Posts Tagged ‘shopping’

Brett Favre and Business

I may be starting something I shouldn’t with this post, as most of us on the KikScore team are ardent professional football fans (except Raj, who likes the Cleveland Browns).  The first 20 minutes of our Monday meetings are consumed with rehashing Sunday games (we get a lot more done during baseball season).  This year my favorite team, the Minnesota Vikings, signed Brett Favre and, in turn, they are having a great season.  So, to the disgust of Mike Collins (my business partner and Green Bay fan), I’m going to write what Business lessons can learn from the Brett Favre acquisition.

Patience:

Everyone assumes that when you come out with a new product or service, it has to have immediate market success, as-is.  But as Nassim Nicholas Taleb makes clear in his book “The Black Swan”, one of the greatest strengths entrepreneurs have is the ability to tinker.  Tinkering with a concept until it suits the market is the whole point of business.  What’s the tie-in to Brett Favre?  Well, his first year in the NFL wasn’t notable.  He was a back-up quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons — and didn’t show any indications of being a future Hall of Famer that he is.  But over time, he changed his work-out methods, how he approached the game and now, at the age of 40, he’s having one of his best years ever (that’s after 20 years of tinkering).

Talent:

Last year, the Vikings had almost every member of the current team.  They lost in the first-round of the playoffs.  Now, who knows how it will end this year, but this year’s team is much different than last year.  The biggest difference is Brett Favre — his experience and talent.  The business lesson is pretty obvious.  You can have all the supporting pieces, but talented leadership (or lack of it) can raise or sink the level of everyone else around him/her.

Brains Over Brawn:

Somewhat related to patience, is the importance of experience/intelligence.  There are a lot of faster, younger players than Brett.  In fact, the Vikings have two younger/faster quarterbacks and they still chose to hire Mr. Favre at $14M/year.  When it comes to business, it may be tempting to promote the new HBS graduate — she knows all the cool Malcom Gladwell terminology and interned at some investment bank (that no longer exists).  But maybe you should look again at the company veteran, the one that knows your product and industry well.

This posting could go on and on…so out of interest of preserving my dignity, I’m going to now end my love-letter to Brett.  Feel free to send any jeers or life-sports lessons.

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Posts Tagged ‘shopping’

Is Cyber Monday the New Black Friday? And Will My Brother Get a New Coat?

An interesting phen0menon occurred during the kickoff of the holiday shopping season (two phenomenons, actually, if you count the fact that I found a sweater that doesn’t make me look fat).  With most of the focus on the bricks-and-mortar retail sales, which appear to be up very modestly, online sales on both “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” were very strong.  So there is a big question hanging out there (besides the question if 40 is really the new 30 — man, I hope so) — Is Cyber Monday the new Black Friday?

In terms of raw numbers, of course Cyber Monday hasn’t yet replaced the mall.  But in terms of predictiveness, which is more predictive?  Year over Year, offline sales for Black Friday were up 1.6%, with YOY online sales on Black Friday being up approximately 11%.  Then big event, Cyber Monday, showed a 5% increase from 2008 and is the biggest day of sales since tracking of this hallowed day began five years ago. 

So what gives? Are we going to have a flat or booming holiday season?  While the numbers cited above are interesting, there is only one way to handle this type of question in the blog world…anecdotal information!  My brother was in town and, according to my wife, his winter coat was from the 1980s.  While retro is good, you actually have to buy new clothes that look old…it just doesn’t work holding onto your old stuff. 

We hit the malls and it was busy, but according to the Nordstrom and Macy’s sales staff, the Black Friday crowd was similar to a normal Saturday crowd.  There’s not a lot of inventory for winter wear, so we head to REI.  We find the coat, but Dang! it’s pricey.  Being good shoppers, we use the time to find a jacket type my brother likes and my wife barely approves (he’s now moved up to the late 1990s). 

We then go home and hit the online sites for deals.  We find the coat on a great site, BackCountry.com, get 25% off with free shipping (you should check out their blog).  So the offline retail stores acted as a very expensive closet that then benefited the online site.  So, according to my exhaustive research, I think the initial numbers are misleading, and we will have a surprisingly good holiday season.

What are you seeing out there?  Also, is it time for you to update your winter wear?

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Posts Tagged ‘shopping’

When to Shut Up About Your Small Business

This post may seem a bit counter-intuitive, since we’ve been evangelizing about the need to promote your business on social media.  We’ve talked about how this blog, and our tweets, and facebook have led to good things for KikScore.  But there are times when you should stop sharing.

Keeping Your Competitive Advantage:  No matter what business you have, there are certain things that you do, or mistakes that you have learned from, that your competitors would love to know.  When we thought up the KikScore service, we took the time, prior to launching, to file a couple of patents.  But patents don’t completely protect your business.  To file a patent, you must disclose exactly what your competitive advantage is — prior to knowing if you’ll get the patent granted. That’s why Coke has never filed a patent on its secret formula…because they’d have to disclose the exact formula.  Same thing goes for your business.  If you do something better than your competitors, it’s a valuable trade secret.  And it’s not just your competitors you have to worry about…you also have to worry about people interested in investing in your business.  This article describes a recent example of a potential investor that, after learning about a business, deciding to forego the investment and just start a similar business.

