Alex Baar | International Digital Marketing | E-commerce

How to differentiate with culture and customer centricity? Already for a while I get more and more interested in a new way of working. A way of working that allows the "voice of the customer" throughout the organisation. That allows an organisation to respond quickly at customer's feedback. A way of working that makes working more fun for employees as well. A way of working that I think is essential in e-commerce, especially if you want to differentiate yourself. You have to add (digital value) and to become customer centric. This means a responsive organisation. An organisation that learns fast, listens fast, acts fast and is creative!  Someday maybe a year ago, I ran into this manifesto about responsive organisations. I really liked this way of thinking and working, so I decided also to buy a book about this subject. This became the book " Exponential Organisations ". As you see below I really started to read, and the page shown is an importa...

I visited London the past few days. Only 45 minutes of flying but a totally different retail landscape than here in the Netherlands. Much nicer actually. Luckily there was at least some Dutch influence that I noticed :) Some (important) Dutch influence in the London retail and restaurant market, luckily :) Below just a few pictures from a few shops I visited. Shopping can be nice! Made.com the interesting and very nice British furniture retailer that started in 2010 and is one of the high growth technology companies in the UK. I follow them online now for a while and I think they are doing a great job. So when I was walking through SoHo in London, I noticed their brick and mortar flagship store and I decided to take a look. It is always fun to visit shops from companies that started online and now go offline. Interesting to see how they mix on-and offline. And Made.com did a very nice job! As you enter the store you will find a desk where you can grab a tablet that you ca...

For a project about the customer journey, I am collecting some "order confirmation e-mails, transactional e-mails and order shipment e-mails". I decided to publish them here as well. Might be convenient for others also do get some inspiration. These are just email examples I either received myself or found at the internet. Most of them are quite boring. Still so many possibilities for organisations to improve the customer experience with these high open rate e-mails/contact moments. I wonder if email stays important as a confirmation medium. We will see in 1 year from now. Social shopping or selling through wechat or whatsapp might change this all. Whatsapp for example does not even has my email adress in their settings. Blogger (where this blog is hosted) has no advanced image view possibility, so I am sorry about that. Just click at an image and the larger size image will open. Deal Extreme Shipping Confirmation Deal Extreme Order confirmation Example ...

Usually I publish the "cross border e-commerce" reports, I run into at the internet at either my  twitter  account or my  slideshare  account. But sometimes it is convenient to have a summary of direct downloads. So, some direct downloads, just because it is almost Christmas :) Forrester released a report (paid by metapack) about the relation between delivery options and e-commerce success in France, UK and Germany. A download via my dropbox here . I discovered that Pitney Bowes often has interesting reports and white papers. This one is a document that helps US retailers to reach consumers around the globe. But it is not only interesting for US retailers. For everybody who wants to understand customer and e-commerce differences around the world this is a useful document. It gives differences per country in purchase behavior and other localisation considerations. A direct download via my dropbox here Shop the world from DHL is a great ...

I am reading the book " The Amazon Way , 14 leadership principles behind the wolrd's most disruptive company". I am not going to write down all 14 principles, just buy the book if you are interested in that. The book is well written and you can read it in a few hours. I just shortly summarize a few phrases from the book, that I find interesting.  Reading the book is a bit ambivalent, while when I was visiting Amazon in Germany, earlier this year, I did not recognize the open and innovative culture, the book describes.  However, the book is a motivator for anybody who is creative, customer centric and e-commerce and trend driven.  Long before the the complete vision of Amazon was ready, these two principles is where it all started from. When a company makes a customer unhappy, she won't tell a friend, or two, or three....she will tell many, many more and The beste customer service is "no" customer service, because the beste experience ...

16 ways to prevent parcel returns in ecommerce Parcel returns. Every e-commerce company has to deal with returns. In Europe customers have the right to withdraw an order up to 14 days after the parcel arrived at the customer. Returns cost a lot of money for e-tailers.  Below you find 16 ways to reduce your return percentage. Make use of "product" reviews and user generated content (UGC). Experiences and pictures/video's from others will help meeting expectations from your customers and will reduce returns. Use High Resolution product images. If you have a "living" product (f.e. plants) be clear about the product that people receive and how it looks like when it is mature. This can be done by images but in the case of plants with "time lapse" video's.  It depends at your competition and long term strategy, but you can charge (shipment costs) for returning ordered goods. Especially for Europe, mention this in your terms and co...

I decided to travel to Berlin today. Something different for a change. So now I am in an Eurocity train from Hilversum to Berlin. Time to read a book again. This time “ webs of influence, the psychology of online persuasion ”. An interesting book also in relation to cross border e-commerce because cultural differences in persuasion are described. The book "webs of influence, the psychology of online persuasion" travels with me today. There is no “silver bullet” for persuasion. Everybody is different, but the book gives nice case study’s and with some creativity of yourself, you can think of some very interesting tests and possibilities to change your website and marketing. The book has (very convenient) after every chapter a “ make this work for you” section. Perfect for a quick reference. Well as the book teaches me, blue is the colour that is most preferred by people, regardless of gender and culture. The blue colour is prefered by almost everybody So probabl...

The new EU wide consumer law, the so called,  consumer rights directive in Europe, that will be into force in most countries as from the 13th of june, requires that websites offer a EU wide withdrawal form . Customers are not obliged to use it, but you have to offer it at your website. Since I could not find an easy working template for this EU wide withdrawal form, I created an interactive PDF file with the minimum required information. Download the latest ADOBE reader to make the interactive template work. Download the interactive withdrawal form PDF template here Upload your company logo (in PDF) (I am sorry, I could not get it programmed to upload JPEG's) Translate the texts in the PDF (you can start typing over the existing text) or if needed empty just give a space. Save the file using the "save as" button in the top left corner For those who can't work with the (beautifully programmed) interactive PDF, the microsoft word template is available he...

The age of the customer has began! A nice painting for at your office. The age of the customer will transform marketing and business. Remind yourself of that every day with this painting.

I was at holiday, a few weeks ago. Traveling to Hong Kong, mainland China, Cambodia and Thailand. Time to read a few books. One of the books I read was " Global Marketing and Advertising " from Marieke de Mooij. A very interesting book about cultural differences in advertising and marketing. The book is not an "online" book, it focuses at marketing and advertising in general, many offline marketing cases are described as well. The book consists of many in depth research of cultural aspects. I recognize a lot of cultural aspects described in the book from traveling, now it is related to advertising. I will not do a complete review of the book this time. I will highlight a few interesting parts of the book instead. Just go and by the book. You won't regret. Global Marketing and Advertising from Marieke de Mooij, very intresting book, I read at a recent holiday as you can see...the book traveled with me across many cultures...:) There may be global product...

I wish everybody a happy , healthy and especially a great cross border e-commerce and marketing year. I have combined a few presentations about digital trends for 2014 in this combined slideshare presentation so everybody can keep up with the trends and be prepared for a great digital 2014!! Combined Presentations: Digital marketing trends 2014 , social media trends, consumer trends, ecommerce trends 2014 from Alex Baar

Just because it is such an interesting subject, a short video about cultural dilemma's, management and marketing.