Social Media usage in United Arab Emirates

http://www.nichesuite.com/social_media_marketing.html

A fundamental question that was considered was the frequency of use of social media. The question is
particular important given theories regarding the interdependence that occurs once media use becomes
substantial. As the quantitative results provided at the end of this article show, social media shows a
very strong presence for UAE participants. Strong usage statistics are exhibited in major categories.
When questioned regarding length of use, more than half of the participants (53%) reported using
social media for over two years. A significant percentage of newcomers (25%) had begun using social
media within the previous year. One way of measuring levels of usage is to ask about how confident
users are in their ability to use social media websites. Confident usage suggests substantial familiarity
and experience. A strong majority (57%) of participants felt "confident" in the knowledge they
possessed about various social media sites, and nearly one fifth (17%) felt "very confident" in their
skills. Attitudes toward social media were also quite positive, suggesting a generally favorable level of
interaction with these sites by residents. For example, when queried about the ability of social media
sites to credibly and accurately relay information as compared with traditional media, far more either
agreed (46%) or strongly agreed (25%), than disagreed (21%) or strongly disagreed (8%) that such
sites were reliable in this manner.
In general UAE respondents favored the same category-leading sites popular in the West and
worldwide. For example, the social network service of choice was Facebook, which was identified as the service of choice by 86% of respondents (followed by LinkedIn at 56% and MySpace 36%). The
video sharing site YouTube proved quite dominant (74%) in its category for survey takers. In another
major social media category, photo sharing, usage was less pronounced, but significant (24% used
Flicker, 12% used Photo bucket). The response in terms of Blog usage was distinctive. While Blogger
and Word Press are the most used blog sites in the West, UAE respondents identified Live Journal
most often as their blog of choice (36% for Live Journal versus 7% for Blogger). Focus group response
suggests that the reason for this is the attraction brought by the strong representation of international
users in Live Journal's user base. The relatively no-frills and technically demanding characteristic of
Live Journal (Live journal, 2011) suggests that respondents possess a substantial skill set for taking
advantage of social media features.
Most participants agreed that the use of social media is on the rise in the current teenage and
adult population (Twitter, YouTube, the IPhone, Blackberry, and IPad were mentioned frequently).
They had a clear conception of a wide range of uses for it, defining it as useful for contacting others,
discussions, searching for information, selling products and logos, making announcements, and
distributing surveys. But when surveyed about how they initially came upon a social media site, only
10% specifically mentioned the attraction of features. Some 27% reported that they subscribed to a
given site after being referred by a friend and 18% after hearing about the site, perhaps through
advertising or public relations

Survey on Usage of Social Media in Australia - Key Findings

Of 752 respondents 68% have created an OSN site profile. As would be expected younger
respondents were more likely to have a profile (86% of <17 and 87% of 18-25 year olds), while around half of the respondents aged 26-36 have a profile and only 27% of those aged 36 and over have created an online profile. Type and number of profiles Facebook was clearly the most popular website for this sample (49%), MySpace came in second with 29% of respondents using this platform and the remainder distributed amongst other well-known sites (for example, LinkedIn and Hi5). Almost 50% of respondents reported that they had actively maintained an online profile for over one year. The vast majority (75%) has just one active profile, while 22% acknowledge that they have two active profiles and only 3% of respondents had three or more active profiles. Profile Purpose The two primary reasons respondents identified for originally creating their online profile were, an invitation from others (40%) or a desire to stay in contact with family and friends (29%). Fewer respondents indicated that they had originally created a profile to actively get in contact with others (as opposed to staying in contact) (9%), out of general curiosity (9%), promote themselves or an event/issue (4%), to expand social networks (3%) or business networks (2%) networks, or ‘other’ unstated reasons (4%). Privacy With respect to privacy, the majority (68%) indicated that they created an online profile to be viewed only by people already known to them. Only 16% have part of their profile available to be viewed by anyone and 16% have their entire profile openly accessible to anyone. Further analysis of this data revealed that male respondents and those aged over 36 years had a greater tendency to have their profile publicly available. ‘Friends’ As would be predicted, younger respondents have a greater number of online ‘friends’ than their older counterparts. As outlined in Table 2 below, 84% of under 17s and 73% of 18-25s have more than 50 friends. In contrast, less than 20% of 26-35 year olds and 8% of 36+ have greater than 50 online ‘friends’ Also of interest is the amount of time being invested in OSN activities. As outlined in Table 5 (over page) the majority of respondents are spending under one hour per week on their own profile (and certainly less than five hours per week) and also less than five hours per week on the profiles of their friends. Overall 98% of respondents report spending less than five hours on their own profile and 95% devote less than five hours per week to their friends’ profiles. This data was further Young: Identity Creation and Online Social Networking ©International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society 2009 47 http://www.swin.edu.au/ijets
analysed in relation to ‘number of friends’ and ‘time spent online’. This analysis revealed that
number of online friends is not a predictor of time spent on one’s own profile. For instance,
respondents with 50-100 friends were identified as spending more time per week on their
own profile than those people who reported having over 200+ friends.

No respondent reported updating their profile picture on a daily basis but, 14% do so weekly,
47% do so monthly, 14% do so yearly, while 23% never make changes to their online profile
picture. More interesting were the respondents’ qualitative responses about their choice of
online picture

In addition to posting an online profile picture another area where the individual has control
over is his/her image is updating of status/feelings. Survey data revealed that 40% of
respondents make use of this feature. There was no discernable difference between gender
or age in making status updates.

Feelings toward online social networking
When asked what may contribute to OSN being viewed negatively it was found that
respondents felt quite strongly about receiving negative messages/actions and being
ignored. Over half of respondents also found the amount of time they were spending online
to communicate to be an issue. Table 9 below presents the items in order of most
detrimental to those which have less negative effect on the feelings of the online social
network user.

Survey on Usage of Social Media in Australia

The online survey was conducted over undergraduate and
post-graduate students currently enrolled in the Faculty of Education and the Faculty of
Humanities and Social Sciences in Australia.

