Global Digital Marketing & Retail by Alex 15
Inspiration from across the world
🧑💼The competitive research playbook: competitor analysis from a customer perspective
I stumbled upon this link while doing some competitor research. It’s a long read but worth a read if you are doing a competitor analysis.
In short, this article explains that traditional competitive research is often ineffective because it is based on the company’s view of the market, which is often biased.
The article proposes a new approach to competitive research that focuses on the customer’s view of the market by creating a “Market Command Matrix”, that shows how each competitor is perceived by customers. This approach uses surveys to collect data directly from customers.
https://patticus.com/2023/12/16/competitive-research-playbook/
🇺🇸 Amazon competes at speed with Chinese e-commerce giants
30-50% of the current freight transports are from Chinese e-commerce giants Temu, Shein, AliExpress, and especially TikTok shops. Based on current regulations, Chinese e-commerce giants can ship a maximum of $800 worth of goods to a private individual with subsidized air transport.
In this article, it’s explained that Amazon’s counter strategy is focused on convenience and delivery speed.
I can understand this move, however, recently at least in Europe some of the Temu orders I placed arrived in exactly a week. So they are speeding up as well.
“It’s a pretty sharp shift in how consumers shop,” said Michael Yamartino, Route’s CEO. “The top priority in the days leading up to Christmas is on-time delivery, and when Amazon says it will take two days, it only takes two days. It’s a combination of speed and confidence.”
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has touted speedy delivery as a key competitive advantage, saying shoppers are more inclined to buy something if they get it quickly. The company’s logistics prowess has become increasingly important amid rising competition from such stalwarts as Walmart, as well as Chinese e-commerce upstarts like Temu, Shein and TikTok, which offer steep discounts but can take a week or more to deliver packages.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/amazon-captured-29-of-global-online-orders-before-christmas/
🤼 Cross-cultural design: an introduction to the Hofstede model
Cross-cultural design has had my attention already for years. So I regularly try to catch up with the latest developments. Unfortunately, there are not many websites or people that continuously publish examples of it. So I think I might do that in future newsletters. For now, I found an article on cross-cultural design that emphasizes the Hofstede model. If you are not familiar with it, it’s worth digging into.
I think it is a great start for product managers or designers to understand the Hofstede model and its impact on UX. However, there are also some cons to the model, so it is always important to conduct research and not use the model to get (more) biased.
https://www.ramotion.com/blog/cross-cultural-design/
🇮🇪 Ryanair’s social media presence: engaging, fun to follow
Ryanair changed its social media approach a while ago. Nowadays it’s fun to see how they use social media. It’s embedded with witty and self-deprecating humor and they effectively use user-generated content. Much more fun to follow than corporate airlines like KLM.
This is such an example, I had to smile a bit.
https://twitter.com/Ryanair/status/1743234202273776031
🔎Lenny’s podcast: rethinking UX research
I regularly listen to Lenny’s podcast on product management. Great inspirative podcast and Lenny is a humble guy. It’s great to listen to his podcast series.
The most recent one is called “The UX Research reckoning is here | Judd Antin (Airbnb, Meta) “ and it is all about research and UX.
My takes out of this podcast:
I do not like NPS so much. I prefer micro surveys or a metric that tells more on the satisfaction or effort a user has on achieving his goals. So it is always nice to hear someone saying more or less the same, who has worked at large international organizations. In this case, Judd Antin.
Customer satisfaction, a simple CSAT metric, is better. It has better data properties, it is more precise, it is more correlated to business outcomes. I wanted to prove this. This is something that survey scientists know and marketers don't want you to know. And so we did the work with Mike Murakami, who led survey science at Airbnb, and he's still there, a great researcher. And we basically redid all that work to find out if all that stuff was true just for Airbnb. And it is. It's simple. Don't ask NPS, ask customer satisfaction
It’s great to have examples like the multimillion-dollar button. Quick real research to solve an international problem.
The multimillion dollar button. And basically, we did research that revealed that people weren't going down the purchase funnel because they were afraid. The calls to action on the button were making them afraid that it would initiate a purchase when really it was just taking the next step.
We changed the text on the button with help from our amazing content design, our UX writing team. We basically changed seven characters and made Airbnb millions of dollars, because what we found out was really simple. It was just like, "Hey, this button feels scary. The CTA on the button feels scary.
I also agree with the explanation that an AB test is just a sole test, it is about understanding the correlations and conducting multiple types of tests or research. Only then you understand trends or patterns.
Research should be trying to prove you (as for example a product manager) wrong. That's the only way to make sure that you're not just confirming your own biases.
There is a lot more in the podcast on research, collaboration, and product management. Do listen!
Lenny’s substack can be found here
🇯🇵 🇨🇳 Retail Inspiration in Tokyo and Shanghai
If you haven’t read it yet, I share again my experiences in retail in Shanghai and Tokyo. There is so much inspiration to be found there. Check it out
Read more here:
https://www.abaar.net/2023/10/experiences-and-retail-in-tokyo-and.html
Thank you for reading,
Alex