Mark Kolier’s Blog

Archive for the ‘Customer Experiences’ Category

As the holiday season scorecards begin to be revealed, Sears, showing its ‘softer side’ as sales were down 5.2% over the eight week holiday period, led by CEO Ed Lampert http://on.wsj.com/ttKCBi reported that it expected to close 100 to 120 underperforming stores. Already before Noon on Tuesday December 27th the stock price has sunk 20% (it finished 27% below the previous day’s close) and is down 45% over the past 12 months.

There was a Sears in the Long Island town in which I grew up. Even back then (1960’s and 1970’s) the impression I had of the store was that the stuff they had was a bit dated and that Sears was pretty good at appliances. In my opinion not much has changed and I have been in a Sears within the last year – although I cannot recall why.

With more than 2,200 stores (including Kmart and Sears full-line stores) Sears still has a substantial footprint in the United States. Yet I wonder if more often than not people end up at Sears instead of really wanting to go there. Aside from its aforementioned Kenmore home appliance offerings, what about Sears would attract a shopper? The clothes (do they still sell Haggar?)? The styles? The once proudly displayed Craftsman tools? Or maybe you will recall the union of the Sears brand with that of Lands End or Martha Stewart and KMart? It is an understatement to note that things did not turn out the way it was they were supposed to.

It’s a far cry from the now somewhat distant past where Sears was known for quality and service. While I suppose there are Sears stores that have better service than others that’s not what the brand says to me – nor does it scream quality either.

Sears was the largest retailer in the U.S. until the early 1980’s. Today the combined Sears has 2,201 full-line and 1,354 specialty retail stores in the United States operating through Kmart and Sears and 483 full-line and specialty retail stores in Canada operating through Sears Canada Inc. (Sears Canada), a 92%-owned subsidiary. So Sears ‘gets around’. During the fiscal year ended January 29, 2010 (fiscal 2010), it operated three segments: Kmart, Sears Domestic and Sears Canada. As of January 29, 2011, Holdings operated a total of 1,307 Kmart stores across 49 states, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands.

As I browsed through comments http://on.wsj.com/ucpEXX from people who had shopped at Sears the conversation varied from blaming Ed Lampert to poor service and odd pricing but there were a few positive comments regarding selection, service and quality. The thing that stood out to me was the inconsistency of delivering the Sears brand promise – whatever that is. I could not figure it out – can you?

Over the past week and a half I have become aware of two separate stories that I believe are closely related. Last week there were reports circulating on comedian Louis C.K. (who I have only seen in passing on cable at some point along the way) and his novel approach to marketing his latest made for television performance. David Carr in his regularly excellent column in the New York Times highlighted the effort in Monday’s paper – http://nyti.ms/vMq0O7 .

The story on Louis C.K. is that he decided to “go direct with his fans: no cable special, no middleman, just a simple download for $5 on his Web site to see his comedy show “Louis C. K.: Live at the Beacon Theater.” A true DIY (do-it-yourselfer) Louis C.K. writes, directs, produces and acts in his own series “Louie” and now he is a bona fide distributor. What impressed me more is that shortly after he went out with this novel offer – 200,000 people paid $ 5.00 each for two streams and three downloads of the special. It cost him $ 250,000 to create the show and he will bring in roughly $1 million. To say that’s not bad would be an understatement.

Unrelated I saw another story yesterday on a website unboundbooks.co.uk – a site live in the UK and soon to be in the U.S. as well. The idea of Unbound is best first read straight from their website –

“BRINGING AUTHORS AND READERS TOGETHER

We think authors and readers should decide which books get published. On the Unbound site, (unfortunately the U.S. site www.unbound.com or unboundbooks.com is not yet up but the British site www.unbound.co.uk is up and running), authors pitch their ideas directly to you. If you like what you read, you can pledge your support to help make the book happen. Everyone who supports an author before they reach 100% of the funding target gets their name printed in every edition of that book. All levels include a digital version and immediate access to the author’s shed while they write the book, and supporters of projects that don’t reach their target receive a full refund.”