The questions were...

Have you created an online profile in an online social networking site such as MySpace, Facebook or
LinkedIn?

Which sites have you used?

How long have you had an online profile?

How many online profiles do you consider active today?

Why did you originally create an online profile?

What personal information is available on your profile?

What level of privacy have you set?

What is you current online profile picture?

How often do you change your profile picture?

How many online ‘friends’ do you have?

How many online ‘friends’ do you see in person each week?

How many online ‘friends’ do you phone or text-message each week?

Who makes up the majority of your online ‘friends’?

How do you interact with others through your online profile?

How often do you post photos on you profile?

How often do you post videos on your profile?

How often do you post music on your profile?

How often do you change graphics/wallpaper on your profile?

Do you update your ‘status’ (how you are feeling) regularly?

Do you keep a blog on your profile?

Which item best describes most of your blog entries?

Estimate how much time you spent last week updating/editing/playing with applications on your profile?

Estimate how much time you spent last week browsing/contributing to your friends’ profiles?

The Key Findings after the survey would be revealed next day...

Socio-Cultural Theories and Online Social Networking in Australia

http://www.nichesuite.com

The popularity of OSN has increased significantly in a relatively short period of time. This is
evidenced by the increased membership to MySpace which has grown from 4.9 million in
November 2004 to 26.7 million in November 2005 (Read/WriteWeb 2007), to over 70 million
registered users in 2006 (Snyder et al., 2006). Statistics for Facebook similarly suggest
widespread growth. Trends indicate that Facebook users are increasing 3% per week with a
143% increase in page views at 15.8 billion over the period May 2006-May2007 (Techcrunch
2007). It is currently reported that these two very public and popular social networking sites
are attracting around 115 million people to their respective sites each month (Techcrunch
2008). As at April 2009, Facebook is identified as the fifth most popular website and
MySpace the tenth most popular site globally (Alexa 2009a)
1
.
In Australia MySpace and Facebook are consistently listed in the top 10 most popular
websites in the country. As at September 2008, Hitwise (2008)
2
ranks Facebook third and
MySpace seventh in terms of market share visits. In April 2009, Alexa (2009b) identified
Facebook as the third most popular site in Australia, while MySpace came in tenth position.
The popularity of these sites makes them a valuable context for exploring the nature of 21
st
century socialisation and, in turn, the phenomenon of online identity creation. In understanding this phenomenon it is useful to consider two socio-cultural perspectives of learning:
Situated Cognition and Activity Theory. Socio-cultural theories of learning value the
communication of knowledge through social practices and the opportunity to engage in various communities to learn with and from others. The link between online identity and
socio-cultural theories of learning arises from widespread use of a culturally valued tool (in
this case social networking websites) which provides a context for the individual to learn how
to construct an online identity which engages him/her with the collective OSN community.
Amongst other key principles, Situated Cognition is concerned with the notion of
‘communities of practice’ whereby learning is tied to one’s desire to engage with, and
become an active member of society (Lave & Wenger 1991). This could be viewed as a
process of enculturation where, from an early age, people adopt behaviours and belief
systems of their social groups and eventually start acting in accordance with their norms
(Brown et al., 1989). To a certain extent this learning occurs as more capable individuals
(masters) expose their practices to novice learners (apprentices) (Brown et al., 1989).
Learning occurs as a result of participation in real-life contexts and so, engagement in
authentic activity is heralded as a fundamental component in any investigation of human
experience (Bannon 1997; Brown et al., 1989; Herrington & Oliver 2000). Taking account of
principles underpinning Situated Cognition, research into OSN must relate directly to
experience, as it occurs in the daily lives of social networking site users. From this
perspective OSN can be explored as a process of enculturation, where the user actively
engages in the practices of a global online community – learning from this community and
subsequently contributing to the community.

SOCIAL NETWORKING STATUS IN AUSTRALIA

Summary :

NINE MILLION AUSTRALIANS NOW INTERACTING VIA SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES:
NIELSEN

1) Facebook dominates online social networking
2) Twitter records strongest growth in social media usage
3) Mobile social networking gaining traction

It is found that close to four in five Australian
Internet users (78%) sent or shared a photo in the past year and nearly three quarters (74%) sent or r shared a photo in the past year and nearly three quarters (74%) sent or
shared a link. The biggest increases in social media usage were reading and posting on Twitter,
reading wikis and engaging with brands and organisations via social media, including watching online video to support purchase decisions


Twitter’s audience levels grew by more than 400% in 2009 and nearly one quarter of online
Australians (23%) read ‘tweets’ in the past year, 14 percent ‘followed’ companies or organisations via
Twitter (up from 5% in 2008) and 13 percent posted ‘tweets’ (up from 4% in 2008). Wikis continued
to grow as a popular form of online content – close to three quarters of Australian Internet users
(73%) read a wiki in the past year compared to 61 percent in 2008 and just 37 percent in 2007.
Nearly two in five online Australians are now interacting with companies via social networking sites,
reinforcing notions that Australians are open to engaging with brands and companies online.
shared a link. The biggest increases in social media usage were reading and posting on Twitter,
reading wikis and engaging with brands and organisations via social media, including watching online video to support purchase decisions.

Social networking on sites such as Facebook was a key driver in Australians’ trial and uptake of
social media. Close to three in four online Australians (73%) have looked at others’ profiles on social
networks and well over one third (37%) of these report to be interacting with others via social
networking sites on a daily basis. Facebook dominates the online social networking space, with three
quarters of Australian Internet users (75%) reporting to have visited Facebook (see chart 2), 59
percent have a Facebook profile, and the average time spent on Facebook in a given month is 8:19
hours – seven and a half hours more than its closest rival site, YouTube. Moreover, 83 percent of
social networkers name Facebook as their main social networking platform, up from 72 percent in
2008 and 34 percent in 2007.

