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Luxury retail is at the heart of a conversation, connecting products and service with a discerning clientele. Digital developments allow customers to initiate and sustain conversations amongst themselves without the permission, support or mediation of the brand.  Ian Jindal considers how and why the luxury sector might better engage with customers online and finds that the options have little to do with technology – rather a return to core values.

Social networks have always existed in luxury – just not in a digital form. Trunk shows and champagne evenings fêted select customers, and these exclusive events gained a wider circulation via key media titles.

‘Feedback’ outside these circles was limited to “letters to the editor”. Current web technology allows customers and readers (now interchangeable) to air their views directly– via comments, ratings and reviews, click-through sales or by creating their own blogs. This is the ‘social web’ – where customers can talk to each outside of the direct control of the brands they’re discussing.

It’s tempting to dismiss such customer feedback as irrelevant for the luxury sector: while it may be appropriate for commodities, surely a luxury brand needs no plebiscite!  As Tyler Brûlé, Editor in Chief of Monocle comments: “strong brands don’t win by consensus”. Brûlé’s challenge to brands is to lead, but not to ignore customers: feedback can improve a design, and early input (say on a prototype) from key influencers can improve a production model. For services in particular no amount of marketing hype can compare with sincere feedback from users.

Brûlé’s insight is resoundingly supported by recent research, specifically for the luxury sector. 71% of shoppers use reviews (Forrester), 91% of millionaires always or often check reviews before purchase (Advertising Age) and 84% of those earning $150k+ use  sites where customers review and rate products and services (Luxury Institute). Tellingly, 78% rank recommendation as the most credible form of advertising (Nielsen).

None of these findings will surprise luxury brands who will recognise in these findings the key components of “reputation” – favourable experienced amplified through repetition. The issue is that in 2009 many of the mechanisms used for amplification are tarnished or jaded – hence the interest in new tools.

Not your father’s old social media

It’s an easy misconception that to engage in social media a brand needs to have forums, ratings and blogs all enabled on their sites already. In reality, expert and experienced practitioners advocate a range of approaches, depending upon the brand’s position and their target customers’ behaviour.

One important tools is of course ‘Ratings and Reviews’, where customers can post their review of a product or service, along with a ‘star rating’. Justin Crandall, UK Managing Director of Bazaarvoice, the review system provider, notes that ratings are not a universal panacea. How can one be sure that customers are qualified to comment? How relevant are ‘star ratings’ to a complex luxury experience? Crandall cites their research into brand empathy as inspiring their new offering – “Stories”. These allow customers to relate a narrative experience with a brand or service. This echoes the use of editorial in magazines, allied to the power of the personal and specific. A trial last year with an upmarket, niche cosmetics brand found that 39% of all site visits started at a story, page views increased 81% and average order values increased 20%.

For luxury services in particular an amplified, inspiring experience is extremely powerful and resonates more than boilerplate marketing patter.
Crandall mentions other benefits of Stories, including improving Google ranking, understanding how your brand’s perceived, and identifying pockets of interest that might support a new store or retail operation. Relevant content can assist customers at every stage of the purchase consideration cycle.

DIY is not the only way

One does not have to manage social media tools oneself to benefit. Indeed, there’s a new category of retailers who are becoming ‘social intermediaries’. Companies like ThisNext.com have placed social network at the very heart of their business, rather than a bolt-on. In addition to the now-expected rating systems, ThisNext goes further by promoting style-setters and recommenders on their service, identifying them as “Mavens”, their place being secured by page views and click-throughs. Theirs is an empirical, modern take on a brand advocate or style-setter. Brands – whether on not sold via ThisNext – would do well to monitor the activities and recommendations of these Mavens. Asked about the importance of the ‘social’ aspects to their business, Jessyca Frederick, Director of Product Management at ThisNext comments that “social media, like every other marketing tool, has a purpose and a place within a well-balanced marketing campaign”.