You can read more from an article straight from The Guardian – http://bit.ly/rxELnz

In short the idea is that a big problem for the publishing industry is that many book advances to authors are non-returnable and do not earn out their advances. What Unbound proposes to do is to have potential readers pay in advance for the book that has yet to be written. It reads better than it first sounds –
“The site, launched last May, acts as a forum for authors to pitch books directly to readers, who, if they like the sound of a project, commit money right away, before the book has even been written. Each book has a target number of pledges it must receive to be viable (generally between 500 and 1,000). When you click on a book on the site, you are shown how many pledges it needs in total, and the percentage it has so far received. You can then pledge your support at a number of levels: from buying the eBook (generally £10), through purchasing the hardback (usually £20) or a signed copy (£50), all the way up to being invited to the launch party (typically £150) or, sometimes, going on an excursion with the author.
Justin Pollard, one of the founders, points out that although pledging involves handing over actual money, supporters aren’t taking a risk, because if the book doesn’t receive the required number of pledges, the project is scrapped and everyone gets their money back. Meanwhile, the publisher avoids exposing itself to upfront advances.

Crowdsourcing has become a bit of a buzzword but to see it in action in both the case of Louis C.K. and Unbound impresses me greatly.

How about your take on these new models?

On Monday December 12, New York Times’ writer David Streitfeld quasi-reviewed the hot-selling Amazon Kindle Fire http://nyti.ms/ruVyId. Skewered might be a better description. I have had my own Amazon Kindle Fire for two and a half weeks and have not been disappointed but not completely thrilled either.

The reviews I have read invariably start with what’s wrong with the Kindle Fire. So I will do my best to first focus on the positive attributes before casting any stones. Bob Sacks of Precision Media Group has more of an even-keel view of the Kindle Fire that I share in large part.

‘It is not an iPad, nor does it pretend to be one. Most of the reviewers are making a mistake to compare them . . . The first and obvious attraction to the Fire is the price. At $199.00 it is half the cost of an iPad, so no comparison is necessary there. And most of those who buy a Fire will not have held an iPad and will therefore not be able to make a comparison . . . Is it a perfect device? No. Is it a fair compromise of price and services? Absolutely yes.’

What first attracted me to the Kindle was that it served as an e-reader with true web connectivity. Yes it is a mini-tablet and for me eminently more portable than an iPad. The back lighting on the Kindle Fire is very good and the book and periodical reading experience is also excellent – better than the original Kindle by far. Oh and did I mention it was $199.00? Price is a huge driver here and I think it is also true that many people who will try the Kindle Fire have not used an iPad so they do not have that experience to compare one versus the other.

The Kindle color tablet screen is vivid and for me not too small as some have suggested. There are some issues with content not being optimized for the Kindle size but those will be worked out in subsequent versions. Book and publication downloads are fast and easy. The battery life is more than adequate particularly if you are careful about turning off the Wi-Fi when it is not being used. The touch screen and navigation are intuitive and work well.

When it comes to things I don’t like about the Kindle Fire there are a number of those as well. The thing that first bothered me is that there is no way to get web access other than Wi-Fi. At present Amazon is not offering consumers a way to purchase 3G or 4G connectivity under subscription. The lack of a front and back facing camera is something that will be added later I suspect but again keep in mind that an iPad costs more than double the price of a Kindle Fire.

Over the air updates are slated to come in spring 2012 for the Kindle Fire. So I expect some improvements in the user experience. And when Amazon releases the Kindle Fire 2.0 (sometime) I expect many of the issues to be resolved – perhaps not at the $199 price however. I can see Amazon creating a vertical market for the Kindle Fire with different levels of features and services.

Amazon needed to get version 1.0 of the Kindle Fire on the market or it might have been too far behind to ever catch up. If you are a book lover the Kindle Fire offers a great reading experience and a so-so web browsing experience in a convenient and portable size. You can wait for the next version but it might be a while.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire is not an iPad – and that’s ok isn’t it?