The rise in Smartphone ownership (43% of online Australians now own a Smartphone
1
) and relaxed
download caps on mobile phone plans has seen mobile social networking gain traction in the past
year. Nielsen’s report found that over one quarter of social networkers (26%) participated in mobile
social networking in the past year, with younger consumers the most likely to participate in social
networking via mobile – 66 percent of mobile social networkers are under 35 years of age. Facebook
is the most popular social networking site accessed via a mobile (92% of mobile social networkers
have visited Facebook), followed by YouTube and Twitter (18%) and MySpace (9%). However,
Twitter sees the most frequent mobile usage, with half of its mobile users visiting the site daily. In
comparison, Facebook saw 36 percent of its mobile users visit the site daily, while 22 percent of
MySpace users and 16 percent of YouTube users were making daily visits.

Facebook Store Launches Best Practices

Adgregate Markets measures the
effectiveness of a Facebook store in
acquiring a retailer’s fans by comparing
Facebook store MAus (Monthly Active
users) to the corresponding retailer’s
fans. As illustrated below, this MAu/
Fan Acquisition Rate is now averaging
over 2% across a number of live
Facebook stores and trending upwards.
This success illustrates the efficacy of
Facebook as a customer acquisition
channel, where retailers can quickly
jumpstart Facebook store traffic by
publishing wall posts. With more
and more leading retailers launching
successful stores in Facebook,
e-Commerce website traffic will
continue to decline.

Adgregate Markets measures the
effectiveness of a Facebook store in
acquiring a retailer’s fans by comparing
Facebook store MAus (Monthly Active
users) to the corresponding retailer’s
fans. As illustrated below, this MAu/
Fan Acquisition Rate is now averaging
over 2% across a number of live
Facebook stores and trending upwards.
This success illustrates the efficacy of
Facebook as a customer acquisition
channel, where retailers can quickly
jumpstart Facebook store traffic by
publishing wall posts. With more
and more leading retailers launching
successful stores in Facebook,
e-Commerce website traffic will
continue to decline.

Coordination with vendors is vital to ecommerce success

Coordination with vendors is vital to ecommerce success

E-commerce & F-Commerce

The striking contrast in traffic trends among websites in the categories
discussed above indicates that e-Commerce may be one of the factors
protecting websites from the influence of Facebook. What would happen
if Facebook begins to provide a seamless e-commerce experience?
To answer this, we looked at Delta Airlines which recently enabled
customers to book tickets right on its Facebook page. On a year-over-year
basis, Delta is experiencing a 9.53% drop in unique visitors to its website.
While Delta’s website lost more than a million unique visitors over a three
month period, its Facebook page gained more than a 1000 new fans.
Although this single instance is not sufficient evidence to conclude, it is an
early sign of declining website popularity in the future.

Furthermore, dozens of leading retailers are now following Delta’s
footsteps. The number of retailers planning to, or already participating
in, Facebook commerce is rapidly increasing. For example, Adgregate
Markets, a provider of Facebook commerce services, signed over 50
retailers, most in the Internet Retailer Top 500, the last quarter alone.
This trend indicates a rapid adoption by Top 500 retailers and brands to
open up this new social channel.

Findings :

1) Facebook stores are efficient at acquiring visitors cheaply through
wall posts, with post-launch wall posts generating on average 1,673%
spikes in store traffic

2) After first month from store launch, base level of traffic can be up
to 10% of fan base

3) Facebook stores on average generate a 17% social engagement
rate

4) Facebook stores generated on average earned Media Reach to
friends of fans equal to 25% of fan base

5) Facebook stores generated on average 5.9 pages views per visit

6) Facebook store dwell times average 2:50 per visit, growing 50%
over last three months

7) Facebook commerce conversion rates are on par with
e-Commerce websites

8) Average order value of $104 with 24% growth month over month.

F-Commerce : Facebook v/s Website Traffic Comparison

unique visits to a brand’s website were taken from Compete.com for Aug
and Nov 2010. The difference between these two data points gave the
increase/decrease in the number of unique visitors to a website over a
three month period. Since publicly available data for Facebook statistics is
very limited, fan count was used as a proxy for unique visits. The number
of fans for a brand’s page was noted in Aug 2010 and Jan 2011. The
difference between these two numbers is the number of newly added
fans in a five month period. This number represented only a fraction of
the unique visitors because it did not account for: old fans would have
visited again; or visitors who would have left without becoming a fan,
etc. Thus, the number of newly added fans represented the minimum
increase in unique visitors that can be assumed for a Facebook page – a
lowball figure. In this respect our analysis grossly underestimates the
potential of Facebook. even though the period of data collection is in
favor of Facebook (five months compared to three months for websites),
we feel it does not skew the results as it is well compensated by the lower
estimates used as proxies. Finally, companies were grouped into two
categories: ‘e-Commerce’ and ‘Non e-Commerce’ based on whether their
websites supported e-Commerce transactions. A sample of 22 companies
was selected in each of the two categories bringing the test sample up to
44.

Key Findings :

1) Among the 44 companies, 18 companies (about 40%) exhibited
extremely high traffic to their Facebook page compared to their websites.
Not only were their websites accounting for fewer unique visits than Facebook, but many were also showing a decline in visits over the three
month period

2) Of the 22 categorized as ‘Non-ecommerce’, 13 companies (about
65%) received more unique visits to their Facebook page compared to
their website

3) Two companies that exhibited extremely high Facebook traffic
were Coca-Cola and Walt Disney

4) Of the 22 companies having e-Commerce transactions, only
five exhibited promising Facebook trends, while the rest (about 77%)
portrayed very consistent traffic to their websites. even though
these websites fare better than Facebook currently, their future growth is
questionable since many have started to experience significant drops in
unique visits compared to last year

