Erlend Wilhelmsen

FedEx & Kinko's

FedEx acquiring Kinko's was perhaps a surprise to some. Given the success of UPS, I believe it was in the cards for some time. FedEx desperately need to refresh their strategy and brand to get back into growth mode. Perhaps Kinko's will help in that respect. Of course, the Kinko's brand does carry a significant amount of brand equity. FedEx could - and probably will - take advantage of that.

The FedEx brand is strong. In fact, the brand is probably holding the company together. That's not going to last forever. The real challenge is to stay relevant in a market that is becoming increasingly competitive. FedEx defined the express transportation category - but there's no more room for growth in express mail (at least not in the US). The down economy is not helping and UPS new brand is really making it difficult for FedEx to stand out in the market. The "What can brown do for you" campaign has been very sucessful for UPS and I've not seen an answer from FedEx, yet.

How can FedEx position itself towards UPS? Since UPS is a giant with significant resources, I think the answer may be that FedEx needs to diversify its business. New lines of business must be built and the brand extended to areas where FedEx can solve business problems for their small and medium sized customers. Naturally, a new strategy means a new brand identity. This will be interesting!

 

Shopping consumer demand index

Yesterday, I was looking at some very interesting data from shopping.com. The Shopping Consumer Demand Index tells you what people are looking for through search engines these days.

It was not surprising to note some major brands, such as Adidas and Diesel, in the top 20 shopping searches. Well known brands should be represented on this Index for the forseeable future. Digital cameras and the XBox is also extremely popular this holiday season.

I was a bit surprised to learn that the term "watch" won the top spot. It's also interesting to see that the demand for Global Positioning System's (GPS) is through the roof. Some brands, such as Bose and North Face is gaining strength and that's may be good news for products in the high-end price spectrum.

Exciting times for e-retailers

As expected, e-retailing (or e-commerce) is growing fast. In 2003, many e-retailers experienced significant growth from last year. Excluding travel purchases, people spent $13 Billion online this season. That's up 46% (!) from 2002. Of course, many large e-retailers take most of this cake, but it's not a bad time for the smaller companies either.

Through our work with e-retailing clients in Los Angeles, it's pretty clear that if you spend the time and resources to build a solid online business, even small companies can grow their revenues - and eventually profits - online. At Fabric Interactive, we've seen that as more customers become familiar with shopping online, they tend to change their shopping habits as well. They may go to the local store to try on a watch before they go online to buy. I think that's different from what we've seen before.

People clearly like the convenience of shopping online, but they also enjoy the offline shopping experience. As more companies invest in solid design and technology to drive their web sites, more people will use this dual-approach to shopping. In 2004, I think we'll see additional growth in the e-retailing sector and those companies that invest today, will reap the benefits next holiday season.

Train tickets online in France

When I was in Paris, I tried to find a good site for purchasing train tickets online. It's not easy. I did find and use a site called voyages-sncf.com. They had nice offers, but the user experience at the site was aweful. Only half of the data you enter into their forms are saved, you are constantly being served a variety of choices that really don't make any sense to anyone but those who have a "card" this or that.

Of course nothing is ever in English, which for France is not that big of a surprise, but is it really that hard to translate 100 words into English and put a flag on the top right corner? You can never really tell where you are in the process of ordering tickets and sometimes you just can't buy the tickets you have selected. No explanation given.

The constant pop-ups of offers and slow page load time on critical check out pages makes this one of my top 10 worst e-retailing oriented web sites in 2003.

Yes, I still got the train tickets for Amsterdam. Unfortunately, the machine at Gare Lyon in Paris didn't want to give them to me so I had to buy them again to get on the train. Ah, the ticket machines at the train stations in Paris...  You know, sometimes I'm so glad to see a ticket counter with a real person  ;o) 

L'Oreal web site

Yesterday, I went to the L'Oreal web site. I don't really know what to make of it. For example, the majority of the top level navigation is for investors, people looking for jobs, or press room. I'm confused. Who's the audience for this web site? If the audience actually is "investors" of people looking for "investor information" I would think animated graphics would be less important.

In my opinion, this web site suffers from severe "about us" disorder. You have to look around to find consumer oriented information. It's that what L'Oreal is all about? Consumers and beauty, right? For example, I would think many consumers type in "loreal" at Google looking for beauty products. Then they get "Look at us! We've got news, information about our company, press room, investor information, and research(!)" None of which the average consumer would really care about.

This happens all the time, but one would think that a company such as L'Oreal would have a more consistent approach to their branding and communications strategy online. What are your views on this? Do you see many large companies today with "ego-centric" web sites? Why do you think the people behind the web sites made the choices they made?

Cingular account login

My mobile phone provider, Cingular, is determined to make it difficult to use their web site. Today, they require a three(!) step process for accessing your account. First, you must supply your ZIP code and phone number, then your "user name" and "pass word," and finally your "pass code" - before you can access your account information.

Click on image for pop-up.

Forcing the user to remember, not two, but three names/codes is simply bad design. I called them on this three months ago, but they still haven't improved it.

I write about this in my latest article for Fabric Interactive.

This can be fixed of course, but apparently technology dictates the current solution. Shouldn't people come first?