I heard a radio spot last week from Western Union (WU) regarding singing telegrams. The first thought I had was – Western Union? Is that company still even around? A little research divulged that not only is Western Union still around, in 2010 the total revenue was $1.3 billion. If you are wondering, WU has not delivered any telegraphs since 2006.

Back in 1851 in Rochester, NY what today is Western Union was created as unified telegraph system called the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company. That company competed with New York and & Western Union Telegraph company – which was purchased out of bankruptcy by Ezra Cornell (yes that Cornell). By 1855 the two companies merged into the Western Union Telegraph Company which operated in much the same way until 2006.

In 2006 Western Union announced that it would discontinue all telegram and commercial messaging services. However telegram services continued in the United States via iTelegram and other companies none of which I have ever heard of.

Yet Western Union still exists today primarily as a company that allows users to send and receive funds to others, pay bills or to purchase gift cards. Western Union also has a mobile money transfer service where a sender goes to a Western Union office and presents funds (plus fees) for either a ‘Next Day’ or ‘Money in Minutes’ service.

Personally I have never used Western Union for a telegram, money transfer or any other service. If you visit their website http://westernunion.com they note that Western Union is ‘connecting families around the world’. And that ‘Western Union helps you provide for your loved ones almost anywhere in the world. Whether it’s for education, healthcare or groceries, we offer Consumer-to-Consumer Money-Transfer Services to get resources to members of your family quickly.’

A publicly traded stock (WU on the NYSE is trading at under $ 18.00/share), just yesterday Western Union announced that it had its Expanded Payment Suite with Western Union Small Business Payments Targeting Small to Medium Sized Businesses although there were no other specifics. In fact, Western Union has a number of branded payment services that are offered through a network of ‘approximately 485,000 agent locations in 200 countries and territories’. In 2010, The Western Union Company completed 214 million consumer-to-consumer transactions worldwide, moving $76 billion of principal between consumers, and 405 million business payments.

On December 1st WU restarted its singing telegram business http://wu-singingtelegram.com now executed as your own personal mashup duet with a choice of famous singers. At the moment it is free but it is slated to cost $ 2 or $ 3 beginning in January.

I think Western Union may offer an object lesson in morphing a dying business and finding ways to not only keep it relevant, but have it thrive. Agree or disagree?

My reaction was – who knew? Did you?

Last night as we traveled back from the airport I was hungry and decided to order a small pizza. There’s a place www.PlanetPizza.com that makes good pizza near to our house. On their website they always have coupons for discounts and we use them nearly every time we go there. However on the road without a printer we were unable to print one out and get a discount on whatever might have been available. Unfortunately Planet Pizza like most local retailers does not allow you to show the coupon on your mobile device in order to use a coupon to get a discount.

Small portable printers have been around for several years. Of course what might be considered small and portable are adjectives that are best viewed through the eyes of the people that will use them. If you’ve rented a car anytime in the last few years you are probably familiar with the car rental company’s ability to print out your receipt on the spot. The devices they use to process the transaction are held in their hand and the printer often clipped on a belt. The print quality is acceptable but nothing great. This is the kind of device that would be practical for people to carry around in a car or even a briefcase.

When I started looking around for a small portable personal printer I was surprised to find there were not many reasonable options. The products were either too large, too expensive or both. Just to be clear I am looking for something small that could be held in one hand, and something that would cost under $ 75.00. A website www.planon.com advertises that it offers their PrintStik product as ‘The World’s Smallest Mobile Printer’. And small it is but it also costs $ 199.00. So far I have been unable to find anything that meets my small criteria at any price close to $ 75.00.

The other thing to keep in mind is the ultimate obsolescence of portable printers. After all with mobile communication sharing using things like NFC (near field communications) on the horizon it should not be too long before the need to print out a coupon is non-existent. It’s already happening with airline boarding passes and the trend is clear that ink on paper is fast becoming a relic.

Do you have any thoughts on using a miniature portable printer? Would you use one if it were affordable and available?