The Official Fluid Blog

Fluid (@Fluid) recently launched two customization-themed shopping experiences for Sears: Craftsman Custom and The Garage Planner.

Craftsman Custom delivers a premium experience for consumers to tailor a pro-quality tool storage solution to their specific needs and tastes. The experience leverages 3d visualization to deliver a blueprint-like experience that progressively builds into a photo-realistic vision of the consumer’s ideal product, all in real time.

The Sears Garage Planner experience is built on inspirations and “starting point” ideas. Consumers are presented with an interactive photo gallery of shoppable and customizable garage storage solutions. The experience is simultaneously inspirational and actionable, injecting the consumer with ideas and empowering them to make them their own.

Our team has a long history designing shopping experiences for customizable products, including …

• FunStamps (the first personalizable stamps offering)
• Timberland Boot Studio (custom footwear)
• Your Reebok (custom footwear) + facebook configurator
• Design Within Reach FLOR Designer (custom carpet configurator)
• Fine Stationery (card & stationery customizer)
• Vans Customs (custom footwear)

We’re fortunate to collaborate with such great brands to innovate new shopping experiences in such a nascent field. We’re proud to be among the first who have created configurators delivering consumers real-time visualization, product rotation, share-to-phone and integrated social sharing tools.

The business benefits of a better customization experience: 200%+ increase in sales, 16+ minute average consumer engagement on-site, spikes in sharing & heavy engagement with social media customization tools.

Some recent observations, field notes, and expectations looking forward:

• Before the “economic downturn” (or whatever it’s called now), Fluid was seeing RFPs for customization up approx 5-10x showing a sharp increase in interest across industries. The recession put most of those projects on hold.

• Those brands that continued forward became increasingly strategic around customization, seeing it as a brand and business building opportunity. In many cases increasing scope and decreasing timelines in an effort to get to market quickly with robust offerings (a differentiation/barrier strategy).

• Interestingly, over half of these brands are in verticals outside of footwear.

• Embedding up-sells in the customization experience has proven so effective that some retailers are pricing base models at-or-under cost and attaching costs per attribute selection (e.g. premium colors, extra set of laces, etc.).

• Providing the consumer with simple, intuitive social tools — both providing the ability to chat real-time with friends & ability to engage one’s facebook network without ever leaving the customization experience — has become a priority among most of our clients (and now considered a best practice within Fluid).

Finally, three predictions:

1. Customization experiences will take shape in ways that are more subtle and less overt – more about great digital shopping and less about “configurators” per se. This is what most consumers want. Thoughtful experiences that embed customization vs. customization being the main draw will help launch this consumer-driven approach to digital shopping into the mainstream.
2. Customization will make the notion of a crowd-sourced economy a reality. Champion and Keds are first movers (and got a lot of brand benefit as a result + some satisfaction at beating Nike to market I’m sure
3. Customizable shopping experiences will increasingly be deployed exclusively to social channels like facebook. Customizing something lends itself superbly to a community atmosphere – expect to see brands fully leveraging all that facebook has to offer in that regard.

It seems like you can’t open The New York Times lately without seeing Vic Gundotra touting Google’s latest innovation or acquisition (disclosure: Fluid worked with Vic when he was at Microsoft — we’re fans).

In addition to Google dominating all-things-mobile, some recent significant announcements:

•    Goggles
•    Acquiring Yelp (almost)
•    Selling direct to consumer (beginning with the Nexus One)
•    Real-time search

Any of the above looked at individually are significant and innovative but not a game changer in their own right.

But when you look at them as a coordinated whole, what begins to emerge is that Google is assembling a new breed of multi-channel ecommerce platform with the potential to deliver consumers a complete shopping experience without ever needing to interact with a retailer’s website, app or social presence.

Whether this is master plan or strategic by-product is up for discussion. But add to the above list the foundation that Google already has put in place:

•    Search UPC codes
•    Shop Savvy
•    Package tracking
•    Google Checkout
•    Google Analytics
•    Catalogs
•    My Shopping List, Gallery View, parametric filtering, etc. etc.

It’s an easy leap to envision this scenario:

A consumer searches Google for “spring trenchcoat belt.” Google returns her a product grid of trenchcoats in interactive merchandising displays allowing for zoom and multiple views across a range of brands. More interesting is tagged user-generated content (e.g. my colleague Vanessa’s twitpic of herself trying on a red Ledstone Trench at Burberry on Spring Street). Real-time results deliver relevant posts/tweets from other similarly focused shoppers. User reviews (courtesy of Yelp or similar) deliver a trove of ratings and geo-located user opinions including the best places to buy online and the best local stores in your area.

