Practicology 

Offering personalised products and attracting the customer with value-adding services like auto-replenishment or subscription is what positions the best sites as experts in their product categories.

Results

Practicology designed the scoring for the report so that they could identify how well brands tackle the challenge of attracting customers to purchase from their website directly instead of from a retailer or marketplace (such as Amazon). The first place is shared by Nike and Nespresso, who both have a very clear direct-to-consumer strategy.

The following table provides an overview of the top 15 brands, which are mostly categorised in the footwear or skin care industry.

Other findings

The report features key benchmarks for brands who are either trying to launch a D2C website for the first time or trying to improve their performance. For example, of the 100 brands in question, 72% combines their brand- and e-commerce site rather than confusing customers with a transactional and non-transactional site.

In order to help consumers in making a purchase decision, 75% provide products with a detailed description. For the same effect, more than half of the brands shows good quality reviews and product ratings on their website.  Less than one-third of the e-commerce brands offer free delivery as standard, while 59% only offers free delivery when the customer spends a certain amount of money on their order.

To attract customers to the brands’ own website instead of another retailer, 32% offers exclusive products in their webshop that cannot be purchased anywhere else. A quarter of the brands offer product bundles that can only be exclusively bought online from the brand.

Allowing the customer to personalise a product increases attraction as well. 17% of the brands use this strategy, such as Nike with its ‘Nike By You’ design tool or online jewellery stores allowing customers to engrave products.

29% of brands (mostly beauty brands) offer free samples that a customer is able to choose from a selection when they make a purchase. However, in order to build long-term relationships, 17% offers an auto-replenishment or subscription service.

Video instructions and guides are offered by approximately 58.5% to help customers with their purchase and in the right choice of products.

The researched brands are operating in the following product categories: Accessories, Alcohol, Consumer Electronics, Food & Drink, Beauty & Healthcare, Luggage, Petcare, Supplements, Swimwear and Toys. For this report, the usability, e-commerce proposition and product information of each brand were reviewed.

Particular attention was paid to three areas where brands can add value through product, services and content.  

The post Nike and Nespresso at top 100 of direct-to-consumer online ranking appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.

“The secret of change Is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” This mantra was the essence of Nespresso’s journey of implementing next-day in 80% of their markets. Davide Costella, Supply Chain Project Manager at the HQ in Lausanne, and Thomas Vander Putten, responsible for delivery services in Belgium, spoke about the path towards next-day delivery during the eTail delivery event in Amsterdam: “Even in a big company like ours, you cannot walk into the room and say: Tomorrow, we do next-day delivery!”

Nespresso, part of the Nestlé Group, is headquartered in Lausanne. With Georgy Clooney as an iconic brand ambassador since 2005, the company has grown immensely throughout the past years, now boasting over 12,000 employees, more than 450 boutiques worldwide and 24-hour a day customer service via telephone. However, large shares of Nespresso- orders happen online. Until recently, Nespresso promised a 48-hour maximum delivery, priding itself on the website in ‘delivering 99% of all orders on time’.  But in 2014, the company embarked on a major change: offering next-day delivery throughout the entire network.

Raising awareness
Davide Costella, who supported 8 markets to manage this transformation, outlines the first steps: “We started an operational diagnostic. How can we reach the goal of next-day delivery with the current operation? We started collecting data about our clients, our sellers, and our warehouse performance. We then ran a what-if-simulation and started challenging our existing network. Part of this was removing inefficiencies in other departments outside of Supply Chain. This can be challenging because you need to step outside of your own boundaries and show other departments that there is room for improvement.” In order to tackle this change management, Costella stresses the importance of raising awareness, give transparency and making the goals clear to all the parties involved.

‘Co-creating with your couriers`
 Next to reducing order integration times, the partnerships with carriers have to be adapted to the new needs. Vander Putten: “First, when we presented our list with needs, the carriers were concerned, as for instance opening distribution centres on Sundays would lead to extra costs.” However, Nespresso managed to show its partners the mutual benefits of adopting a more flexible delivery process. The service provider can attract more or different clients, and extra services such as the selection of a certain delivery day by the customer significantly reduces unsuccessful delivery attempts. Co-creating a new system with the couriers in the end led to benefits for both parties.

Evening deliveries more popular than free coffee
In Belgium, evening deliveries are less standard than in the Netherlands. Still, explains Vander Putten, customer research showed a big demand amongst Nespresso clients. However, when the service was implemented, only 18-20% accepted this new option. Subsequently, Nespresso launched a proactive communication campaign, which did not create a peak, but raised acceptance to a stable level of 35%. “The campaign was more successful in terms of conversion than any email campaign involving free coffee,” says Vander Putten.

Secret of success
A journey to implement such change in an organization is not easy- it takes time and energy, admit both men. So what is the secret ingredient for success? According to Davide Costella, a key factor is transparency and ensuring all parties understand what their contribution is in making the customers happier: “Nespresso is ready and committed more than ever to implement this very challenging and fascinating journey in the remaining markets.”

Photo credits: Nespresso media library

The post How to turn 48-hour delivery into 24-hour delivery: A change management initiative appeared first on Cross-Border Magazine.