Corporate Eye

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Archives for 2009

Walmart or Amazon – Let the Battle Begin

amazon_shipping_boxThe online retail brand battle is on!

  • Walmart wants to stop Amazon from growing.
  • Walmart wants more of the online retail market.
  • What Walmart wants, Walmart usually gets.

There is power behind the $405 billion in annual sales Walmart churns out.  Should Amazon (with $20 billion in sales last year) be worried?  Walmart hopes so.

Well, let’s look at this from a consumer perspective — mine.

Why do I shop at Amazon.com instead of Walmart.com?

  1. I can find almost any product I want on Amazon.com within seconds.  I can’t say the same thing for Walmart.com.
  2. I can get almost any product sold via Amazon.com shipped to me for free (as long as I spend $25 and select Super Saver shipping).  I can’t say the same thing for Walmart.com.
  3. The prices of most products on Amazon.com are competitive with other online stores.  I can say the same thing about Walmart.com.
  4. Amazon typically ships my purchases very quickly.  I can’t always say the same thing about Walmart.com.

So there you have it.  As the mother of 5-year old triplets, I do a lot of shopping online (don’t get me started on the hassles of trying to shop at a brick-and-mortar store with triplets).  I’m a fairly good representation of a power online shopper.  The first site I check is always Amazon.com.  Typically, I do some comparison shopping once I have my base price from Amazon.  Since there is always something I could get from Amazon’s wide selection, it’s never a problem for me to hit the $25 minimum for free Super Saver shipping.  The only time it’s a problem is if the product I want is offered through a third party retailer via the Amazon site which does not participate in the Super Saver shipping program.  With Amazon, I don’t have to visit coupon sites looking for free shipping coupons or discounts.  The price + free shipping is usually very competitive.  My shopping is done within seconds through Amazon and the price is usually similar to that offered by other sites which require coupons to be competitive.

Of course, that’s just my experience, but if you ask me, those are the factors Walmart needs to consider if they truly want to compete with Amazon.  Give me a huge selection with great prices.  Make your Web site easy to navigate.  Give me free shipping without the need to search for coupons.  Oh, and if you give me extra loyal customer discounts, I’ll start checking your site first instead of Amazon.

What do you think?  Will Amazon be the brand to continue to dominate online retail in the future or can Walmart catch up and become the brand to beat both offline and online?

I have to admit, it would be great for consumers if Walmart could become a viable competitor to Amazon.

Image: Flickr

Quick Take On: Benefits, Bushels, and Business Blogging


Lion Brand

Creative perks can go a long way to boost the employer brand.  They improve employee morale, attract publicity, and entice passive candidates. But only if people know about them!

Recently I was reviewing the website of a fairly well-known company.  They have a nice set of benefits—definitely above average—but the goodies aren’t given an effective presentation on the site.  Instead of being highlighted with bullet points, bold type, etc., so they would jump out as the reader scans the page, they just sort of trail along in a lifeless list.

Lights under a bushel.  But that’s not even the whole of it.  One of those hidden highlights is genuinely novel and delightful:  onsite music lessons!

Not every potential candidate will be as excited as I would be—but most would recognize this as a creative idea.  And since the company is not in a creative business (really, not) that in itself is a plus. So why not give it feature status?

Turning to another gap, we have a company that focuses on employer branding and online communications.  What do you think is on their own blog?  As of this writing:  two entries, the latest of which was posted two weeks ago.

This company is actually a specialty group owned by a name brand in media—not a start-up or a niche wannabe.  So this seems like a really big miss!  If there’s a cardinal rule for business blogging, it’s “Content, content, content.”  Start with plenty, add often.

To see a lively, content-rich business blog, drop by Lion Brand Yarns.  And for benefits well displayed, check out Starbucks–not flashy, but nicely defined, and supplemented with a very thorough downloadable brochure.

Last thought:  I see a lot of missed opportunities and “incomplete passes” when I visit sites.  I think this often happens because an idea seems fairly simple–like adding a blog or putting some content on the website—so no one is tasked with thinking it through and following up to ensure the implementation is both excellent (not just adequate) and complete.

Or it may be that whoever does have the responsibility is ill-suited to the task, over-burdened, under-supported, not incentivized, not empowered, or (for whatever reason) not willing/able to prioritize the task.  But even simple ideas have to be executed well!  And when they are not, the best-case scenario is a missed opportunity, while the worst is a glaring fumble.

How to Make a Paper Bag Interesting

Do you provide information about your market on your corporate website?

