This is a fork, where my work-related blog for iTradeFair.com and my personal blog start to diverge, allowing me to explore other interests. All previous posts have been replicated in both places, and future posts may be replicated where pertinent.
It was very interesting to read an interview of Mark Stolzman, CFO of Blue Nile, Inc. the online diamond retailer.
Besides the financial aspects of the story (low or no inventory carrying costs, etc.), here are a couple of excerpts that I found interesting, especially finding it in the CFO magazine:
"Right now we have about a 4 percent share of the engagement[-ring] business in the United States, and we think we can double or triple that in the next five years. We want to expand our market share both domestically and internationally. We want to do that by offering education, quality, and selection. And we'll continue to expand our service to the customer both in terms of [technology] tools and in terms of access, whether it's by online chat, E-mail, or telephone."
"Despite the fact that most of the purchase process is done online, our customer-service group gets involved in a vast majority of our purchases, because customers still think, "OK, I'm making a significant purchase, and I want to make sure I've made the right decision." So they get comfort in accessing our diamond experts and knowing the purchase they're about to make is solid."
Mark Stolzman's words capture the power and the challenge of new media in building trust among remote users. Being able to sell a diamond ring without actually meeting the seller in person calls for a high level of trust to be established early on during the shopping experience. The convenience of using the telephone, besides email and chat online, seems to indicate that the trust-building requires some extra support through old technology.
Take a look at this unrelated news item titled "More Consumers Going Online to Shop". According to Nachi Lolla, research director, commerce at Nielsen Online, the majority of consumer concerns about online shopping have been lifted.
Even if retailers may not have mastered all the methods of trust-building over the web, many of the earlier hurdles seem to have been crossed or outweighed by the sheer convenience of getting things or getting things done over the web. The average user now submits shipping and payment information on the web without hesitation. Companies have started building brands on the web where the customer knows that effective means of redresssal are available with a simple email expressing dis-satisfaction about a purchase.
Even if all the tools are available for an online user to independently research and verify the authenticity of an online business, you will be surprised at how often a user says "Is there a phone number I can call?"
As the customer-service function strains to be prompt in its responsiveness, as it strains to overcome the absence of face-to-face or tactile experiences in online shopping through other communication tools, there is a need not only for using whichever instrument of communication works best within the customer's comfort zone, but also a need to have knowledgeable people at level-one customer support.
Just like the diamond experts that Mark Stolzman talks about. That comes at a price - I suppose at a price lower than inventory-carrying costs.
Showing posts with label iTradeFair.com. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iTradeFair.com. Show all posts
Monday, February 16, 2009
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
No Goodie Bags? No Problem! Why Virtual Trade Shows are PhRMA-friendly
The article in Tradeshow Week Magazine titled "What’s Next for Health Care Show Exhibiting?" prompted this post.
The new code from PhRMA (The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America) for marketing by the pharmaceutical industry is expected to result in readjustments to their trade show tactics. The goal of these changes and some more upcoming changes that are on the anvil is to ensure that the information reaching medical practitioners is from independent sources. While I would not be surprised if Google Health positions itself for a dominant role in this new scenario, one can be sure that virtual trade shows will be considered very seriously by health care marketing professionals.
On the one hand, virtual trade shows allow for compliance by the health care marketing professional (and for independent 3rd-party audit). On the other, they track activity and reports in such depth that establishing an ROI is just a click away.
There are some closed-corporate virtual trade shows that we at iTradeFair.com do in which the event organizer's policies mandate that exhibitors do not offer any giveaways or lucky draws. With a virtual trade show, not only is it easy to comply with these requirements, but also very easy for governance and reporting, while ensuring the effectiveness of the content placed in every virtual booth.
Goodie Bags and Lucky Draws are capabilities that are offered in virtual booths in many virtual trade shows. A virtual trade show producer ought to enjoy the ability to switch off select features to stay within the rules of the game for their particular industry. When a pharma company's virtual booth is in a general virtual trade show, such as one held by a Chamber of Commerce for a particular region, that specific booth must be capable of turning off its non-PhRMA-compliant features without impacting the other booths in the virtual trade show.
When we work with any event organizer these are capabilities that we like to highlight. Through simple procedures in our event engine we can entirely disable (show-wide) the Goodies feature or the Lucky Draw feature, or both. The reporting system enables the event organizer to assess the success of an event while staying within the customized parameters of the virtual fair. If for some reason the features are made available in a virtual fair, individual exhibitors have the power to decline using select features should they need to be in compliance with industry-specific laws.