Going From Enthusiasm to Annoyance:  We’re all excited about our businesses.  And we love to talk about to our family, friends, followers on Twitter, the guy at the bus-stop, and the deranged homeless man asking for money.  Generally, our enthusiasm is viewed in  a positive light.  But what is the fine line between our enthusiasm and becoming a spammer?  The other night, I was having dinner with friends and letting them know how easy it is to automate updates on my facebook page.  My good friend than said “If you go overboard, I’ll do what I’ve done with my other friends and just turn off your updates.”  I realized that I’ve got to make sure not to abuse my friends and over-promote our business, as it will hurt my brand and I will start losing friends.

Feel free to share other instances when you shouldn’t over-share about your business.

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Posts Tagged ‘shopping’

First Black Friday Report

Here’s the first KikScore report on the holiday shopping season. Based on our research, there should be an uptick in activity. What am I basing this on? The fact that DC airport is packed today and my flight was oversold. Also, I’m sitting on a plane right now and have asked a couple of folks if they are going to spend more money this year. They didn’t really respond to me, but I sensed that they plan on buying more. Except the weird guy in 10A. The only thing he looks like he’s in the market for is a shovel for all the bodies he likely has stashed in his basement.
Ok. Not very throrough research, but it will get better. Also, feel free to send in your non-scientific polling/economic data.

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Posts Tagged ‘shopping’

Stay Classy, Online World …We're Ron Burgundy? KikScore's New Holiday Shopping Watch!

We here at KikScore are pleased to announce our new seasonal feature — Panda Watch!  No, actually, it’s going to be Shopping Watch!  We’re going to poll our customers, readers as well as gather our own anecdotal information (at the mall, online stats) to measure how this holiday season is going for everyone.  We’re assembling our crack Channel 4 News Team to gather data.  But just in case Papa Burgundy (that would be Raj) can’t gather all the relevant info, please send us your view of how this holiday shopping season is going.  Also send us your favorite AnchorMan scene.  Here’s a best of clip:best of anchorman.

Stay Classy!

Brian Fantana

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Posts Tagged ‘shopping’

Social Media & Your Biz: Open Up So You Can Close

Though the Internet seems to be overflowing with blog posts, tweets, and Facebook updates, there are a good number of businesses that don’t use social media in any manner.  Initially, I wasn’t the biggest evangelist for social media.  In all fairness, others on the Team are much more sophisticated about how to properly use blogs and Twitter. My initial feeling on social media was “Why the hell would I want to read the thoughts of a complete stranger?”  The past 6 weeks, however, we’ve gone live with our site/service and my attitude has completely changed.  Initially, we did very informative, yet sterile, blog postings…ones that no one actually read.  My prejudice seemed to be confirmed.  We then became more candid and casual in our postings, linked them up to Twitter and Facebook and all sorts of good things started to happen:

1.  Our traffic and overall visibility to the site is growing exponentially

2. We have come across several companies that are reaching out to similar small business owners.  Two such partners are Shustir and MyBusinessAssistant — services that are helping small business grow faster and with less headaches.

3. We are getting direct feedback from the marketplace.

4.  Our customers have a good understand with whom they are doing business with — not just a slick website (though our site is pretty slick).

5.  I’ve been able to share my drinking stories and show pictures of my dog online under the guise of being helpful for small business.

We’re not just the only ones seeing the positive impact of opening up to social media.  One of our customers, www.17thandRiggs.com has a great blog and is active on Twitter https://twitter.com/RebeccaSM).  In under a year, Rebecca has transformed her site from a passionate hobby to a destination site for interior designers and those who want to keep up with the latest design trends (as well as a full-time business).  If you don’t like my anecdotal examples, do you prefer the Wall Street Journal’s anecdotal examples?  In a recent WSJ article, a featured small business discussed how her wedding planning business was significantly buoyed by using social media. 

Feel free to share your favorite social media success stories…or tips on using social media.

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Posts Tagged ‘shopping’

Diary of a Tech Start-Up: Disagreement Over Product Features

Lord of the Flies

If you’re doing a start-up with other people, I guess it’s unavoidable to have disagreements with your team. If you’re lucky, the biggest disagreements center around where to go for happy hour. Personally, I like Chili’s. I know it’s not necessarily cool, but the chips and salsa is really good (very salty chips) and the margaritas are big (and unlike I’ve mentioned in previous postings, the glasses are very easy to hold onto). It’s also very unlikely that you’ll run into your competitors at Chili’s — as these weak-kneed companies can’t buck peer pressure and social convention and won’t be caught dead there.

Recently, our team has been caught up in a larger kerfuffle.  It centers around how we promote and/or explain the shopper experience that can be expected on our customer sites — via a numeric score. Some of the customer feedback is the concern that shoppers may equate an 820 (which is a really high score) with a “low B” rating (which would get you valedictorian status at my high school).

