When looking at local print as a advertising medium that can be extended online for additional distribution, why hold onto all of the typical limitations that a circular / FSI type promotion places such as:
The non-reactive time line (most circulars are created month(s) in advance) of typical print ad production which limits the competitive responsiveness of product assortment and pricing
Mistakes that sneak into the print ads require huge costs and processes for managing
The limited physical space which prevents many promotions and deals from every being included in the advertisement
The ever rising costs of printing and transportation
The ever declining distribution options due to the decline in newspaper circulation
By going virtual with store based promotions, many of the constraints that print imposes disappear
By utilizing digital publishing for the benefits that it affords and doing virtual store-based promotions, one could expect to now realize:
An unlimited number of pages, deals and items can be included and promoted
Substantial savings over print ads as all of the paper, ink, printing, transportation and newspaper insertion fees no longer apply
Near real time product assortment and pricing updates are possible so one will no longer to be forced into honoring misprints, errors, etc
Distribution of this highly localized in store promotions across every possible digital medium including paid search, rich media display ads, widgets, mobile and much more
Using your local in-store advertising (eg virtual promotions) to help mange down end-of-life cycle items, stock shortages, inventory surpluses, new product introductions, etc
Below is a overview presentation that is rich with graphical examples of leading retailers such as The Home Depot, Whole Foods, Target and Sears that are blazing a trail in this area. Not all paths have lead to immediate success, with the biggest hurdle being how to get an equivalent amount of local distribution for less money than print costs, but in all cases the business goal was the same. How to look beyond the day where print circulars are no longer the primary method of localized in-store advertising.
The learnings each retailer has generated have been immense and very insightful, with the most successful to date (Target) not giving up after the first try but rather continually evaluating and adjusting their web only exclusive content strategies. For reference, included in the presentation are five different versions of virtual pages that Target has run over the years. It’s fun to see them all in chronological order (from most recent to oldest) as one can really see the progress in integration, messaging, branding and positioning.
Back in 2004, ShopLocal (called CrossMedia Services at the time) only had one single Canadian client – Staples Business Depot. From that starting point to today, ShopLocal has really carved out a decent chunk of business inside of Canada with over 20 live sites that are dedicated to serving this market. With the recent partnership of Canwest however, this will provide the a large accelerant to ShopLocal penetrating the remaining markets and retail verticals within Canada (and taking market share away from the only two mentionable competitors – Conversys and Flyerland which is run by Metroland Media Group – a pseudo competitor to Canwest).
The entire ShopLocal team is buzzing about the possibilities of having one of the largest print media / publisher behind this effort. The interactions to date with the entire Canwest team have been amazing and have only confirmed that they are the right partner to tackle the Canadian market with. 2009 will be the year marked by the progress of how this partnership grows in scope and size, both of which already have long lists of ideas and concepts already being worked on.
Also a quick bit of deserved recognition to both the Canwest and ShopLocal teams for hitting every single milestone date and launching this multi-month effort on time. Building and implementing an entire print – to- web business for 12 active newspapers is no small challenge and took some real dedicated effort on everyone’s part. This launch includes all of the Flyers/FSIs/Circulars, Run of Press (ROP) ads and Special Section conversion processing and digital distribution for any participating Canwest advertiser.
Here Is The Complete List Of All Of The ShopLocal | Canwest Canadian Comparison Shopping Sites That Were Just Rolled Out (12 total, listed A – Z, all part of the Canada.com Newspaper Network):
NOTE: Many of these sites are multi-language enabled in both English and French
Finally, here is the official press release that went out covering this new partnership with Canwest and below is a limited wrap up of the other sites that picked up this story if an outside perspective is desired.
ShopLocal hosts the online circulars for many top retailers, and can track the behavior of the shoppers who visit those circulars to plan their shopping expeditions. In particular, we can track the shoppers as they:
Interact with the circulars, in particular by clicking on individual offers, thus showing interest in those particular offers. We measure this behavior in the form of a clickthrough rate
Visit multiple circulars, i.e. the circulars for different retailers. We measure this behavior as the % of visitors that cross-shop.