That is why I believe that virtual fairs are PhRMA-friendly!
The new code from PhRMA (The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America) for marketing by the pharmaceutical industry is expected to result in readjustments to their trade show tactics. The goal of these changes and some more upcoming changes that are on the anvil is to ensure that the information reaching medical practitioners is from independent sources. While I would not be surprised if Google Health positions itself for a dominant role in this new scenario, one can be sure that virtual trade shows will be considered very seriously by health care marketing professionals.
On the one hand, virtual trade shows allow for compliance by the health care marketing professional (and for independent 3rd-party audit). On the other, they track activity and reports in such depth that establishing an ROI is just a click away.
There are some closed-corporate virtual trade shows that we at iTradeFair.com do in which the event organizer's policies mandate that exhibitors do not offer any giveaways or lucky draws. With a virtual trade show, not only is it easy to comply with these requirements, but also very easy for governance and reporting, while ensuring the effectiveness of the content placed in every virtual booth.
Goodie Bags and Lucky Draws are capabilities that are offered in virtual booths in many virtual trade shows. A virtual trade show producer ought to enjoy the ability to switch off select features to stay within the rules of the game for their particular industry. When a pharma company's virtual booth is in a general virtual trade show, such as one held by a Chamber of Commerce for a particular region, that specific booth must be capable of turning off its non-PhRMA-compliant features without impacting the other booths in the virtual trade show.
When we work with any event organizer these are capabilities that we like to highlight. Through simple procedures in our event engine we can entirely disable (show-wide) the Goodies feature or the Lucky Draw feature, or both. The reporting system enables the event organizer to assess the success of an event while staying within the customized parameters of the virtual fair. If for some reason the features are made available in a virtual fair, individual exhibitors have the power to decline using select features should they need to be in compliance with industry-specific laws.
That is why I believe that virtual fairs are PhRMA-friendly!
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Face2Facers, Virtual Trade Shows and Semantics
I originally began this post with the title 'How Language Lends Legitimacy to Virtual Fairs' and one of the tags I included was semantics. On second thoughts it seemed like a boring caption. So I have added a few more thoughts, changed the title to make it a little quirky, and re-posted it.
When we began doing virtual fairs almost a decade ago, the sales process began with educating the prospects on the definition of virtual fairs. My cofounder Professor Sharda is to be fully credited with figuring out the best mix of technologies and user-experiences in manifesting the virtual trade show online. To this day, we get rave reviews for a product that is "elegant in its simplicity" (in the words of a customer who represents a global pharma giant) from the front-end, hides its complex backend nicely, and works like a charm.
When I walked into the office of a trade show veteran a few years ago, he welcomed me with the words "There is no such thing as a virtual trade show".
I was invited to a speak at American Business Media's Trade Show Summit just a couple of years ago. To my surprise, right before I was introduced at the podium the audience was told categorically that ABM believes only in face to face trade shows. I was merely there to help them figure out what value our customers are finding in virtual trade shows. My hosts, having thus set the tone for my presentation, put me on the uphill task of talking to a skeptical audience. As a rule, I never make a sales pitch in such appearances. Besides, many of our top customers don't like to talk about their success because we are part of their competitive strategy through either an improved process or an improved brand. I did my best to present a generic case-study to the audience that was already primed that face to face events were the only real deal. [Incidentally, I still love ABM - unlike many other organizations that I have been exposed to, ABM's leadership and membership is extremely gracious and welcoming of rookies like me - I was a new member for a short duration - they were always good to me. Someday soon I hope to be active once again in that group. Hopefully by then they will be willing to step out of their comfort zones and really embrace virtual trade shows and other specialty fairs to tap its true potential. ]
Today I signed up to attend TS2 the trade show for the trade show industry (In 2000 we had actually spent a decent sum of money to exhibit in TS2 - which is ironical - exhibiting in a face-to-face trade show to sell a virtual trade show. We haven't done it since. That experience warrants a separate post because it had valuable lessons despite being ahead of its time) . The 2008 TS2 event actually has a special mention of Face2Face.
My point is, every time real-world event marketers describe their event as 'face-to-face', it dawns upon me that virtual meetings and virtual trade shows, virtual job fairs or any other kind of virtual fairs have entered the psyche of the trade show industry. Virtual fairs have gained (dare I say?) a foothold on the minds of the marketer. If there were no such thing as virtual trade shows, then the trade show industry's use of the label face2face would be a redundancy, wouldn't it?