Load your ecommerce website with the right features

In an ecommerce business, having a website is an important aspect; having a website with the right features is another, more important one. This is because your website is the means through which you do your ecommerce business. An ordinary website and a feature-rich website is often the difference between succeeding and failing at ecommerce. By the word ‘features’ is meant both the features that cover the aesthetic aspects of the ecommerce website, as well as those that serve the business purpose.
Business-enabling features
These features, as the nomenclature suggests, are those that enable smooth conduct of the business. The ecommerce software is the part that helps the website to carry out these functions. The best ecommerce software is one that incorporates the most features that an ecommerce business needs for helping the business run smoothly. The ecommerce software synchronises the various functions of the business for smooth conduct.
It has to be understood that an ecommerce business is what may be called e-retail business. It is a form of retail business, because it is done at the retail level; it is e-retail, because it is done on the web, virtually. So, what all does a business that is done remotely need to have in place in order to be successful?
E-Commerce ERP is one of the crucial elements of an ecommerce business. A retail business is has to hold many parts together. These parts relate to the functions of the retail business, and ERP is one of them. A proper ERP is the heart of the ecommerce business. So, the ecommerce business has to select the right one.
M-Commerce is another important area that is catching up in ecommerce. So, M-Commerce CRM is another important aspect of the ecommerce business. Today, customers prefer commerce over mobile devices; so the ecommerce business is better equipped if it is armed with features concerning M-commerce, such as SMS integration with website for instance. Whenever there is a transaction alert to be sent out to customers, SMS integration with website does it without hassles.
Design aspects
Having put important business-enabling features in place, an ecommerce business also needs to focus on the design elements. Ecommerce and ecommerce design are interrelated to and inseparable from each other.
Ecommerce design is very important. The key to attracting customers is to design ecommerce website attractively. An ecommerce website has ecommerce designers who usually are professionals that take care of the ecommerce site design. The aim should be to make the ecommerce website not only effective, but good-looking as well. Thus, a proper blend of the functionality and design is often the key to ecommerce success.

Choosing the right ecommerce hosting company

Starting an ecommerce business is not just about finding the right products to sell online. You may have great products and your business may be targeted at a huge market; but one of the most important factors to keep in mind is the ecommerce hosting company.
What is ecommerce hosting all about?
What is a web hosting company, and what does it do? One can get a clear idea of the answer to this question with the following definition of the topic from http://ping.fm/mkWi6“E-commerce hosting is a business in which a company provides other companies whatever they need to sell their products and services on the World Wide Web - including a Web server to serve a company's pages, possibly the Web site design (including catalog pages), and the special capabilities needed to accept, process, and confirm sales orders. E-commerce hosting usually includes providing templates for building virtual storefronts or online catalogs, providing software for customized electronic "shopping carts," taking and filling customer orders, arranging for secure credit-card purchasing, and providing tools for tracking and managing inventory.
An e-commerce hosting provider may also provide services other than managing online transactions, including EDI, the gathering of demographic or other information (usually for marketing purposes), or transactions between businesses (business-to-business e-commerce).” (http://ping.fm/ZqdV0)
The criticality of the ecommerce hosting company
This detailed description illustrates the role of ecommerce hosting. In simple terms, it is about finding someone (some company) to take care of all the backend operations of your ecommerce business. Choosing the right ecommerce hosting company is as important as choosing your ecommerce business itself, because, as the definition above shows, an ecommerce hosting company has to be equipped to serve each and every need of an ecommerce company. What are the factors that one needs to look at when choosing an ecommerce hosting company?
E commerce software
The biggest strength of the ecommerce hosting company should be in supporting your E commerce software. This is obviously because the E commerce software is the backbone of the entire ecommerce business. E commerce software should be programmed to run the ecommerce site and enable it to perform all its business functions with ease. The effectiveness of any software lies in its ability to perform its work unobtrusively, without making itself known to the user.
Website Optimisation
Website optimisation is another important factor, because this covers all important aspects of the way the page website functions. The ecommerce web site is the equivalent of the shop space in traditional businesses. Since the website is the virtual likeness of the physical store, website optimisation is the tool with which to make people come over to the store.
Social Media Marketing
The most important element of website optimisation is social media marketing. Most ecommerce hosting companies offer social media services. An ecommerce hosting company exists almost as an SEO company in most cases. It uses services of SEO specialists. These specialists employ make use of many social media tools to optimise the web page. This in turn translates to good ecommerce business.

Looking for ecommerce software in London or other parts of UK?

If you are an ecommerce business or someone about to start one, and are looking for ecommerce software in London or other parts of UK, we can help. For having an online store, UK is always known to be a great destination. It is well known that the UK is considered the world’s most mature market for ecommerce business. So, an ecommerce business in London or anywhere else in the UK is an exciting proposition.

So, how can we at NicheSuite help? In a word, we help with everything starting with e commerce site development that forms the backbone of your ecommerce company to support services. NicheSuite is an end-to-end ecommerce business suite. This e commerce software is loaded with features that make your customers’ ecommerce shopping meaningful and easy.

Multichannel ecommerce
One of our features relates to multi channel ecommerce. For an ecommerce site that is planning multi channel retail, eBay integration and Amazon integration are central. These are the world’s two largest online marketplaces, and multi-channel retailing is unthinkable without integration with these two websites, ecommerce on which we enable.

For an ecommerce website, eBay integration is essential. Our ecommerce website development offers complete eBay store design. eBay store and eBay e commerce cart are part of our highly flexible e commerce software. Our e commerce software makes selling on eBay as easy as a few clicks, which means that from where you are, you can start selling to a target market of over 300 million without the slightest glitch.

With eBay integration with your website, we offer many features like eBay shop design, eBay template design and eBay design. NicheSuite’s eBay listing software carries out these functions.

Amazon ecommerce integration
Another of the many features we offer in marketplace integration is Amazon ecommerce integration. Our Amazon web services come with Amazon integration, giving your business the opportunity to reach out to a vast marketplace of over 100 million. You can trade virtually any item on Amazon. With NicheSuite, you can either integrate your store with Amazon, or you can sell exclusively on Amazon, based on your profitability and convenience!

