This year, 46% of retail sales will be influenced by the web – but more than 90% of total retail transactions will occur in-store, from small neighborhood boutiques to national chains *. No matter where our users are shopping, we want to help them find your products.

– Google Product Search

Google Product Search

OMG this is amazing. I’m now competing with Google!

Just when I was killing myself with how to market AnotherSocialEconomy, I find this beta service from Google. Do you know what that means? Yes, Google already has all the eyeballs in the universe and yes, they could blow me out of the water at will.

But what that also means is that I no longer have to worry about finding my target audience. You see AnotherSocialEconomy brings retailers’ available supply to consumers’ demand. Pretty vague, eh? Try finding a good mix of AdWords keywords for a local buying network like that. It’s nuts. More importantly, it’s hugely expensive. Most importantly, customer cost of acquisition is astronomical.

With Google out there now, all I have to do is set my Google Alerts and other social media listening tools to “Google Local Shopping” and “Google Product Search”.  I could follow their Buzz  in the wake of their Wave & target my pitches.

For Starters

Not being a Merchant, I highly doubt I’ll ever manage to infiltrate their beta service. No matter. There’s plenty of others out there willing to share their experiences and opinions, such as, Google Local Shopping Tells Customers You Have It In Stock, Google’s Local Shopping Feature Now Open to Small Businesses and Google Local Shopping: cool new tool | OregonLive.com.

And that’s just cherry-picking. Plenty for me to research & plenty for me to post comments on.

Details… details… details…

As Lisa Barone says about Google Local Shopping:

It does seem like a small amount of work to get listed; however, anything you can do to make your products more available and searchable is a good thing.

AnotherSocialEconomy’s barrier for adoption is an email account and optionally, a modern browser with an Internet connection. That’s it! No multiple Merchant Accounts. As a matter of fact, registered Retail Sales Associates could also use their Twitter account / text messaging (SMS), Jabber Instant Messaging (IM) – like Google Talk, as well as, an Androida app. Basically, anyone with a smartphone is literally in business. There’s no XML data feeds to set up. No inventories to maintain.

Just details? Maybe, but the feedback I’ve gotten so far is that small/medium businesses (SMB) are living on smaller and smaller margins.  So the fewer details, the less investment in the service, the greater the return on investment. And vice versa.

AnotherSocialEconomy is not free

Consumers pay a token fee for requesting goods/services – Demand. And Retailers pay a token fee, as well, for proposing their Supply. Why? Well for starters, we hope to reduce the signal-to-noise ratio. Less noise going to the Retailers, means higher quality sales leads. Higher quality sales leads means higher quality Proposals going back to the Consumers. Higher quality Proposals, results in greater probability of closing sales.

But wait there’s more…

Ok, so AnotherSocialEconomy isn’t free. But it is another social economy. That means that it shares with its community members through its the Influencer, Reseller and Referrer programs.

Stay tuned

Be sure to come back & visit as I ride in the wake of Google’s Local Shopping wave trying my best to compare our competing services. Please feel free to share your own experiences, opinions and comparative thoughts.

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Man I told you… my day is, I come to work, I get paid, I go home. You think I want to do this all my life?

- Retailer Sales Associate (Let’s call him Trevor)

Like I care?

Background

Over the past few posts, I’ve spent some time describing my Social Software in Schools project, which has been an absolute blast & has yeilded some surprising results. (But that’ll be another post.) However, I also spend my time on my true start-up – twetailer. Without going into much detail here, I’ll just put things in context by defining it as:

Twetailer: Brokering Consumer Demand with local Retailers’ available Supply – via tweets, for f(r)ee.

Prior to heading off to pitch a potential business partner, I decided to try out my routine on an unsuspecting Retail Sales Associate who I thought fit our personna – young, tech savy, looking for an easier way to get things done. My pitch demos how consumers Google for product reviews, make a decision, then search for a local retailer to make the sale. Part of the demo, demonstrates how local business directories / search engines were failing local retailers, thereby creating greater barriers for entry (sales) to their stores – partly due to their antiquated taxonomy/categories.

The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

– Dragnet trademark

My Story

I approached Trevor – an unoccupied Carl’s Cameras Sales Associate, as opposed to, the older gentleman behind the cash register making sales. I introduced myself as being part of an Internet start-up company offering a free search service that matches consumers ready to purchase products with local retailers ready to make sales – all via Tweets/text messages. While Trevor didn’t use Twitter (too young), he was willing to listen, so I opened my MacBook & started my Keynote presentation. I went through all the slides/videos & stopped at the demo part to elaborate. Trevor was engaged! He had questions & thought it was “really cool”. He thought searching Yellow Pages for “cameras” locally was useless but did accept there may not be many alternatives, even after I demoed Google Maps local search. He wasn’t surprised to see Carl’s Cameras not among the initial Yellow Pages search results & conceded that no one walks into the store asking for “digital image processing equipment” – Carl’s Cameras taxonomy & there’s no way anyone in the store could change that. He loved the idea of “social tagging” Demand & Supply in the language (terminology) of the consumers’ & retailers’ & thought it was very practical.

However, here’s how the conversation continued;

Me: “Would you use Twetailer to help you close sales?”

Trevor: No. It’s not like I’m going to work here the rest of my life. My day is, I come in, I go home, I get paid.”

