Recently some companies that do business online have been caught giving away or selling information about their customers. Several of these companies provide guarantees on their websites, claiming that customer information will remain private. Some companies that purchase customer information offer the option for individuals to have their information removed from the database, also known as opting out.

However, many customers are unaware if and when their information is being shared, and are unable to stop the transfer of their information between companies if such activity occurs.Another major security concern that consumers have with e-commerce merchants is whether or not they will receive exactly what they purchase. Online merchants have attempted to address this concern by investing in and building strong consumer brands, as for example Amazon and eBay, and by leveraging merchant/feedback rating systems and e-commerce bonding solutions.

All of these solutions attempt to assure consumers that their transactions will be free of problems because the merchants can be trusted to provide reliable products and services. Additionally, the major online payment mechanisms (credit cards, GoogleCheckout, etc.) have also provided final buyer protection systems to address problems if they actually do occur.

From my point of view I usually do not like to buy on-line. I really prefer to walk around some shops, try things, get in touch with what I am interested in and get involved in it. The only things that I have bought are some books from Amazon and AbeBooks, which I needed for my studies. Am I outmode???

Have a look to these video to learn more about digital consumer behavior. You jsut have to click on the link you find in the list below:

Digital consumers are full speed ahead

The slowdown will fuel online growth

Follow consumers online to get more bang for your marketing buck

Here’s a chart with the male/female ratio for each site:

Is it strange? I don’t think. The women really are better communicators, in fact, the data indicates that they work more at it.

What does it means? If you are in business or designing messages for social media, you might want to start focusing your messages better. Given the different online shopping styles of men and women is important.

 It’s important to consider that men have  only one mission on the web while women expand their mission. In fact, if men are out to research the best digital camera or the best shirt, they’re not doing much else.

But women are interested in a digital camera, they’re looking at clothes for their kids, they’re thinking about what they’re doing that weekend and if they need to pick something up for their husbands.

This means that e-retailers need to design site navigation to facilitate this. A site should also allow women shoppers to move easily between product and category. The product page needs to allow depth of product information for men, while allowing women to scan that product information and easily move on.

To reach both men and women, it’s “really critical” for an online store.

Focus the messages, design and offers are the keys of success.

• If I need to book an accommodation where I can spend my holidays, I used many search portals dealing with houses. I gave more weight to the houses with a positive feedback and I’m always careful to avoid fake.
• If I need to book a room in a hotel I just use Google and I look for different accommodation or I just book directly to the website of the hotel (if I already know where I want to stay).
• I use Google Maps for the review of the location and holiday resort where I want to go.
• I use Google Image to look for the best places that I can visit (beaches, cities etc…)
• I always consult websites like “Tripadvisor” or “Turisti per Caso” to read the suggestion of the other tourists that have already been in that place. I take note of the restaurants, hotels, transportation means, museums etc, they suggest going!
• I use Google Maps or Via Michelin to know the prices and distances between my city and the location where I want to go.
• I weekly have a look to the websites of low cost airlines companies to find special offer or discount.

These are only some of the websites that I use when I’m planning my holidays. I can say for sure that Internet has significantly changed the way we travel and the behavior of each consumer.

From the profits point of view hacking involves a substantial lost of revenue, for example the voluntarily shutting down of the site, due to the lost of valued customers and consequently missing of market share.

Companies have to react in a consistent way and the only solution possible seems to be an extensive overhaul of the site using different software or a full upgrade to the latest version of the security programs used. The impact of the hacking is considerable. Hackers can break into servers through Web applications and steal customer credit card information, or worse. Hackers stealing your customers’ credit card information is bad enough, but it is not the worst. Clever hackers could also take control of your Web site or servers and use them to sell illegal merchandise or mount attacks on other sites.

In the worlds of hacking the most well-know techniques are the “cross-site scripting”, that allows the collection of consumer’s data when they do an order through a website ignoring the hacker attack in progress.
This procedure is a little part of credit card defraud that beginning with this step of collecting data and finish with the physical cloned card.

Another techniques widely used is SQL injection hacking, in this case the perpetrator goes to a merchant site and inputs special character sequences in the User Name and Password fields. A vulnerable SQL-based application on the server interprets them as commands rather than simple data input. One character string, for example, tells the software to accept as valid all user names and passwords entered from that point on.

Nowadays companies have integrated departments specialized to scan every possible enemy deriving from hacking attack, obviously these engrave on the company assets and sometimes the personal employed are directly recruit from the hacking environments.
With the continuous technology improvement could companies better safeguard their private information and protect their customers???

The strategy used by websites like BuyVip and Privalia is simple: they send a warning e-mail in advance to the potential buyer (consumer that has already subscribed himself to the website). They advise that the next   day at a specific hour they will begin selling a set of proposals brands (very famous brands) at a discount, ranging from 30 to 70%, since these inventories may be part of a previous season. The short duration of offers, from a minimum of two to a maximum of five days, along with the discount benefit, play a decisive role stimulating emotional purchase and impulse: you can buy the object of desire just with a click of the mouse, and within ten days the merchandise you bought will come to your home. The product, in fact, is taken directly from the supplier (this also allows considerable savings for the client), conveyed in the stores of the website, packaged and then shipped by courier.