Highly effective ecommerce shopping cart
For a successful online business, ecommerce should consist of an effective and highly functional, thoughtfully developed online shopping cart software. NicheSuite specialises in it. NicheSuite’s ecommerce shopping cart performs all the functions that you need from your website ecommerce.

Effective ecommerce design, too!
Added to all these, NicheSuite can also help with anything related to ecommerce design. When you choose to sell on the web, ecommerce design is an important element. This is because no matter what features you offer on your e commerce website, design is what attracts a customer to the site. NicheSuite has a team of experienced, highly professional ecommerce web designers. They carry out aesthetic design that an ecommerce website needs to be successful on the web. Our ecommerce website designers make your online webstore highly attractive. They make sure that design sits in sync with what you offer on your ecommerce website. Our ecommerce designers make your site stand out among the heaps of other sites.

In other words, when you choose NicheSuite, you can rest assured that doing ecommerce in London or other parts of England the UK is not only profitable; it is fun as well.

Ecommerce solutions need to be smart

Ecommerce solutions these days need to be smart. They can no longer afford to be lagging behind. In fact, they have to keep innovating all the time and be on their toes. An ecommerce software is expected to perform miracles, so to speak. Ecommerce website design and development has to be conceptualised keeping a myriad of factors in mind.
Understand your user
Businesses know what they are targeting; however, there is a subtle difference between knowing what to target and whom to target it at. Ecommerce websites need to first understand what their customers are specifically looking for. This requires ecommerce web development that keeps these in mind. When dealing with a huge number of customer, it is always likely that one customer may look for something about a product and another customer may look for something else.
The role of the ecommerce shopping software
If the first step for the business is to understand precisely what needs to go into the ecommerce website, the next step is to have in place an ecommerce shopping software that fulfils the exact needs of the business. The criticality of the ecommerce shopping software can never be overstated. It is the soul of the business. The ecommerce shopping software is the driver of ecommerce business solutions. It has to have everything that is going to go into shopping. It should facilitate all the features that the business offers. It has to also ease the functionality, in that it should quickly allow the user to carry out all the functions that the ecommerce business offers on its store.
And, making the experience fun…
On top of it all, the shopping experience should be fun and enjoyable. It should be bereft of any cumbersome processes and procedures. For this to happen, the ecommerce website design has to play an important role. An ecommerce business has to put in place an ecommerce website that is a blend of the useful and the aesthetic. An ecommerce website may have the finest features, but if they are not presented in an attractive package, the visitor is not likely to become a shopper.
Choose the proper website development ecommerce platform
In sum, if an ecommerce business has to have an ecommerce website that is both functional and attractive; it has to strike the right blend of ecommerce shopping software and ecommerce website design. This should be the right combination for success. Once what looks like a good ecommerce website is in place, other supplementary activities like SEO and SMM can be tried to push up page rankings. The point is that these search-related activities may push up the site and make it seen, but what makes the visitor a buyer is only a well done ecommerce website.

E-commerce Barriers in South Africa

E-Commerce seen as an IT initiative: In the views of some of the key executives the idea that e-commerce is an IT
initiative was quite prevalent. That idea together with the Chief Information Officer’s role in many organisations is
often not weighted sufficiently relative to the directors of product areas. In businesses where e- commerce is doing
well, the product areas are driving it as an alternative channel to sell product and the CIO a key role in influencing
strategy. Although there are various approaches it is advisable to ensure that it does reside in a product area and that
the IT department are partnered to deliver the correct solution and architecture.
SA consumers are not ready : A widely held view is that due to the socio-economic challenges faced by SA, there are
too small a percentage of the population who has access to computers and internet. This has largely been shifted
through the growth of the smartphone, high speed mobile internet and the development of mobile applications for
commerce. There is also a belief that South African consumers will not readily pay delivery charges and that many are
either without credit cards or not trusting their use in online systems. Key to bear in mind here is the massive growth
in SA’s middle class, which in 2008 before the global financial crisis was said to be growing by 12, 000 people per
month.
The High Start-up Cost: A common concern among the executives was the cost of starting out in online retail. In
further investigation a common thread emerged which might point to the source of this concern. That is the lack of
knowledge of e-commerce which has caused many of these retailers to engage overseas vendors or consultants to
investigate the opportunity. These vendors often return expensive proposals from a capital investment perspective
but also in ongoing support and maintenance from an off-shore location. In our scanning of the SA e-commerce
solutions provider landscape we found that SA in fact has a plethora of internationally recognized online solution
providers. Some of these key facts are that companies like Kalahari.net is completely built and supported in SA.
SA does not have sufficient skills: There was a concern regarding the scarcity of skills in SA in the IT and
particularly in the e-commerce arena. This is mainly a genuine concern and businesses need to commit by
investing in supporting the training of additional resources in this arena.
Starting out is risky: A fairly common concern is that a retailer might invest a fair deal on capital and effort
only to have either too few benefits delivered or have the venture fail. Public failure could lead to the erosion of
customer service and brand equity. There are many alternatives here to reduce some of this risk. Collaborations are
probably the surest way in which to share risk and introduce an external partner. These can take the form of
collaborations with implementation partners, current online businesses, with fulfillment and delivery partners or
even partnerships with hosting companies.