Sound familiar? Sounds like your ecommerce site except with more choice, more functionality, and more options making it better for the consumer. Sounds like a pretty awesome digital shopping experience to me – one that decidedly shifts the balance of power to the consumer and turbo-enables the digital shopping patterns we all saw emerge this holiday.

Perhaps most interesting is that Google is not bound to the need to convert. Instead, they benefit most by embracing a new paradigm of the shopping funnel as a non-linear, cross-brand, multi-branched journey. What makes this so powerful is that this is what consumers want and, most often, is in opposition to what individual retailers want to control.

The scenarios get more interesting and paradigm-bending:

• Find the perfect chair while browsing a home design magazine in airport lounge at JFK  >  use Goggles to identify the product  >  mobile search for best prices online + local availability in Seattle  >  share my shopping list to my wife who goes to see them in person and buys from our local design store.

• A Patagonia brand loyalist is shopping in a Patagonia store  >  decides on the jacket he wants but wants to make sure he isn’t overpaying  >  mobile UPC search returns not only best prices but comparable jackets from other outdoor brands  >  even more relevant is the user-generated content, specifically one outdoor enthusiast’s tweet linking to a mobile video where he demonstrates the advantages of The North Face Mercurial Jacket  >  former brand loyalist is now comparison shopping.

There are many more scenarios, all plausible, readily possible and direct outgrowths of consumer behavior patterns that are already happening (brands and retailers are catching up).

The most interesting thing here is that consumers are driving this. They want this new shopping paradigm to fuel their rapidly evolving digital lifestyles. Google’s genius is their relentless commitment to a user-centric strategy and ultimately leading consumers to a vision of their own creation.

I finally got a chance to read Forrester’s “US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2009 – 2014”> (being trapped on planes does have its benefits). Overall there were no big surprises that differed from what we’ve all experienced anecdotally over the last five years: the shift to digital and the focus on experiences continues to build momentum. The usual notables:

• Consumers expect and value interactive branded experiences and punish those who don’t deliver
• Marketing groups are emerging as “strategic leaders” within their organizations (i.e. setting strategy vs. merely executing)
• Interactive marketing’s effectiveness is universally proven and acknowledged and marketing spend is shifting accordingly

Though we’ve seen the above in many articles recently about digital agencies taking the lead, I recommend reading this study for the interesting (occasionally surprising) details embedded in the research. My short list:

Search marketing will dominate because of consumers.
Evolving consumer behavior = more inventory to sell. Think longer multi-word search phrases vs. keywords of the days of yore. Equally important is the rapid adoption of consumers searching on mobile = more volume. All this demand begets more search engines and more innovation in advanced tools for marketers.

Social media will overtake email marketing.
It was no surprise to see social media as the fastest growing digital marketing category (projected 34% compound annual growth rate in spend). What surprised me though was the projection that social media spend would catch up with email marketing spend within two years (projected $1.6B in 2012) and then effectively double in the two years to follow (projected $3.1B in 2014).

Mobile app consolidation.
It was equally no surprise to see mobile marketing as one of the fasted growing categories (projected 27% CAGR). What was interesting is the prediction of fewer applications that are more strategically founded, better targeted, and more meaningful to the consumer. Expect some backlash and a correction from paralyzing consumers with 40,000 + micro-apps, many of which are not built on meaningful ideas.

5 takeaways for what this means for digital retailers and brands forging direct relationships with their consumers:

1. Business-as-usual is a dead notion.
Successful brands will look inwardly both critically and creatively to continually re-structure themselves and their budgets in alignment with consumer behavior

2.  Better understanding your consumers.
Personas of even two years ago need to evolve to better capture evolved and divergent consumer behavior patterns and their digital lifestyles.

3.  Mobile shopping is now standard best practice.
The holiday reports of consumers price-comparing in store armed with mobile scanning and searching apps shows a rapidly evolved digital behavior that will only grow. Whether or not retailers expect a direct ROI from developing mobile site and app experiences, the savvy ones will consider them standard elements of their ecommerce foundations.

4.  Embracing the shopping funnel as a (not necessarily linear) consumer journey.
The brands that win will take a multi-faceted approach to delivering meaningful shopping experiences where consumers wish to spend their time. Consumers in turn will connect with brands and products but on their own terms. It’s no longer (only) about the fewest clicks to cart or conversion per visit.

5.  It’s not about mobile or social media – it’s about ideas worth talking about
(credit: Amy Lanigan, colleague at Fluid @lanigan). Retailers will need to shift from “we need to do something on facebook” to spending more time developing winning strategies that can be executed context-appropriately across channels.