All Customers Are Not Created Equal

As David Ogilvy noted some years ago, not all customers are equally profitable. Both Bazaarvoice and ThisNext offer brands, albeit in different ways, mechanisms to identify the segments or profiles of contributors and so respond appropriately.
Further selectivity comes from focusing one’s ‘social attention’ in places that chime with your brand’s values and form an ‘oasis’ at which your target customers congregate. One example is Suzanne Aaronson’s “Spire.com” which offers a distinctive, savvy perspective on luxury consumption with a surprising level of user-contributed insights and tips. Spire is in the tradition of insider, style-leading publications and so offers an opportunity to benefit from social media while remaining on familiar territory.

Rules of engagement

There’s no magic wand for social media – any more than there’s an instant answer to customer engagement in more traditional media. The key requirement is to develop and understanding an engage appropriately. Neither a blanket adoption nor wholesale rejection are likely to be successful.

The modes of engagement to consider are:

• Awareness: monitor the more social activity of your retail channel or customer advocates and dedicate staff time to consider the implications for your brand and opportunities. Even though your responses may be via traditional publishing, marketing or retail channels you will at least be learning and gaining insights.
• Engagement: use the platforms that others have built and contribute appropriately – whether adding information, posting comments or answering questions. If you’re minded to try direct social media tools then consider using them on a subset of your base as a trial – for example supporting a ‘VVIP’ group or around an event. Again, learning and experience are important outcomes.
• Defensive: even if you choose to be inactive, do not ignore social media activity. Existing brand monitoring techniques and services should be used (from Google Alerts on key brand terms, to “buzz monitoring” services across all media). Social Media channels open new areas for protection, however, with many brands not in control of their terms on Twitter and as usernames. Consider the users “Prada” or “Chanel” on Twitter – not exactly as one might expect. Usernamecheck.com offers a free, instant check on 68 social media sites – if your brand is not registered yet then do so quickly. If it it, either congratulations or time to look up the name dispute resolution procedures!

Whether an advocate or sceptic, there’s no escaping the fact that our customers’ behaviour and expectations have changed as a result of new digital media. Commercial brand-owners will see these changes as an opportunity to connect afresh with consumers in the spirit of service and quality synonymous with the luxury market.

This article appeared in November 2008’s edition of Internet Retailing Magazine.

After the buzz and positive atmosphere at the InternetRetailing 2008 Conference, Ian Jindal considers the role of ecommerce in a hostile and uncertain period for retailers: can etail’s star shine undimmed?

There’s a stunned and bruised feeling in retail. Not so much as a result of the downturn/recession/depression (delete according to pessimism) but  at the effect of the unintended consequences.

The speed and extent of the seizure of short-term lending markets has caused significant trouble to businesses who depend upon flexible working capital: growing businesses, seasonal businesses, leveraged businesses with liquidity covenants and suppliers whose working capital needs to be with retailers are all suffering. The amplified impact of retail and manufacturing workers losing confidence, buying power or even jobs will be, for the retail sector, like hitting a wall.

In retail Boardrooms across the land, all eyes are now on eCommerce. While offline like-for-like performance is down across sectors, eCommerce is still growing or at least ‘holding up’. As drowning men cleave to passing logs, so do CEOs view the online channel as an opportunity to save the financial year. Many in eCommerce, myself included, remember the nuclear winter of 2001-3: the question is what lessons have we learned and do we have the strength to apply them?

The key lesson is that this is a time for brave people to be ruthless and focused. In a rising market there’s always a “mañana” in which to implement gentlemanly improvements in segmentation, stock control, processes, addressing margin… However, there is no “tomorrow”. I know that Christmas is busy, but we must all fear that January post-sale will be even tougher. Putting off decisive action until December 31st is folly.

While each business is different, in general we can concentrate upon pace, focus, agility and responsiveness – attributes that should be a fundamental part of ecommerce.