South African retail and the impact of e-commerce

The SA consumer and the digital divide
We conducted a survey and held focus groups which had a sample population of 62 which cut across the Living Standards
Measure range (50% below R300k p.a and 50% above). In order to understand current shopping orientation, their level
of adoption of online retail, the perceptions and opinions regarding online and to identify any commonalities. Our findings
highlighted the following:
 People across all the LSM groups and across age, sex and race boundaries are adopting online retail in some
form and measure. In many cases they were not even cognisant of the fact that they were.
 A high percentage (39%) transacts using their mobiles, slightly more than those who only use their PC’s.
 With the mobile purchases, airtime, ring tones, music and other mobile related products are popular.
 One of the most popular areas of spend (57%) was with airline tickets and event tickets, while hotel bookings
ranked at 47%. This was most prevalent above the income level of R300k per annum.
 Groceries and apparel had the least optimistic response with many citing a lack of knowledge.
 The general consensus (85%) was that their experience was satisfactory, but with concern over security and
privacy is shown by only 57% indicating comfort in this area.
When asking our focus groups for suggestions for the future, they said:
 They wanted to see more price comparison services available through online.
 They cited the need for more effective delivery services for goods.
 They also suggested that a focus on responsiveness to consumer complaints would go a long way towards
developing trust. Together with this the need for more clarity and education on the benefits and the
mechanics of online would also provide confidence.
Research findings
E-commerce is growing in South Africa. All our research shows retailers are responding to the consumer demand for an
online presence. In our interviews we met with Executives who were passionate about e-tailing:
 Those who were aware of its importance and exploring possible strategies
 Those that thought a presence for information was sufficient10
 Those who thought it was not significant in SA.

The 5 Most Significant Consumer Trend that helped Ecommerce growth in South Africa

1. Growth in e-tailing
In South Africa, a survey of online retailers showed that only 7%, predicted growth of by 40% or less in 2011, whilst
77% believed that their growth would be between 41-60% (World Wide Worx, Online Retail in SA 2011/2012). This is a
critical indicator of confidence in the online retailer which is based on their belief and understanding of the growing trend
toward e-tailing. The table below shows that Online retail sales in South Africa is small relative to the total retail sales, its
growth rate is substantially higher (World Wide Worx, Online Retail in SA 2011,118).


2. Buying Apparel and Groceries online
The earliest growth experienced in online sales was in the arena of CD’s, books, flight tickets and electronic equipment.
3. Consumer shifts toward Mobile commerce
Studies show the growth of mobile commerce and their use as touch points and a consumer who seamlessly switches
between them to transact. The popularity of the smartphones and tablets is a big driver of a shift in consumer behaviour.
Number of Global Mobile Payment Transaction Types in Millions
By 2015, shoppers around the world are expected to spend about $119 bn on goods and services purchased via mobile
phones. This number represents about 8% of the total e-commerce market, according to ABI (Research.86).Mobile online
shopping is reaching critical mass, says senior analyst Mark Beccue. In the USA, mobile shopping rose from
$396m in 2008 to $1.2bn in 2009. A more than threefold increase in one year indicates significant consumer interest.”
These numbers, however, are dwarfed by mobile online shopping in Japan, which exceeded $10bn in 2009
In the past decade, the only serious category of business usage of mobile commerce in SA has been airtime purchase. With
ringtone and phone wallpaper purchases, this category resulted in the market passing the R2-bn mark in sales in 2004, from
R50m in 2000. Where making purchases in exchanging airtime for a logo for example, consumers do not realize the
transaction has financial value (World Wide Worx, Online Retail in SA 2011,49). A study at the end of 2010 shows 52% of those
using cellphone banking said they had purchased airtime via their phones. A minority claimed to have made
regular purchases using their phones: a mere 11%. Only 9% of cellphone bankers claimed to have purchased pre-paid
electricity via their cellphones, while 5% had used cellphone banking to make a once-off payment to a retail store (World
Wide Worx, Online Retail in SA 2011,50). While people do not intend directly buying from their phones, 10% to 15% of the
revenues from retail are expected to be influenced by mobile applications this year: amounting to as much as $340 billion in
total retail sales across the USA, France, Germany, and the UK (World Wide Worx, Online Retail in SA 2011,51).
Our interviews with large retailers in the USA, Canada and the UK produced varied feedback in that the North American
markets seems to show a slower adoption rate of mobile commerce than in Europe and the UK. Industry experts we met such
as Google Canada, Microsoft and solutions provider, Buddy Media supported the idea that developing countries like SA have a
unique opportunity to use Mobile commerce to leap frog the developed world, since it does not have the legacy of PC based
internet access models to the extent that the developed countries do. Retailers in these countries should be more readily able
to develop and drive growth in mobile without having to track through the full evolutionary cycle of e-commerce.


4. Multi-channel as a trend
Future Operating Model
The cross-channel challenges
To be truly cross-channel, says Verizon Business, retailers need to enable “buy and pick-up anywhere”, but pay once in
one channel. Verizon says that within this broad integration challenge: “Retailers are finding themselves in the
information business. To be competitive, it‘s important for them to know what motivates customers to buy and what
creates loyalty so that targeted marketing campaigns can be developed. The best weapon retailers have is their own
data. Ironically, capturing data across channels can help them better plan and target cross-channel strategies. They need
to analyze merchandise performance. Gaining important insights in areas like product demand, price and promotion,
category performance, and assortments, can help optimize product mix, forecast inventory swings, and even improve buying
positions with vendors. To realize full value of this data, they need to have it consolidated, integrated, and accessible,
however identifying, gathering, storing, and securing data requires a fair amount of overhead. IT investments are needed.
Inventory management has always taken an inordinate amount of effort. Accurate visibility and forecasts help reduce stockouts. Automating inventory and establishing visibility are just the first steps. Inventory systems must be integrated across
channels to provide product consistency in quantities and in price and description. The greatest improvement comes when
the supply chain is open and integrated with distributors, wholesalers, and suppliers” (Verizon Business, 2011).
Our interviews in the international markets showed a consistent focus on moving to multi-channel by large retailers.
Although the designs and approaches vary in some form, the underlying principle of selling to customers through channels
that they want to shop is prevalent. The common challenges both locally and internationally are to integrate customer data
in a useable and value adding way and to build flexible supply chains.