A contingent of our team believes that, because we already spell out the guidance of the numerical rating (“great experience”, “good experience” and “poor experience” expected), to remove customer confusion, we could eliminate the actual score. Other team members argue that the numeric rating shows the precision and sophistication of our scoring model (see posting on our algorithm), and it is something that our customers need to accept.  Take a look at one of our customer’s sites, at www.17thandriggs.com to see the current version of the user experience.

We’re working through how to please all the team members, but this disagreement doesn’t seem to have a clear mid-point. I guess that’s the point of working with the right team. If everyone has an opportunity to express their views, whether the decision goes the way a particular team member wants really isn’t important. It’s that there’s an underlying level belief that ultimately, with enough deliberation, the group can reach the best decision for the business and the customer.

On the other hand, instead of thoughtful deliberation, we’re also thinking of implementing Mixed Martial Arts in our team meetings. I may have a bit of a paunch, but I have a pretty good reach.

Feel free to give us your opinion in the comments below on your feedback on this issue.

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Posts Tagged ‘shopping’

Will Online Shopping Be on the Upswing in 2010?

Here’s an original question for you to ponder — Is the recession over?  I know, your head hurts because you’ve never thought about this.  But pick yourself off the floor, take an aspirin and think about the question.  We all have our favorite gauges of whether things are getting better.  Mine is the restaurant test.  Throughout the economic apocalypse, my wife and I continued to go out to dinner.  And since we are creatures of habit, we go to the same 4-5 places.  In March, you could get a table at any time and the service was great.  This Fall, we’ve noticed it is getting harder to just walk in on a Thursday night (especially when I forget to wear a shirt…dang Houston’s dress code can be picky).  So, by my very scientific calculation, we are heading out of the recession.  My Grandma Nanners also claims that times are getting better, because they are charging more that the Country Harvest Buffet.  Let me tell you, Nanners can eat about 5 servings of mashed potatos…what am I writing about?  Oh yes, the recession.

Well, according to a recent report from eMarketer, things are looking up for online shopping in 2010 and 2011.  In 2009, U.S. online shopping was $139B.  While that is a lot of activity, that number is actually down .4% from the 2008 number.  In 2010, eMarketer projects an improvement from 2009, with U.S. sales going up significantly in 2011.

We’d like to know what you’re seeing out there — are you planning for a better 2010?

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Posts Tagged ‘shopping’

Another Top Ten List For Small Businesses — But this one is Pretty Good

I’m not sure if David Letterman is to blame, but Top 10 lists exist for almost everything.  They are very similar to the “Idiot’s Guide” series.  They are the gimmick everyone uses to give you/your business advice.  Excuse a tangent for the moment, but I have a real problem with these Idiot’s Guides.  At first, they made sense — if you need to know how to use Microsoft Word, the title seems appropriate.  But now there are Idiot’s Guide to XMLT, or Cold Fusion.  These aren’t “Idiot’s Guides”…they are simply guides.  Sorry for that.

Ok, back to the proliferation of Top 10 lists for almost every piece of advice.  First, I think that ten pieces of advice are really too many to remember.  Just give us the most important 3 — I can remember that and, really, I’ll probably benefit the most from the Top 3.  Secondly, most of these Top 10 don’t actually have ten unique pieces of advice.  They fudge it (e.g. “Tip #8 — Remember Tip #10). 

But I came across a pretty good Top Ten list for Small Businesses — focused on the Top Ten ways a company can cross the divide from start-up to established venture.   I’d repeat them for you, but that feels like copying someone else’s homework.  But I’ll tell you my favorite tip — #2 (see, focus on the top 3 tips).  #2 is “Don’t underestimate the importance of informed intuition and gut feel.”

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Posts Tagged ‘shopping’

WSJ Article — Online Reviews Suffer From Grade Inflation

A recent Wall Street Journal Article examined a troubling trend with online shopping reviews — that these reviews benefit from higher grade inflation than a star power forward at Duke.  As Geoffrey Fowler and Joesph De Avila write, the average review given is 4.3/5 stars.  There are a handful of explanations offered for this trend, including  psychological — people are more likely to remember positive experiences.  But the most interesting reason offered is that critical reviews are removed from the calculation and reviewers are repeatedly critical are barred from some sites.  While this practice definitely skews the reliability of these reviews, I’m sure it’s similar to the corrective action taken when a rogue Spanish professor tries to fail that same Duke power forward for skipping language lab.  It’s simply not going to happen — or if it does happen, that Spanish professor will not be teaching at Duke very long.

Back to the point.  While shopper/user reviews can be very helpful, if the grade inflation persists, they will just become an empty marketing tool.  Continuing the academia analogy, using these inflated reviews to make shopping decisions (and who to share your personal information with) will be like getting a medical referral from the hacky-sack playing hippie who is in the 7th year of his Pre-Med undergrad.  I’ll go easy on our product pitch, but the ability for these reviews to be marked up (or less than objective) was a big motivation to create KikScore.  More on that later.  Until then, let’s all start providing realistic shopper reviews.

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