Pace is vital since we need to trade our sites daily, not weekly or monthly. Learn lessons quickly and implement immediately. This is no time for a ‘to do’ list – you need a ‘just done’ list!

Focus must be upon customer-facing activity – help them part with their cash. Simplicity is a function of this: in merchandising, marketing and projects.

Agility is needed to move quickly and with confidence: make the changes now, not next week!

Responsiveness should be to the customer or emergent opportunities. The origin of the word ‘retail’ is from the French word “retailler” or ‘re-tailor’ – creating something anew for each customer, focused on serving them. The web’s ability to segment, personalise, algorithmically optimise and merchandise should come to the fore. Now, today – not tomorrow.

These are simple requirements, but take backbone to implement. Wibbling, waffling and waiting should be reserved for those on the sidelines.

Even with this bold, brave approach we etailers are dependent upon our colleagues in logistics for service levels, buying and merchandising to have the right goods to sell and our stores and contact centres for cross-channel leverage. The temptation is to try and forge ahead online but now more than ever is the time to work closely with colleagues to burnish a consistent service to customers across all channels. While your colleagues see ecommerce as an opportunity to rescue trading performance you have an opening to cement cross-channel working… not to show that you’re separatist, selfish and narrowly focused!

eCommerce continues to perform well, and it’s said that stars shine more brightly against a dark sky. However, our aim cannot be simply to be valued in comparison with the decline of others. eCommerce professionals have an opportunity in the coming months to demonstrate a robust and agile commercialism and to lift the whole business by customer focus, modern inclusive working practices and delivering the multichannel leverage of which we speak so often.

In these dark times it takes bravery to be brilliant and simplicity to sparkle. eCommerce should be a constellation, not a lone star: this Christmas,  don’t twinkle alone.

The Olympics are an extraordinary event. Not solely for the obvious (and barely-understood) commitment and expertise of the athletes but for the emergence of a new form of human being: Homo Potatum Sofum Expertatis, sometimes known by its common name, the ‘couch potato’.

Being inactive while watching telly is not that remarkable. Rather, it’s the peculiar quadrennial transformation into a sporting expert that defies accepted ideas of evolution. I’d never seen synchronised diving before, but I can note with great accuracy the differences in body line, the perfection of the piked position and the miniscule timing differences in breaking the surface… Humans have evolved to be able to identify tiny differences in patterns, even if most of us lack the ability to make our bodies work to those fine tolerances.

My mind slipped back to thinking about retail, and I realised that the armchair critic is no match for the uncaring, critical, always-right customer!

In the battle to extract cash from the recession-constricted wallets of our visitors etailers are resorting to a near-permanent sale, free delivery, deeper additional discounts… and all the while Christmas is coming and we need to gear up for peak.

Is this our Olympic relay race? We have the highly-honed and much practised disciplines of logistics, buying, marketing and technology, all at peak form after over 4 years of “working” ecommerce. However, if the team play and baton-passing is not the equal of the individuals then the customer notices. “98% performance”" gains no credit for the hard work and expertise: rather, the ‘2% deficit’ is noticed and punished.

Characteristic of the ‘mature stage of ecommerce’ is that customers have now experienced expertise – either from you or (painfully) from your competitors. Unfortunately, the expert etailer gets little explicit praise, save for an increased retention and net promoter [tm] ranking. That retailer’s competitors however suffer silently – the silence of being shunned. Customer may still come to your site, from habit, curiosity or expensive CPA tactics but upon arrival your site suddenly seems to lack lustre, that certain Gold Medal je ne sais quoi, the allure of the champion. Second division. Vauxhall Conference. Amateur.

The first symptom of underperformance is a perplexing drop in conversion rates. Blame the recession, blame holidays, wait for the new season’s stock, fire up another affiliate… Somehow, though, the medal positions are always filled by your competitors… While we all clap politely and are pleased with ecommerce’s resilience – the ‘rise in popularity of our sport’, if you will – it’s of zero consolation to the true competitor, for whom it’s medals or nothing.