Me: But you could just sit down in the back room, have a coffee & make sales? Do you text message?

Trevor: True dat. Yah of course I text.

Me: Do you have unlimited text messaging?

Trevor: Yah, for sure. But I’m not going to use my phone for work & Carl’s Cameras is not going to give me a phone to text.

Me: Carl’s Cameras doesn’t have to give you a phone to text. Especially, if you’ve already got unlimited texting. Tell me, if a friend texted you & said he knows someone looking for a nikon d5000, do you have any in the store, would you text back? Wouldn’t you text “Yes, tell them to come see me.”?

Trevor: True dat… of course I would.

Me: So what’s the difference with Twetailer?

Trevor: I guess nothing. But my day is, I come here, I work, I go home, I get paid. You know… you should really speak to Carl’s Cameras’ Regional Sales Manager. He’s a really nice guy & he’s gonna love this thing. He could probably get all the stores to use it. (He then went to get me the contact info.)

Me: Thanks so much for your help. I really appreciate it. Take care.

I then glanced over to the cash, where the elder gentleman was eavesdropping from all the time, waited to see if he had anything to add & then left.

Following Up

In the days that followed, I tried on several occassions to contact the Regional Sales Manager. The phone number Trevor gave me was also listed on the web site. Yet everytime I called, the phone system went on & on about the office hours & no matter what options I chose, no matter what day, no matter what time, I always ended back at the beginning. For the record “Carl’s Cameras” is my alias for a national retailer!

Moving forward

A few days later, I demo’ed to Kevin Makice – author of Twitter API: Up and Running – O’Reilly Media. He had a funny/sad take on this story. His theory is that small/medium sized retailers – the Mom & Pop stores, are so busy treading water, that they can’t imagine stopping for 5 minutes to try something new, simply on the hope that it can change their world. This would be especially true, for a technology they don’t get – like Twitter/ text messaging.

Ironic, eh?

Unfortunately, the irony of the situation, is that text messaging/tweets empowers these retailers to get back in the digital age. There’s no need for static brochure-ware web sites – which they may have missed, or, are out-dated. There’s no need for online e-commerce shopping cart sites – which they probably can’t afford, or, could never see any return-on-investment. There’s no need for anything more that an old mobile phone that can text message & someone to push those little buttons.

All they need is someone like Trevor to give a damm. Someone who would probably love the excuse to text at work. Someone who would probably find it easier than answering the phone.

Lessons Learned

Next time, I’m going to demo someone on commission

Reflection

Have you had a similar experience? Is this a generational thing, or, simply a management issue?

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If you’ve being following my posts of late, you may notice that this one is not really on topic. It’s just something I thought of while stuck in traffic, on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, thinking about a recent event in Ontario.

Morse Telegraph Key

As a resident, or traveller, I would like to discover and subscribe to local alerts, so I can be informed of emergency news, traffic and weather alerts.

As a news agency, I would like to contribute to a standard global alert system, so I can better reach my potential audience.

Any local resident, or, traveller and news agency.

SMS text message alerts – sent via Twitter, about emergency situations – like Amber Alerts, severe weather conditions – like tornadoes, or, traffic – like accident reports.

Alerts would be published in real-time, however, recipients would subscribe to only relevant feeds.

Any area with internet, or, wireless access.

So people may be better prepared for simple matters like traffic conditions to being aware of Amber Alerts, or, emergency situations.

Local news agencies, are already aggregating this information and therefore would be the natural choice to act as the publisher and should conform to use a standard #hashtag. For example:

#yul Traffic: A40 East. Ramp to A15 South is blocked
#yul Weather: Severe thunder and lightning storms this morning with risk of high winds on bridges
#yul Amber: Child abduction. Girl age 9, blond hair, pink jacket, Honda Civic QC plates

By using the IATA airport codes as #hashtags, local residents, as well as, travellers, can quickly discover publishers – if they so desire.

Depending on the area, discovering the source of the feed may not be so important. However, in cities like Montreal, where we have several news agencies, operating in multiple languages, then knowing the source helps reduce the signal-to-noise ratio. So in the above examples, imagine getting text messages for each alert, from each news agency, in each language. To resolve this situation, subscribers can simply decide to Follow the publisher of their choice.

While many news agencies use the call letters in their Twitter accounts, such as CJADNews, I would suggest creating accounts that would inform subscribers where they can be found. So in the case of CJAD – which is a local English Montreal AM radio station, they should create an account like “YUL_800AM“. That way my search results for #yul would include:

YUL_800AM #yul Weather: Severe thunder and lightning storms this morning with risk of high winds on bridges

would also advertise the publisher can be found at 800 on the AM band of my radio.

Now, I’m not advocating text messaging when you’re driving. So if you’ll be travelling, please plan your Follows ahead of time. You should also check with your wireless carrier for their text message pricing policy.

You can further reduce your signal-to-noise ratio by unfollowing / unsubscribing when you’re out of the area. If you’d like to further explore the wonders of twitter you can start with some of my earlier posts and links.

Please let me know if you’re aware of something similar out there. Certainly, the concept of text messaging alerts is not new, however, I haven’t seen any simple way to discover and subscribe to those feeds – universally.

Also, please feel free to contact me if you’d like any help trying to set this up.

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