Diapers.com has had quite a year. Recently, Inc. named it the fastest-growing retailer in the U.S., online or off, and Ad Age just added the niche retailer to its “America’s Hottest Brands” list. As a long time agency partner, Fluid knows that Diapers.com walks-the-talk and, from top to bottom, believes passionately in delivering unmatched customer service and a great online shopping experience (check out the new registry tool). Their success is no surprise.

An article in The New York Times this morning headlines that luxury brands, once wary of the web, are now embracing it. The most interesting piece is on Christopher Bailey, Burberry’s chief creative officer: “…high-end brands should go further in trying to give Web stores the rich texture of physical stores. ‘Whether they are walking into our store on Bond Street or tapping in from India or China, it’s about making sure the consumer is getting the same experience…’”

This resonates. Fluid’s philosophy on designing customer experience is that sometimes it’s good to go outside.

When you do, stop by REI’s Seattle flagship store in Seattle. A 3-story high climbing wall dominates the entry. There’s a rain room, a bike trail, a hiking boot test course, and a JanSport play treehouse swarming with marauding children. The interior design and finish details are rustic and rough-hewn, evoking a carefully architected outdoors experience.

Virgin Megastore in Hollywood has 100+ interactive kiosks that offer as much entertainment value as they do access to inventory. And it’s a great place to see bands. And, of course, there’s always Apple. You get the idea.

The point: these elements of the in-store experience are not about thrusting product at the consumer at every opportunity.

Rather, the objective is to create an “emotional moment” with the customer — immersive, uniquely branded and entertaining. Experiences designed to meaningfully connect with the customer. And, by doing so, foster a deeper relationship with the brand, a gratifying experience, and eventually more sales.

Most online retail sites aren’t especially fun. They are usable, clean and bright. Super functional, searchable, and safe. But compared with real-world shopping, they are sterile. Today’s e-commerce sites are like retail spaces 25 years ago: white boxes, bad lighting, uninspired fixtures. Products are well organized and findable but there’s not much retail therapy happening.

The evolution of the in-store experience will absolutely be echoed in the digital realm in one form or another and then taken further than it can be in the physical world. It is inevitable. The online store will soon be the ultimate “full price” flagship, a store experience fueled by interactivity and media, free from the constraints of square footage and physics.

Proof points: Fluid’s recent launches for Vera Wang Princess and Craftsman Customizable Tool Storage

Whether or not brands are ready to embrace this point of view, consumers are demanding it.

Hard work met celebratory fun for Fluid last Wednesday. And one of us ended up bald because of it. Channel 5 News was there to share our exciting news with the whole Bay Area.

(more…)

We’ve just returned from Shop.org’s Annual Summit in Las Vegas. Most of what happened in Vegas shouldn’t stay in Vegas. It’s well worth sharing. Ten highlights in 140 characters or less…

1. If you’re getting bad reviews on a product you probably shouldn’t be selling it. [Session: Terry Lundgren, CEO, Macy's]

2. Starbucks is the McDonald’s of the middle class. And McDonald’s is owning this by competing up. Their take? 4 bucks for coffee is dumb. [Session: Sucharita Mulpuru, Forrester]

3. Everyone else is in = why 50% of retailers are in social media. 34% see a + biz impact. Note: This is social bc it’s worth talking about. [Session: Sucharita Mulpuru, Forrester]

4. Walking through the Expo Hall wearing a non-retailer pass is like walking into a singles bar wearing a denim vest and waving a red flag.

(more…)

Fluid is excited to announce the launch or new site for Calvin Klein Fragrances, http://www.calvinkleinfragrances.com/. Fluid has been working with the Calvin Klein Fragrances team for several months to develop a new site that integrates the entire Calvin Klein fragrance line into a single, unified site experience while allowing each brand to express its own individuality. Individual fragrances include ck one, eternity, obsession, euphoria, escape and the latest addition to the line, ck free.

Too often when shopping online, I run across amazing lifestyle images featuring a product I would like to buy (or at least learn more about) but the retailer makes it difficult or impossible to find. Typically I’ll click on the image only to be faced with a confusing category page where if I’m lucky, I might find the product I’m after.

The simple fact is that lifestyle imagery is engaging and fun: just look at the stack of Williams-Sonoma or Patagonia catalogs on the average consumer’s coffee table. However, turning that imagery into something web-ready by adding copy takes too much time and specialized resources (designers) and might even detract from the imagery itself. This is disappointing because as in the offline world, vivid imagery is engaging and can both build brand and increase the chance a customer will buy that item.
(more…)

New research from Mintel and publicized by eMarketer further reinforces the importance of friends and family members in buying process. This is exactly the type of authentic peer-to-peer feedback, both asynchronous sharing through Facebook and real time collaborative shopping, we enable with Fluid Social.