With peak season imminent, what are our options? The first point is not to start anything new or risky: this is a time for a perfect drill rather than a  practice match. The next is to coach each of your skilled players in working to their maximum capabilities – practice at peak enables performance at peak. Finally, make sure that your training camp includes cross-discipline practice and communication. With high pressure and high stakes it’s all too easy for people to fall back into their own areas and leave the overall problem to ’someone else’. But as Potatus Expertatis knows, it’s the tiny cracks and flaws that mark the teams down from gold, rather than the the flashes of isolated brilliance moving them up.

Peak success will be from Gold-standard teams, working flawlessly and consistently together to deliver under pressure against the etailing elite. No amount of free delivery and empty promises can win the Christmas Olympics.

To the victor the spoils.

The paradigm of the web channel being a vast shop with elastic walls has run its course. As Ian Jindal packs his bucket and spade for the summer holidays, he considers a new etailing paradigm: active selling in the network age. Retailers have managed the web for too long – our customers want it back!

The web channel was initially regarded as an infinite warehouse without the costs of shops or space constraints, but customers’ early enthusiasm for clicking through many pages of turgid descriptions soon waned. Dimensional navigation and richer imagery sped filtering and improved product presentation, but where there existed a surfeit of information (electricals, mobile phones and computers spring to mind) the customer runs out of steam after a few clicks and has either reverses or abandons their journey.

“Personalisation” has been the always-just-out-of-reach panacea to these problems for at least a decade: matching the perfect product to the individual customer. Unfortunately, the effort of profiling customers’ requirements requires ESP and clairvoyance as much as raw data and we now see that customers’ behaviour is modal, inconsistent and based upon needs and attitudes as much as upon past activity.

We are in a complex world, with an increased overhead of analytics, data and profiles – yet no increase in conversion rates! While the arms race to improve and tweak algorithms, heuristics and approaches, there is a natural limit to the web’s selling capabilities at present, based upon pixels and time. I’ve been reliably informed that one cannot walk to the back of a supermarket and out again without seeing 300 products (the average family buys some 250 different products in a year). On the web it’s entirely possible to get in and out of a site seeing only half a dozen items. The average supermarket shopping visit is about 25 minutes’ duration yet if a web session hits 2 minutes we worry that customers are lost or have had a narcoleptic episode.

Just as the stretching of elastic walls has given reducing returns on-site, retailers have sought to stretch them via other means: the growth of search the rise of affiliates (based, broadly, on either discounting, search cunning or niche expertise) and site syndication have pushed the retailers’ messages further afield, while also creating a ‘blast radius’ of new sites – whether signal or noise is a matter of opinion and context.

Hitherto it is the retailer who’s been notionally in charge: setting a sales and acquisition agenda – attracting, engaging and monetising customers.

Now, however, there is the start of a shift in power from the retailer to ‘the network’. This is not a redressed “web2.0″ pitch to implement geegaws and widgets on our sites, but rather a qualitative shift – where the data, the discrimination, the added value all reside in the aggregated activity of customers.

The first move comes from portable data – microformats and XML – that allow customers to take and use standardised data off-site. Next, a customer may record their computer usage in a portable, machine-readable format: Attention Profiling Markup Language (APML). Customers may offer to share this with retailers (thereby improving site suggestions and conversion) – in return for incentives.

Another move from the individual retailer to the network comes from review and ratings systems, like Bazaarvoice and Reevoo. Each of these suppliers works for retailers and enrich their sites. However, their reach is greater than an individual brand or site and the insight and value shifts from being retailer-centric and controlled to one based on the network.

