Beiträge

How Amazon controls the World..umm Ecommerce I mean

, ,

Amazon is a good friend just like Google. They brought to us a totally new level of shopping ecommerce and access to information in an instant and operating systems that can compete with those of Apple. At the same time they receive a lot of critique for being too dominant and gathering too much personal information.
I am one of those who rather praise the enormous success and the numerous benefits these giants brought to us customers. But as we all know marketing messages are only one side of the story. Please go through these slides to get an impression of what all Amazon is today. And everytime you are surprised about facts you did not know, keep in mind that aside from all the records, Amazon is still very often being criticized for not being successful enough by analysts…

Amazon.com: the Hidden Empire

View more presentations from faberNovel

Facebook's eCommerce Plans

, ,

Inspired by an article by Paul Marsden on socialcommercetoday, I thought about facebook going social commerce and about Paul’s statements in his article.

I suppose a universal payment system on facebook is a must not an option. Performance of facebook has in recent months been fairly poor from time to time, so an additonal source of income would certainly help cover the enormous maintenance costs and hopefully improve performance. Just as back in the days when fb was a really lean community. I keep wondering if maybe fb is not growing at too fast a pace.
But you are perfectly right that commerce will have to go where the potential buyers are – either in terms of ad placements or cleverly integrated into portals. And I am also dead sure that Amazon will move closer to facebook. At the end of the day people want convenience. Why leave your web 2.0 home facebook to go shopping at amazon.com or elsewhere with all the numerous different logins? Instead, you could stay among your peers and even virtually shop together. This is actually what many of us already do using online stores and discussing products via MSN and Skype.
If you ask me, that will be the next step. Commerce will be social just as in real life.

As to performance – yeah right, it might slow down again if you embedd Amazon et al.

Blogging about harddisk shopping…

, ,

Where to buy an external harddrive when you know you need one?
Usually my purchase decision-making processes are fairly complex. Often more complex than necessary. That’s the fate of many marketing people. Anyways, having bypassed the procedure of realizing a true need, I at once jumped into the phase of searching for the ideal shop. The next big issue. A big electronics chain such as Conrad, Media Markt or Saturn? Or rather an online store? The first offer the opportunity of really being able to hold the product in your hands. That is, if it is unpacked. The „price you pay“? Usually unexperienced personnel with no time always in search for the next shelf to hide behind. I must say I barely shop there because of a constant fear of being fooled by the advertised special offers (which often are attractive, I must admit) while other products cost more than elsewhere. But even if the price seems right, does the product really hold up to the promises of the store clerk? Or is he just trying to sell what the management told him to, for example to get rid of overstock. Decision-making can be a pain in the ass in our culture of affluence. Buy a TV and choose between a hundred different models. Buy an mp3 player and you’ll be overwhelmed by at least 25 models, many many more when shopping online. This is the golden hour of strong brands serving as lighthouses, visible from afar although perhaps equipped just like the others. Take a basic iPod for example. Comparing such a magnitude of products is almost impossible. At least in the store. But there is one feature, one critical advantage of online stores that no clerk can outmatch. The objective and critical opinion of the crowd, of the masses of consumers out there, all searching to maximize their utility given a certain budget they are willing to pay. Recommendations put light into the darkness. They offer personal impressions that are so much closer to everybody’s daily life. They praise good products and positive experiences hoping that when you do good something good might come back to you. And although this system could theoretically be corrupted by companies, in the overall run it can be trusted.
This leads me back to my initial purchase process. I need a new external harddrive.
As time is usually limited, I too, am glad about every simplification and short cut. So it was a reasonable thing to first check Amazon.de for harddrives. The benefits? Good overview of what harddrives currently offer, a good impression of the price level, and user insights on most of the products offered. This eased my choice alot. I barely felt a risk buying a product that with more than 80 recensions received an average of 4,7 stars. Plus free shipping on top. This post is not intended to glorify amazon but it just shows why amazon is so popular and the perfect place to shop for me. At least when it comes to electronics. Amazon is also an example of the democratizizing effect of the internet. It may be easy for a store clerk to fool a pensionist but given the transparency of prices and product evaluations on the internet, the internet gave the consumer one thing: power. Power to quickly access expert knowledge, to easily compare and to look behind the product specifications on the package. May the best platform win!