McKinsey touts the multi-channel retail strategy known as triple-play, a combined approach that integrates retail store
strategy with online and catalogue sales. They conclude:”Catalogues attract new customers, drive repeat business, and
coordinate product lines; the Web offers convenience, product information, and quick updates for pricing or promotions;
stores, by contrast, allow shoppers to handle and test goods before they buy them. The challenge for triple plays is to
understand how customers use each channel, to match products to that channel’s economics, and to create a consistent
customer experience across all of them. Add the contact centre, in a four-play strategy, as defined in this paper, and the
customer is provided with instant access to personal assistance, while the store has an opportunity to both increase the size
of the purchase and the level of customer satisfaction. While such four-way strategy is not tried and tested, and no data is
available on its success, it represents emerging strategic best practice (McKinsey, 2011)”.
5. Social Media as a Trend
Empowered to stay connected to multitudes of people, communities, groups or businesses, enabling them to assimilate,
contribute, chat, share, collaborate, purchase and work, has influenced behaviour (L. Freedman – Etailing Group 2011).
Facebook has more than 400 million users and in the USA their members spend an average of 14 minutes daily on the site
(Accenture, Social Networks enabling the Market of Me 2010:3-4). Globally Facebook, which is by far the largest social media
force, has 750 million members (2011: Mark Zuckerberg). Analysts and industry experts are now predicting that Facebook has the
potential of becoming the de facto Internet of the future. In an interview of Buddy Media UK MD, we gleaned better insight into this
idea, in that:
 The Internet lifecycle started with the Availability of information to the Selling of goods and services to the
Organization and orchestration of resources, like Google and then to the Personalization of online resources
around individuals needs – Facebook!
 Businesses are using Facebook to conduct Customer Relationship Management, engaging consumers into
community like conversations about product, service and aspiration. This engagement is proving so powerful that a significant rethink of the use of traditional “push” communication through traditional media sources, is
evident. An example of this is the premium retailer, Burberry, which has recently enjoyed a massive resurgence
in its popularity, is rated as one of the best business users of Facebook, by the Buddy Media MD. Interestingly,
Burberry received 6.5 million “Likes” on Facebook and the question is to what measure its advertising spend
with fashion magazine, Vogue, is still significant, since Vogue has a readership of 1.6 million people. The
diagram below shows the Top 10 Brands on Facebook and the graph shows the margin by which people access
those brands through Facebook instead of through search engine, Google.

Social media begins with people and grows with collaboration

“Several years ago, integrated
marketing was a big buzz,” Christa
Carone, Corporate Vice President
and Chief Marketing Officer for Xerox,
says. “Now we’re talking about brand consistency across these media. I’m
helping to drive that. What I’ve learned
is that you have to start with your
people first and a commitment to the
integrity of the brand, then give them
some kind of guidelines so they can get
started. I’ve been fascinated looking at
how the community evolved. When you
let people go [ahead with social media],
they’re excited, they’re smart – have
high aspirations where you can take
social – it’s really exciting to see this
creative energy.

“It’s unsettling for some people in our
organization to feel empowered,” she
continues, “because in the past we’ve
said ‘No, you only speak to the media
if you’re in PR,’ for example. Now we’re
saying, ‘Anyone can speak.’ We have
our guidelines for developing Facebook
pages, Twitter handles, and lines are
blurring between personal and business
online personas. We hope to empower
our sales force more to use social.”
With Best Buy’s Twelpforce – where
more than 3,000 Best Buy in-store
employees answer consumer questions
via Twitter – and other digital and social
initiatives, Best Buy has made the most
of its early-adopter clients to build
multi-way conversations that support
their core business goals.

“[The evolution of our social strategies]
is happening fast, from an organizational
perspective,” Adobe’s Travis says.
“Part of being a leader in social is
being genuine. We’ve reorganized our
organization to be a hub and spoke,
not to regulate but to provide shared
learning, a lot of dialog between the
hub and spokes.”
“We have corporate communications,
but we also have call centers and so
many other touch points,” Kimberly
Kadlec, Worldwide Vice President,
Global Marketing Group for Johnson &
Johnson. “We need to start to empower
some of the areas beyond marketing
and advertising. Whatever touches your
consumer needs to have a consistent
tone and with a human voice; we’re
focused on that.”
“We try to get our marketing people
into the call centers at least once a
year so we stay connected,” Steve
Fuller, Senior Vice President and CMO
for L.L.Bean, says. “It humanizes our
customers; when customers become
numbers, bad things happen. It also
simplifies marketing and promotion
messages. Talking to your customers
will often give you a very different
perspective around a marketing
effort’s effectiveness.”

Successful Facebook Outputs combine social networks with consumer / brand interactions.

Dan Rose, Vice President of
Partnerships and Platform Marketing
for Facebook, encourages brands
to “take the marketing funnel with
awareness at top and action at bottom,
and turn it into a circle where you have
you and your friends at the middle.
Make it faster and easier to find and
share with friends.”
For example, Ticketmaster benefits
from the friend-focus of Facebook
because people tend to go to concerts
with someone else. They added the
capability for Ticketmaster customers
to share the news about their recent
ticket purchase with friends. For every
share that happens on Facebook via
Ticketmaster, Ticketmaster generates
more than five dollars in ticket revenue,
and they track these results daily.

Restaurant reservations site OpenTable
added the “like” button for its restaurants
and sees a 25% increase in reservations
and a 200% increase in member
registrations at OpenTable.com,
once the Facebook user sees the
restaurants on Facebook.
To gather more product reviews,
Benefit Cosmetics allows customers
to add reviews on the Benefits
Facebook page, then those reviews
flow automatically into Benefit’s
product pages. Within two weeks,
through Facebook, they got fans to
review 80% of their products.

