't that the strategy you advocate in "Look For The
Unexpected"?) Living in Asia with friends and family in both Europe
and N America, I've spent at least US$50 for their SkypeOut service
over the past year to make calls to land-line phones.
Forbes reports (and I quote):
"Skype hasn't revealed any financial details of its business. But the
company says more than 2 million people have signed up for its
SkypeOut service since it launched in July 2004, and the last million
of those have been added just since March. The service requires a
minimum purchase of ten euros, or about $12.40, so that's at least
$12.4 million in revenue for the year. Take into account users who
buy extra minutes, other services like SkypeIn and voice mail, and
accessories like phones and headsets, and it's likely the company's
2005 annual revenue will be in the neighborhood of $20 million."
See full article at:
http://www.forbes.com/business/businesstech/2005/09/08/skype-ebay-merger-cx_de_0908skype.html
Cheers,
Francisca
* Dreamers that Do *
Francisca de Zwager, Vice-President
Domus Accents Trading Company Limited
OFFICE AND SHOWROOM IN SHENZHEN, CHINA
DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT STUDIO IN MANILA, PHILIPPINES
www.DomusAccents.com
+++ [Moderator's Comments] +++
Thanks Francisca. BTW, looks like the deal went through - E-Bay will
buy Skype.
George
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