This kind of information helps a visitor to place you in context. Are you the biggest player, or the smallest? What are the forces driving the market? Even: who is your competition? (Why tell us that? Well, we probably have a good idea who you compete with anyway – because we’re researching/talking to/investing in/applying for a job with them as well – and it also adds to your aura of honesty and transparency.)

Billerud on their market
Click image to enlarge

I talked about the copy used on the Billerud site recently; today I want to highlight their Market section. They provide a pleasing Flash-based tabbed tool to display details of their various product markets.

So, for example, I can find out that

  • retailers and distributors of fruit and vegetables are demanding better packaging solutions because the quality of recycled paper has got worse; since Billerud is the quality leader in fluting they are in a strong position. And the fluting market hasn’t been affected by the global crisis as much as other corrugated products because the fruit and veg market is less affected by the economy than by the weather conditions. Fluting makes up 25% of Billerud’s sales volume (in tonnes).
  • Billerud are the leading supplier of low grammage pure white liner (which is used for luxury goods as well as for fast foods – now there’s a contrast in end market use) with about 50% market share, but since they’re competing with recycled material, there is some price pressure. In addition, in hard times customers focus more on cheaper products although a quality-leading position contributes to more stable customer relations, less fluctuation in price and more stable demand. Liner makes up 18% of their sales volume.

This is fascinating, even to someone with no business interest in packaging; this section on the packaging market and the issues they face is very informative. I feel I’ve learned something, which increases the value of the site in my eyes.

It’s rare that a corporate site manages to be interesting enough in itself for a lengthy visit.

What Makes for Effective Investor Relations Sites? Part 8: Providing Context for Your Financial Information

Business does not happen in a vacuum, but financial statements are often presented that way. As an investor, you always have to ask yourself if the company results are being driven by the company alone, or by external factors. Of course, usually it is a combination of the two. But beyond some verbiage in the interim results press release, or a brief statement in the annual report, the average investor is often left without any broader context to judge how the company is doing. Further, because active investing is a forward-looking activity, this lack of background will mean that investors will seek their own data sets to help correlate past performance with their judgment as to future prospects. When making decisions about future investments, it’s important to know if the company you are interested in is prospering because of its managerial expertise or because it’s boom times in the industry. Because when things change, as they invariably do, you want to be with good management.

This is a serious oversight by many corporations and represents a missed opportunity to educate investors interested in their firm. Company performance can be heavily influenced by a variety of factors, whether it is interest rates, new construction starts, inflation or a particular type of commodity cost. Investors may or may not have a good handle on these influences. However, company personnel, who spend their days immersed in the details that drive their businesses, know what external factors most affect their businesses. So it makes perfect sense to direct investors to the appropriate information and to make it available on your investor site. Yet few companies do.

There may be several reasons for this. Companies may be understandably reluctant to include information from third party sources on their websites, for one. Or they may be hesitant to deviate from the “cookbook approach” when it comes to financial information. That is, if it is not required to be disclosed, then don’t deviate from the recipe by adding extra spice. Whatever the reasons, it means that investors will have to search on their own for the causal links between internal performance and external effects.

Total main indicators

To their credit, some companies do attempt to fill in the gap and point out important external factors. Total, the French energy company, does this on a page in their investor relations section titled “Main Indicators”, which I have reproduced alongside. On that page, Total sets out a chart showing the Dollar/Euro exchange rate, European Refining Margins, the cost of Brent crude per barrel, and average gas and liquids prices, all factors that are of importance to an energy producer. In creating the chart, Total enables its investors to make more informed decisions and saves them a lot of research time. In short, they have made their financial information more effective.

It is something I’d like to see a lot more companies do.

In this series:
Previous post: Financial information
Next post: Provide context

Which Web Browser Brand Identity is Superior?

The competition among Web browsers has taken some interesting turns over the past few years, with players like Mozilla’s Firefox and Google Chrome taking a chunk out of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer market share.  Additionally, Mac users have more options than ever making Safari less popular.

browser_logos


While the features and functions of these Web browsers are likely to be debated for years to come, I started to wonder which has the best brand identity.  Certainly, Internet Explorer has history on its side, but Chrome has the power of Google behind it.  Firefox is known for add-ons and has become a relationship brand more so than any of its competitors.

But what do we think of each brand’s logo?  Which do you think is best in terms of communicating the brand image?  Which is simply designed the best?

Take the poll below and leave a comment to share your opinions.  Which Web browser is getting its brand identity right, including its logo?