To Marisa Thalberg, Vice President of
Global Digital Marketing for The Estée
Lauder Companies, social media is
the ultimate conduit to high-touch
relationships, building on Lauder’s
one-to-one selling in stores. Social
media lets consumers feel a sense of
connection with the brand and with
each other. On Facebook, Estée Lauder
tries not to push a marketing message;
rather, they want to be authentic in the
brand voice and make it appropriate
for social media.
“You want to be able to recognize the
brand’s voice – it’s the hardest thing
to get right, in my opinion, to make the
voice consistent but make it relevant
to social,” Thalberg says.
Social also enables an “unprecedented
intimate brand relationship,” Thalberg
says. “Ultimately, communications
are merging and uniting around our
consumer. She expects us to come to
her, so we need to foster a continuous,
intimate, varied experience for her,
depending on where she is and what
she wants, when she wants it.
“Brands can validate the consumer,
but now she also validates our brands,”
Thalberg says. “Social media enables
association with brands to literally
act as badges. [Social users share]
the brands they associate themselves
with, such as the bag you carry. This is
where brand equity is so powerful.”
“Social is fundamental to Adobe,”
Travis says. “We have always engaged
with our customers – Adobe labs and
forums are part of our DNA. Digital for
us is the backbone of our marketing;
we spend greater than 70% of our total
marketing spend on digital. We’re trying
not to think of social as a media type
– it’s a fundamental shift in our culture,
customers want to engage with us. We
continue to see how we can integrate
it across everything we do.”

Emerging Trends N Best Practices in Global Ecommerce

As social media, app stores and global availability become standard, many companies are looking to enhance the online customer experience.While retail and other transactions via Internet are customary, more than ever companies are simplifying the ways in which customers interact with their website and ultimately make online purchases. Here are eight trends happening right now in global e-commerce that seek to enhance the user experience:

Micro-payments – Among the most revolutionary changes in the coming months—not years—is the use of micro-payment systems from a variety of financial firms, e.g., Paypal, Visa, WesternUnion, among others, including banks. This trend is facilitated by the W3C working group that approved these protocols and technical standards for the interworking. These systems will change not only how we carry money but how we value money and think about purchases. (Consider how a purchase of $4.99 feels in a mobile app store vs. at Dunkin' Donuts.) Payment systems that make it easier to buy online, coupled with mobile technologies will accelerate the usage of global e-commerce applications.
Mobile technologies – More people access the Internet on their mobile devices than on any other device. We are rapidly approaching the time (if we are not already there) where designs must be created for the mobile Web first, and for the desktop second. Mobile technologies facilitate comparison shopping; with the advent of barcode reader apps and price-comparison databases, a consumer could snap a bar code in Walmart and quickly reference product reviews and prices on walmart.com (or compare prices with Walmart competitors). Mobile technologies also facilitate impulse buys – especially with the advent of micro-payments tied to the mobile device. Just recently, Starbucks customers can not only place an order with their Smartphone, but also make a purchase.
Social media – As Facebook has become the most visited site on the Web, the role of social media, including Facebook and its local clones such as Twitter, is increasingly important. Social media sites increasingly act as points of entry to e-commerce sites, and vice versa, as e-commerce sites build rating, loyalty and referral systems tied to social media. Group buying (e.g., Groupon) is also gaining mainstream ground, with many "deal of the day" sites competing for an increasingly savvy consumer base, but improvements lie ahead as the social aspects and user experience are refined.
Fulfillment options – I believe that users will want to have multiple fulfillments and return options when interacting with a vendor: ship to address, courier, pick-up in store, return to store, etc. Having many fulfillment options is how customers view their overall customer experience. Some companies have made a business proposition online by being exceptional in service to the online channel (e.g., Zappos).
Global availability – Increasingly, consumers want the availability to buy products from foreign sites and have them delivered locally. Thus, currency and customs will be of growing concern to many online retailers. Along with this, there will be concerns with local privacy laws and restrictions on related data collection and storage.
Localization – While the trend is to globalize, what’s often more important is to localize. User Centric’s research clearly shows that sites that ‘feel’ local – with proper imagery, language, time/date, weights/measures, currency, etc. – resonate far more than sites that seem culturally distant or sterile.
Customizability – Consumers want control, and want to be able to design the details of the items they purchase.
Time-based availability – Some of the hottest and most successful sites are those that have a time-critical response component. Sites like Groupon, Gilt and others capitalize on the perception of limited-time availability. Creating a sense of urgency drives traffic and purchase behavior.

Can FACeBOOk Become ReTAIl?S ?NexT GOOGle?

“Social” has of course been the buzzword of the past few years. Now the inescapable fact that Facebook
has more users than there are Americans and that the company has made several well-publicized
moves in the commerce arena mean “social commerce” will be a popular conversation topic in the
months to come.
1
Some of the boldest prognostications have been that Facebook will be “the next
Google.”
2
The most common refrains supporting that perspective were variants of the following:
“With hundreds of millions of users, it will affect everything, including commerce.” (CEO,
social commerce vendor)
“Shopping is inherently social, so it would make sense for a social network to play
a significant role in the shopping process.” (VP, online marketing, $1 billion-plus
multichannel retailer)
However, we would be remiss to not point out that there is no shortage of skeptics when it comes to
Facebook and particularly around commerce. Computer scientist and author of the acclaimed book
You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, Jaron Lanier disparagingly describes the mad frenzy around
Facebook as “digital Maoism.”
3
Data that Forrester has collected with Shop.org for two years has
reflected that social networks fail to drive meaningful revenue for eBusiness professionals in retail,
have a questionable ROI, and are generally ineffective as customer acquisition tools

Furthermore, while Facebook proponents would argue that the best of Facebook commerce is
yet to come, the fact remains that, in spite of an open architecture and several hundred thousand
developers making efforts to develop useful social shopping applications, few, if any, have managed
to create a breakaway success. In contrast, paid search was viewed as a home run in Google’s early
days. Social networks, however, are not yet viewed quite as positively by retailers (see Figure 1-3).
To better understand these findings, we spent eight weeks interviewing nearly two dozen technology
vendors, retailers, and interactive marketers to craft a perspective on the topic. Facebook did not
respond to requests to be interviewed prior to publication of this document. The questions we set
out to answer were the following: How are eBusiness professionals in retail using Facebook? And
why hasn’t Facebook been able to generate more for eBusiness professionals in retail?