Similarly, product recommendations (once the preserve of the on-site retailer systems) are now driven by external and, soon, network intelligence. ChoiceStream, Aggregate Knowledge and others can suggest cross- and up-sell options to customers. If they connect their insight across retailers then their systems would have more insight than any of their individual clients. Phorm, via its arrangements with so many ISPs, can see the aggregated browsing, ad-clicking and product-viewing behaviour of more customers than any one retailer or individual ad network. Finally, let us not forget that Google Checkout can ’see’ every product purchased, at what price and thereby get a better view of ultimate conversion and effectiveness than any retailer – all the while retaining the closest relationship with the customer. In time this insight could power new forms of performance advertising, pricing models and as-yet-unformed commercial opportunities. For Google!

Unlocked data, information exchange, the network effect and new access to hitherto-private stages of the sales cycle mean that customers (and new service providers) have more power than ever. The implication for retailers is that they need to consider ever more carefully the uniqueness and value of their proposition and how they can work within this networked, amorphous world. As we unwind on the beach this summer we should keep a small part of our brains mulling over our approaches: contributive, expert, open and distinctive – hopefully in time to engage in the Christmas season! This is a topic to which we’ll return, but in the meantime “Happy holidays”.

The European bloc is the third most attractive global market – after the US and China – and, despite the differences in culture, language and infrastructure, this agglomeration of consumers is at least held together by the twin factors of relative affluence and a consistent legal system – the pre-requisites for trade.

The UK is well-positioned to be at the heart of international moves into Europe: the relatively well-advanced broadband and computing infrastructure, the credit card penetration levels, the enjoyment of shopping (online and off) and the ready acceptance of brand imports from across the pond makes the UK a natural ‘beach-head’ for US aspirations in Europe (or “rest of world” as our cousins so often term it).

The well-developed markets in France and German also hold attractions but outside the big three markets – each with its own idiosyncrasies – any hope of an homogeneous, easily-addressable marketplace evaporates.

Leaving aside language and culture (which of course one can’t) the plain sailing of the ecommerce front-end so often comes to grief on the jagged rocks of logistics and distribution. While it’s easy to present an ecommerce front-end to any market (indeed, we often scour the websites of US-only retailers and ponder the costs of delivery and import duty) it’s a totally different matter to get the goods to the customers. Legacy national carrier networks, cross-border delivery issues, the siting of warehousing, management of credit cards and returns… Ah – all of the problems of real ecommerce, but with a combinatorial level of complexity. Software alone cannot solve this, nor can marketing. Hence we see GSI’s European team investing in local logistics companies and partnerships, and the growth of ‘end to end’ commerce offerings that can provide a complete ‘click to doorstep’ service in-country.

What is the cause of this sudden interest? At a high level there’s a combination of a search for new growth outside the US and UK, a feeling that the technology allows a foray into Europe, and the growth of the indigenous etail markets growing to a critical, attractive mass.

Within this there are five main categories of activity (based unscientifically on my conversations last month):

1. existing master of the large-scale play who look to extend their efficient supply chain and volume retailing to other territories
2. niche or specialist etailers for whom a global market might exist and who now look to replace lost domestic volumes
3. Global manufacturer, facing demand for their products in many territories, and juggling global marketing/brand ownership with a variable quality of local distributorships
4. a domestic power-house looking for “near-shore” opportunities to support growth.
5. companies who form the local part of a global group coming under pressure to operate in a unified, global fashion.

We will be tracking these developments with interest in these pages in the coming months.

The challenge of Europe is not just one of plugs, pipes and trucks: there’s a ’selling’ challenge too. While it’s trite to note that customer behaviour may differ in regions and markets, what can we learn from this? Furthermore how can etail professionals move beyond obvious promotional mechanisms and enhance profitability? These questions will be occupying Europe’s leading multichannel retailers in Amsterdam this month for the inaugural European eCommerce Forum (ECF).

The Forum is an invite-only, expert peer group for etailers with €70million+ in etail sales, and will provide a confidential space for discussion, experimentation, benchmarking and networking. A joint initiative of Internet Retailing and Joris Beckers (CEO of FredHopper), we aspire to improve in-country selling capabilities as well as a broader European view.