There are many players in this emerging market in Italy. First real national pioneers as Born4Shop and SaldiPrivati or Piustyle.com (launched by an entrepreneur with a long experience in managing inventories of branded collections and active also in Spain and Belgium). Second other players already established in other counties that are trying to replicate their strategy in Italy. This is the case of a giant like Vente-privee.com (510 million euros in turnover 2008), but also names like BuyVip or Privalia. There are of course many other players but I think they are currently too many for a market so small, specialized and relatively undeveloped like the Italian one.

What do you think?

Now in this post I want to talk about Social Commerce. 

 Social Commerce is a buzz, evoking a fusion of Social Media and  E-commerce.  Social Commerce  is a subset of electronic commerce that employs social media tools to assist online buying and selling. Some examples of social commerce are user ratings and reviews, social networking tools, online stores in social networking and social shopping,as mentioned before.

On the web we find different definitions of Social Commerce, I write here some of these:

“social commerce enabling consumers to browse,view and add products to a shopping cart, within the context of a social site,like Facebook or a blog.” Fumi Matsumoto (Allurent)

“social commerce connect and foster active partecipation with customers to help improve your customer experience,includinf ratings and reviews,blogs as well as forums and communities”. (IBM)

But what are the reasons for doing Social commerce?

Fumi Matsumoto CTO of Allurent, the company market leader in powering superior online shopping experiences, in the E-commerce Times talk about social commerce, that offers 7 reasons for doing it. http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/68744.html.

I briefly write here what are these reasons that Matsumoto consider important for doing Social Commerce:

1) Your customer are increasingly spending time.                                                                                                     

2) Shopping is often a social activity and people will want to shop online in the same way.

3)Peer validation that is built into social commerce, and for many shoppers it’s important.

4)Produce discovery is more fun and encourage to impulse purchase when in a social context.

5) If we don’t have presence on social media,your competitors will take illegal the social bran mind-share.

6) Social it’s the mosre cost-effective way to capture traffic and market reach.

7)Social media gives you the ability to extract data and obtain market intelligence more effectively.

Every consumer relies on a specific type of social websites or company website for product and brand information. As a result, companies try to engage directly with them using this social network creating a great opportunity to not only reach more consumers, but also increase their likelihood of making a purchase. But companies should be very careful in using digital marketing tools because they have to consider the impact of online word-of-mouth that can affect the consumers purchase decision.

In Italy ecommerce websites struggling to get out the stage of comparison of products. In fact it is proposed an online consultation of the product for the next purchase in store, what in slang is defined infocommerce.
Today the sales strategies of company aims to consolidate brands. The ommunication of products put in the websites strengthens the brand and becomes a vehicle to test consumers behaviour and satisfaction of customers.

Companies not engaging in social media as part of their online marketing strategy are missing an opportunity to reach consumers.

I think the real problem is that companies are not always aware of the power of online word-of mouth. Consumers today have the possibility to convey and share their opinion with other people about products or services they have bought online. They can voice their satisfaction or dissatisfaction regarding a specific brand or company, undermining the confidence of these companies to exert full control over their consumers. If the majority of consumers convey negative experiences with a specific company that sell its products online it will lose its credibility on the web and its digital marketing effort will no longer be profitable.

In fact, if I have to buy a product on Internet I will first check on blogs, forum and other social network how are the experience of the other consumers that have bought the same product or service online. If I found that a lot of people are dissatisfied with the website that sell that product I won’t buy it on Internet.

As you said, if companies want to do e-marketing they have to assure reliability and credibility of the service they offer. They have to be able to manage complaints or dissatisfaction and try to improve their service as much as they can. What happen today is that everyone tries to do digital marketing without knowing its specific rules and strategies. I think that a company can do e-marketing only if it is consolidated in the off-line market.

Nowadays in each moments and everywhere, we go online and in few seconds we find whatever you want and we need.  Each online consumers is comfortable with search engines and they use it to search a lot of various information.

Most of us use Internet, for example, to find information about flights and for booking online tickets. Travelers use search engines to purchase travel arrangements, 82% of online consumers buy airline tickets and 67% book overnight accommodations ( source: travel industry association of America).

People book online for a wide range of reasons: one of these is that in a busy lifestyle, they save time staying  comfortable sit down in their home and because online it’s possible to see different opinions and reviews of different users or buyers. In this way online customers have a list of advantages and disadvantages about a product or a service before and if they decide to buy.

The arrival of web 2.0 and social networks change the way of communication in the web: there is an interaction between users through a 2 way medium, where people share experience, ask questions, collaborate and participate.

Through the social network ( ex: Facebook, Twitter, My Space, You Tube) traditional word of mouth is enhanced and more convenient, experience and comments can’t be erased and unshackled from time. In these social network search meets social: all experience and opinion of users are available; good experience are amplified and bad experience remain. Listen different experiences is a way to learn, added value and for create interesting contents for new and potential online customers.