ETD: 946 Electronic Ping Pong; Poor site design; Luxury Market
Year-End 2005 Results and 2006 Predictions
E-Tailer's Digest
etd_post at gapent.com
Thu Jan 12 14:06:31 GMT 2006
E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the Retailer
Issue #0946 January 12, 2006
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] Electronic Ping Pong
[3] Poor site design
[4] Luxury Market Year-End 2005 Results and 2006 Predictions
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[1] Greetings.
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Hi All:
Electronic ping pong - it ain't fun. Do you know
what it is? Are you guilty of using it?
Flash - is it a blessing or the worst thing to
hit the Net? Many people think it is a panacea. What do you think?
Pam Danziger will announce Luxury Market Year-End
2005 Results and 2006 Predictions at NRF
Convention this Sunday. If you are attending,
you should attend and say hello to Pam.
Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.
Sincerely
George Matyjewicz, PhD
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, LLC
mailto:georgem at gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com
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[2] Electronic Ping Pong
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Ping pong is a nice, fast game. You hit a ball
across a net on a table, and try to pass your opponent to score a point.
Electronic ping pong is even faster, but not so
nice. In fact it can be a major disaster to your e-mail server. What is it?
Some people have auto responders attached to
their website. A recent one sent a note to
everybody who visited, or to anybody who sent an
e-mail, with a message "Thanks for visiting. We
will get back to you soon." Sounds nice eh?
Here's the problem. They register to become a
member of a discussion list or other service
(like E-Tailer's Digest) where a welcome note is
sent back to them. Of course, their e-mail has
an autoresponder which comes back to the other
autoresponder, which sends out another message,
and on and on and on! That's known as electronic
ping pong, and unless there is some intelligence
in one side or the other, that can go on
forever. I once had a partner who got hit like
that while travelling (I told him to get rid of
the autoresponder). When he got his mail in a
hotel he had over 3,000 e-messages as a result of ping pong.
So, while autoresponders are good, use them
intelligently. And check them often.
George
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[3] Poor site design
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The latest trend seems to be the use of Flash
throughout a site, with no content at
all. Rather the text is an image that is brought
in very nicely, sometimes complete with music and
images. Broadband can handle this, so why not, right?
Wrong! Flash does not get picked up by search
engines, and even if you search for the exact
URL, you will not get content or a
description. Yesterday I was trying to
demonstrate that to a client, and we searched for
a particular company, and got the URL only, with
no description. We were recently asked to look
at a site that was getting very little
traffic. When we looked at the home page, we
didn't have to go any further. We did look at
the source, and it was as expected.
Flash is useful if used intelligently. It should
be used when requested, i.e., if I want to see
your fashion show, let me choose to see the Flash. Don't slap it in my face.
IMHO, designers who use Flash don't understand
the Net. They design from an offline point of
view, and don't know their medium. Yet, clients don't know the difference.
Flash will have it's day someday, as TV and
Internet merge. But it's not there yet.
George
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[4] Luxury Market Year-End 2005 Results and 2006 Predictions
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Join me and a panel of luxury retailing experts
at National Retail Federation’s Annual
Convention, Sunday January 15 at 10:15 a.m. –
11:45 a.m. at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center,
NYC, for a session called, “What’s Next —
Prospects for the Future of Luxury Retailing.”
I will present results from Unity Marketing’s
exclusive luxury consumer tracking study year-end
2005 — what luxury consumers are buying now, how
much they are spending and where they are
shopping. A key trend in this year’s study is
the increasingly important role of the internet for luxury shoppers.
A panel of retailing experts will share their
views on where the luxury market is headed in
2006 and beyond. Sharing the podium will be:
o Kimberly Grabel, vice president marketing Saks Fifth Avenue
o Kimberly Grayson, senior vice president marketing Aerosoles
o Ed McQuigg, group vice president marketing Richemont
We will talk about the challenges of marketing
luxury to the masses, as well as the classes. We
will discuss the differences in selling to the
two key luxury generations: the maturing Baby
Boomers, the leading edge of which turns 60 this
year, and the GenXers, aged 30 to 41 this year, and in their prime.
Plus we will look at the international luxury
market and prospects for exporting American luxury concepts to the world.
For more information on the NRF Convention, visit
http://nrfannual06.expoexchange.com/
Every quarter Unity Marketing tracks luxury
consumer purchases and spending in its exclusive
Luxury Consumer Tracking Study. This survey
conducted among over 1,000 luxury consumers (avg.
income $142k and average age 43 years in latest
wave) includes data on what luxuries they are
buying, how much they are spending and where they
are shopping for luxuries, plus luxury brand
awareness and usage and luxury consumers’
favorite publications. Also included in the
survey is a measure of luxury consumer confidence
and Unity’s Luxury Consumption Index which
foretells spending trends in the future.
You can sample the data contained in the Luxury
Tracking Study for your company’s specific
category of luxury through this link:
http://www.unitymarketingonline.com/reports2/luxury/luxurytracker_reg.html
Unity Marketing publishes its Luxury Tracking
Study quarterly with the next due in March 2006.
Pam Danziger,
President
Unity Marketing
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