Collaboration Community Services

Another important aspect of the collaboration community from both the retailer and the community member perspective is the shopping and services activities and functionality.  This is different than that retailer’s sales channel in that it promotes the social aspects of shopping within the community.  By this I mean that a key aspect of this functionality is the social aspect and the shopping is just one potential outcome.  Remember that one of the key objectives of the community is to provide the members a reason to return and the shopping and services functionality in the community provides the social aspect to encourage the member to return and participate in the community.

I define shopping and services as focused on the social aspects of shopping and the purchase aspect is secondary.  It is important to support and encourage this aspect of the community to provide the consumer a destination where they can meet and engage with other consumers in the social aspect of shopping.  This functionality of the community provides the consumer with the shopping mall experience.  In this case, they meet virtually with other members of the community to share shopping tips and recommendations while they participate in community interactions.  It is important to the success of the community that this aspect of the community focuses on the social aspect of shopping and provides options to purchases from other retailers.  This aspect of the community cannot be perceived by community members that it is focused exclusively on the products and services offered by the host.  

This collaboration community must focus on the community aspect and not simply as another sales outlet.  Consumers are sophisticated enough to quickly determine the intent and focus of the community and will quickly see through any insincere attempt to fool the consumer.  This will quickly kill any community because of the speed with which consumers share information across the Internet social spheres.  This is a good thing because it forces honesty from the retailer.  

I can understand the difficulty for the retailer to change their culture to develop these altruistic sites because it amounts to a culture change for them to provide a site and a service that has no guarantee of a return on investment, where the benefits are all soft benefits.  The key difficulty, as I see it, with the collaboration community is the leap of faith required from the retailer host to commit to and start the collaboration community that is focused on the needs and benefits of the consumer member rather than a focus on sales.  This hurdle relates to the horizon in which the benefits will be achieved because the benefits horizon will not be in the next quarter, they may not be realized until the next year.

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Collaboration Community DIY

A key function or area of the collaboration community is the DIY, or How-To, area.  This truly provides the glue and the discussions that will hold the community together, provide the interest to retain and draw the consumer to return to the site and encourage the consumer to participate in the community.  The other areas of the site have a tendency to fall into a one sided conversation with the consumer or a private conversation with the consumer to address an issue or individual question.  The DIY area though should be the highlight and the focus of the community that provides the headlines and hook articles that will draw the consumer into the site and also provide the promotion interest through Facebook and Twitter to draw the consumer to return to the site.

This function will require the greatest effort to both start up and maintain within the community because it requires more than a passing comment to generate the interest.  This area requires some thoughtful architecture and definition as part of the definition to provide groupings or rooms of different interest for people to participate.  In addition to the architecture it also requires the ability to support different types of material from videos, to photos, to drawings, to text along with a mix and match ability for the material based on the subject matter.  This requirement is no simple feature and must be thought out and architected into the framework of the site to support the features and also the promotion of the features and the subject matter.  This will require a great deal of effort in the startup phase especially until it catches interest with the consumer community members to fully participate and populate the area with subjects of their own interest.

This one area will require the support from both the marketing team and the artistic development teams to create a site that interests the consumer and one that is promoted to generate the curiosity and the stickiness to encourage consumers to return.  In addition to this it is important that this area does not turn into another pure marketing outlet for the retailer, it must be viewed as an outlet for the consumer to discuss and demonstrate how they use the types of products sold by the retailer.  In fashion apparel it might be suggestions for pairing clothing and accessories and in hardlines it might be how to use the products in new and unusual ways.  In order to support these requirements this area must be the most dynamic of the community because it requires continuous change and updates to generate and maintain the interest.

The area should be the focus of your community with the greatest creative focus and also the most interactive area allowing for both postings of all types and also links to outside postings that are of interest to the consumer.  This must be an area that focuses on the consumer interests and not an area that focuses on the sale.  

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?

Collaboration Community Framework

The consumer collaboration community will only deliver benefits and meet its potential if it is built on a framework that supports and encourages the activities that interest the entire community.  There are at least two factions that must be supported by this framework, the consumer and the retailer.  These two factions will grow into more as the community grows in both members and interests.  This requires a framework to support the community that is both robust in its ability to support the demands of of the members and flexible to support the changing interests.  This framework can probably be best supported by the cloud services and technology in the most efficient manner.

I think of three areas that the community should start with;

1. How-to, or DIY - This is where the members can post photos and videos describing how they use products and even services.  This would be available and a viable section for postings from both retailer and consumers.
2. Shopping services and suggestions.  This is where special sales and also shopping suggestions can be provided.  This area would also be a viable section for postings from both retailer and consumers.  It is important for the concept of the community that this area be open to suggestions for other retailers for special sales.  Amazon provides an example for this implementation; provide the list of other sites offering the products and special prices to simplify the consumer shopping.  This will encourage the shopper to remain on the host’s site and the longer the consumer remains on the site, the greater the chance for a sale.
3. Surveys and new product previews - This is where the retailer host can mine information from the consumers regarding products, services and sales.  The consumer members can be encouraged to complete surveys by offering discounts or pre-release type sales to the consumer members.  This is also where the retailer host can provide incentives and community benefits to members to encourage return visits to the community and the surveys area of the community.

You will notice that my suggestions are generic in nature and can really fits across a broad range of retailer and product offering.  This is because I want to encourage the broadest range of retailer to develop their own community.  In addition, I think it is important for the community to start with the most simple aspects, functions and features to provide the incentive for the members to participate and build a community that meets the members needs.  A key to the growth of this community, I think, is the encouragement to the community to participate to grow the community in the manners that are important to the members.  

And now for the audience participation portion of the show…

ECommerce will have wide ranging impacts on both the retail and manufacturing sectors.  How can you focus these abilities to improve the consumer's experience?  Improving the consumer’s experience will require a re-evaluation of the sales channels, the manufacturing channels and practices and the supply chain channels and practices from the raw materials to the consumers’ homes.  In order to ensure and maintain success in this new reality you must harness the tools and capabilities in many new areas.  How can you support these continuously changing requirements?