What Webex did to seminars, iTradeFair.com will do to trade shows. We already get calls asking us about the next itradefair. I would hazard a guess that there are more businesses that do not (or can not) exhibit in trade shows, than there are on face-to-face trade show floors. That absentee population - absentee for whatever valid reason it might be - is hungry for an affordable channel to promote their business or themselves. That is a huge untapped opportunity in a parallel universe of business and consumer events. Virtual trade fairs and other specialty virtual fairs will act as a catalyst in converting many of these absentees into face2facers. It may start with regional gatherings, but the craving for social interaction in-person will push many of the virtual trade show participants into seeking ways to meet face-to-face. That is what I see happening in the foreseeable future.
What I know will happen soon is that virtual trade shows will enter the language of everyday business, and then they will enter the lexicon of company accountants and budget analysts. That means companies and their marketing departments will have a budget line-item and a budget for virtual trade shows or other virtual fairs.
The next phase that I foresee is virtual trade shows becoming a part of conversation. Then they become part of business and life. Someday soon I will not be surprised if I overhear a conversation (or a tweet) on how "I met my boss at a virtual trade show" or how "I first found my West Coast sales rep at a virtual trade show".
When we began doing virtual fairs almost a decade ago, the sales process began with educating the prospects on the definition of virtual fairs. My cofounder Professor Sharda is to be fully credited with figuring out the best mix of technologies and user-experiences in manifesting the virtual trade show online. To this day, we get rave reviews for a product that is "elegant in its simplicity" (in the words of a customer who represents a global pharma giant) from the front-end, hides its complex backend nicely, and works like a charm.
When I walked into the office of a trade show veteran a few years ago, he welcomed me with the words "There is no such thing as a virtual trade show".
I was invited to a speak at American Business Media's Trade Show Summit just a couple of years ago. To my surprise, right before I was introduced at the podium the audience was told categorically that ABM believes only in face to face trade shows. I was merely there to help them figure out what value our customers are finding in virtual trade shows. My hosts, having thus set the tone for my presentation, put me on the uphill task of talking to a skeptical audience. As a rule, I never make a sales pitch in such appearances. Besides, many of our top customers don't like to talk about their success because we are part of their competitive strategy through either an improved process or an improved brand. I did my best to present a generic case-study to the audience that was already primed that face to face events were the only real deal. [Incidentally, I still love ABM - unlike many other organizations that I have been exposed to, ABM's leadership and membership is extremely gracious and welcoming of rookies like me - I was a new member for a short duration - they were always good to me. Someday soon I hope to be active once again in that group. Hopefully by then they will be willing to step out of their comfort zones and really embrace virtual trade shows and other specialty fairs to tap its true potential. ]
Today I signed up to attend TS2 the trade show for the trade show industry (In 2000 we had actually spent a decent sum of money to exhibit in TS2 - which is ironical - exhibiting in a face-to-face trade show to sell a virtual trade show. We haven't done it since. That experience warrants a separate post because it had valuable lessons despite being ahead of its time) . The 2008 TS2 event actually has a special mention of Face2Face.
My point is, every time real-world event marketers describe their event as 'face-to-face', it dawns upon me that virtual meetings and virtual trade shows, virtual job fairs or any other kind of virtual fairs have entered the psyche of the trade show industry. Virtual fairs have gained (dare I say?) a foothold on the minds of the marketer. If there were no such thing as virtual trade shows, then the trade show industry's use of the label face2face would be a redundancy, wouldn't it?
What Webex did to seminars, iTradeFair.com will do to trade shows. We already get calls asking us about the next itradefair. I would hazard a guess that there are more businesses that do not (or can not) exhibit in trade shows, than there are on face-to-face trade show floors. That absentee population - absentee for whatever valid reason it might be - is hungry for an affordable channel to promote their business or themselves. That is a huge untapped opportunity in a parallel universe of business and consumer events. Virtual trade fairs and other specialty virtual fairs will act as a catalyst in converting many of these absentees into face2facers. It may start with regional gatherings, but the craving for social interaction in-person will push many of the virtual trade show participants into seeking ways to meet face-to-face. That is what I see happening in the foreseeable future.
What I know will happen soon is that virtual trade shows will enter the language of everyday business, and then they will enter the lexicon of company accountants and budget analysts. That means companies and their marketing departments will have a budget line-item and a budget for virtual trade shows or other virtual fairs.
The next phase that I foresee is virtual trade shows becoming a part of conversation. Then they become part of business and life. Someday soon I will not be surprised if I overhear a conversation (or a tweet) on how "I met my boss at a virtual trade show" or how "I first found my West Coast sales rep at a virtual trade show".
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