A fortnight later our colleagues at ACSEL, the French association for eCommerce, will be launching their book – “Europe – an Opportunity for eCommerce ” by Jean-Christophe Defline – at a conference in Paris where I’ll be expanding on the European view from the ECF and the UK perspective on eCommerce.

Most etailers will not welcome further complexity when the focus is upon the likely consumer downturn in the UK, so “Europe” may appear an untimely distraction. However, this syzygy of interest in Europe highlights topics of interest to us all: improved brand and customer communications; dealing flexibly with multiple partners and carriers; learning responsiveness to smaller, niche markets and, of course, driving for growth in a tough economic climate.

Thanks to client engagements your Editor in Chief has had the opportunity to pound the malls, boutiques and ateliers of Hong Kong, London, New York and Manchester – all in the space of high carbon-footprint month. During my travels I’ve been both demonstrating best practice rich internet applications and spending times in some truly extraordinary retail venues – from the highest end of luxury outlets and malls in Hong Kong through discount and scale retailers in NYC, where luxury and mass-markets collide, and niche, one-outlet custom retailers in the UK. As a backdrop to this till-gazing my newsfeeds have kept me in touch with the statistics: ongoing fears of a consumer recession; growth in online sales over the Christmas season that show the channel taking an ever-greater proportion of retail sales and a mix of retail results, with some winners and a few losers whose sales have declined.

In my conversations with retailers there’s a general agreement that the “consumer situation” is going to be difficult through 2008 and that spring trading won’t help fashion retailers enough (after all, Spring/Summer goods have a lower cash value that the big winter coats and back to school outfits) and the electronics retailers lack a compelling product – no Xbox/Wii launch, no new operating system, no radical shift in computer power or screen technology. Even the DVD format war has fizzled to a conclusion.

In all, retailers are looking to proceed with caution, eye promotional activity and keen pricing as their lodestone in the difficult currents ahead – looking to steady sales or have a ‘managed decline’ while protecting margins. In a word – incrementalism.

I fear, though, that such stoicism and incrementalism will not serve retailers well: there’s no such thing as an average decline.

Customer behaviour is binary: they either buy or they do not. It’s not as if – faced by a reduced amount of free cash – a customer simply decides to spend £97 instead of £100. Clearly, retailer discounting may give that appearance (ie if we reduce prices) but the more worrying situation is that customers simply do not buy at all from us: a 100% discount!

This was obvious to me as I eavesdropped on the faithful in four different Apple stores fondling the new MacBook Air. Even early adopters acknowledge that the machine is underpowered but its impact is clear: it makes other options look undesirable and customers will wait for the ‘version 2′ rather than spend now or on an alternative. The message for rival products is “we don’t want it” not “we can’t afford it”.

Likewise, for clothing. Recent reports show that customer aspirations remain high even when cash is tight. The observed behaviour is that they’ll continue to buy high-end goods, but in lower quantities, and would fund the purchases by eschewing other non-essential purchases (ie reduced overall sales for the high end, zero sales at the lower end: no ‘average’ in sight!).

Luxury etailers, however, should not take this custom for granted. A quantitative survey by Conchango this month (covered on our portal) shows a catalogue of basic errors and shoddy customer experience. 30% of ordered goods did not arrive, and from a total score of 190 Estee Lauder (the best) only managed 109 and Dior held up the bottom with a lowly 56 (goods didn’t arrive).

The lessons from this are clear, obvious – and generally ignored. Back your products and marketing with great logistics.

The more difficult lesson though is to look through the aggregate behaviour of 100 customers and consider the unique experience of each of them: if we fail to communicate, inspire and delight then the customers’ wallets will stay firmly in their pockets. Aggregate percentage shifts in the market will disguise the fact that some retailers will take lots of money and others will see sales fall off a cliff.

A gynaecologist friend once remarked, one cannot be “99% pregnant” – you either are or you’re not. Likewise with retail in 2008: there’s no ‘99% successful’ – you’ll either make the sale or you won’t. In 2008 etail sales will need to be personal, and etailers must act accordingly.