We have reported on both the clickthrough rate measure and the cross-shopping measure in previous posts. Both show pronounced patterns by day of week. When both are converted to an index, and plotted on the same chart, we can see that they represent a perfect purchase funnel:
(Chart is based on 5 weeks of data during the holiday period of 2008, excluding the week of Thanksgiving.)
Online circulars typically go live on a Sunday and run for 1 week, so this chart follows the behavior of shoppers as they interact with the circulars during that week.
On Sunday, shoppers come to check out the new retailer offers (traffic peaks). However, they come to browse and compare more than to buy: they view the most listings, but are least likely to click on them for additional information, while 1/6 of all shoppers visit the circulars of two or more retailers, nearly twice as many as on any other day.
For the rest of the week, shoppers gradually become more focused: traffic is down, but clickthrough rates increase and cross-shopping decreases, as they zero in on their purchases.
The trend peaks on Friday, when shoppers finalize plans for their Saturday shopping expeditions: traffic is the second highest of the week, yet clickthrough rates are the highest, and cross-shopping is the lowest. These are highly committed shoppers.
Some conclusions:
Sunday is a very important day because it starts customers down the purchase funnel, even if many of them don’t actually purchase that day.
Friday is also an extremely important day, because that is the day on which many customers are making the transition from shopper to buyer.
One key reason that the online circular is a successful merchandising tool for retailers is that it remains equally accessible to customers throughout their purchase cycle, unlike the print circular which is most visible and accessible when it arrives in the Sunday paper.
Consumers cross-shop, i.e. visit the online circulars of multiple retailers, to a significantly greater extent during the holidays. The chart below shows that the weekly cross-shopping pattern for the last two years has been very similar, peaking during the week of Black Friday both times, with 2008 peaking just a little lower:
Evidently, shoppers responded to the economic news by cross-shopping a little less, probably because their shopping lists were shorter. Still, the pattern is remarkably similar. The next chart is a rolling 7-day average of daily cross-shopping starting November 2007:
The November peaks are offset because Black Friday fell later in 2008. Also worth noting:
2008 is distinctly though not dramatically lower than 2007
Daily cross-shopping is not much lower than weekly cross-shopping: most consumers who cross-shop do so when they first visit the online circulars
A plot of the daily data shows that there is a strong day-of-week pattern in cross-shopping:
A plot by day of week shows that cross-shopping peaks on Sunday, when most circulars launch, and falls off rapidly to a low on Friday:
Most shoppers are making their cross-retailer comparisons early on, and return later to confirm their choice rather than to reevaluate.
Despite historically high levels of retailer promotions, consumers remained if anything more loyal to their primary retailers in 2008 than in 2007. This gives retailers a good chance to capture a large portion of the holiday spending by consumers who are influenced by deals to come to the store, and should increase the overall effectiveness of the retailers’ promotions.
Looking for some inspiration on what a weekly ad desktop application could be like? Here is a demo video (sorry, no sound) that showcases was may be possible as far as front end user interface (UI) / user experience (UX) presentations around print content. Let your imagination run wild as the possibilities using this new technology are near endless.
This entire (Anthropologie) print catalog was brought to life with Adobe Flex and Adobe AIR which provides a cross-OS run time environment that allows applications to run outside of the browser. Sounds geeky right? Ask yourself if these type of features are of interest to your business and users, as all of these amazing benefits are only available via desktop applications built via Adobe AIR and then answer the above question.
Offline / Online Capabilities – Have a flight but still want to look at the weekly ad for your home? Not a problem with an AIR app. All the required data is stored locally and temporarily cached on your machine and then refreshed the next you an internet connection is established
Permanent Position – No clutter. No distractions. No ads. No stop or back button. It’s just your application and the user. By going the route of a desktop application, your brand and content is exposed to the user in a manner more intimate than anything experienced in a browser. Your application will now be an icon on their desktop. Your application will now be on their ‘Start’ menu. By having a user choose to download and install your desktop application, it is showing a great deal of trust and interest in your brand and content on the user’s part
Full Screen – No browser navigation, status bar, scroll bars junking up the UI/UX. AIR apps can take over the entire screen
Nifty comparison chart that highlights the differences between and browser and desktop application
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