A plague of recruitment calls has set Ian Jindal to musing about what we can learn from the reign of the Chief Electricity Officer.

The phone’s been ringing to the point of melting at IR Towers recently and invariably the opening phrases are either “Hi, I’m looking for a new eCommerce Director – could you help?” or “I work for an exective search firm and a client’s looking for an eCommerce Director – can you help?”. Anecdotal evidence indicates that we’re in a boom in ecommerce – the late adopters (sorry, those with “second mover advantage”) are competing with the pureplays and early-starters for a small pool of talent. Actually, for “talent with experience”.

Such is the clamour for talent that in January’s edition we will look in more detail at the state of skills in the industry – how to grow and retain talent, as well as poaching it.

I’ve had cause to consider the skills we require in senior ecommerce folk: major change management, technical literacy, sales-focused customer marketing, trading experience and if possible some understanding of buying product. Oh, and while you’re chatting to this Superhero, ask whether they have board level gravitas, significant expertise in your sector, a desire to work somewhere lost in the bowels of the company bureaucracy and the self-discipline not to use their x-ray vision other than on company business.

This stringent recruitment requirement – out of kilter with market supply – sent me into the bowels of IR Towers, to the musty library, to research when last there was such an intrusion upon the board hegemony of Managing, Sales and Finance directors (at least, since the invention of Marketing in the 1960s, loosening Sales Director’s grasp on the executive washroom key).

The IT revolution put IT Directors on the Board (now they report to the COO – the morphed, ever-resilient FD in many cases); the people-are-our-capital boom of the late 80s put HR Directors on the Board (they too now find a place within the COO’s domain) and the MBA explosion of the last decade had Strategy Directors and Business Development Directors duking it out for the freshest PowerPoint [tm] templates (now everyone on the board is expected to have an MBA). Of course there are strong HR/IT/Strategy Directors on major Boards. However, if you were to prohibit three directors travelling together on a rickety plane you’d select the CEO, COO and CMO, would you not?

Whither then the eCommerce Director, often batted between Marketing, the COO or as a digital adjunct to B&M? Few today would doubt either the importance or transformational responsibility given to the eCommerce Director, yet a permanent position at the Board table is not a given. eCommerce is still seen as “other”, “different” and something to be dumped on someone else’s desk.

Some dusty research offered up by our nonagenarian archivist reminded me of the brief but important tenure of the Chief Electricity Officer. Electricity defined the modern era, yet was an expensive and immature technology. Once standardisation (voltage, plugs etc) was in place the industry entered the mass-marketing phase – but adoption was slow. In 1902, Niagara Falls alone could generate a fifth of all the electricity used in the United States, and by 1907, only 8% of American homes had electricity. eCommerce is just leaving an analogous phase – with broadband now having reached all of the most commercially-attractive homes in the UK, and browser compatibility and stability taken for granted – customer are now looking ‘through’ the technology and assessing the proposition, the price and promotions.

In order to thrive at the Board table our eCommerce Directors will need every one of the formidable skills that the headhunters are seeking. Alongside them, however, so will their Board colleagues. Which FD can today say they ‘don’t do marketing’, or which CMO could blithely claim to be financially illiterate? Of course this no longer happens. In short order, therefore, we’ll see eCommerce Directors with the full range of skills needed to make a contribution to a savvy, supportive and challenging group of Board colleagues.

This temporary bubble should not relieve Boards of the imperative to fully embrace ecommerce any more than the temporary scarcity of talent in eCommerce should lull specialists into an arrogant separatism. The eCommerce Director has no permanent place at the Board table unless and until she manages to “drop the ‘e’” and become, simply and gloriously, the Commerce Director.

You might be interested in some of the research in
Empires of Light: Edison, Tesla, Westinghouse, and the Race to Electrify the World by Jill Jonnes.