Smartphones winnen aan belang voor E-commerce, blijkt uit de BeCommerce Market Monitor

De Belgische e-commerce blijft elk kwartaal aan belang winnen en groeide ook in het derde kwartaal van 2016 verder. Wij, Belgen, gaven bijna 2,2 miljard euro uit in de periode juli-september, een toename van 9 procent. Met 6,8 miljoen Belgen (73% van de bevolking) deden we 20,9 miljoen online aankopen!

"De groei van e-commerce in België is op zich niet verrassend, het is een trend die zich de afgelopen jaren duidelijk heeft doorgezet. De beschikbaarheid van Amazon in het Nederlands en de komst van typisch Amerikaanse initiatieven zoals Black Friday naar Europa zullen deze trend enkel versterken."

Smartphones winnen aan belang

Online winkelen gebeurt steeds vaker met de smartphone. 16 procent van de online shoppers heeft ten minste één mobiele aankoop gedaan in dezelfde periode. Hiermee haalt de smartphone ook de tablet in qua populaireit voor online shopping.

"Een belangrijke reden voor de toename van aankopen via de smartphone is het toenemende vertrouwen ten opzichte van de smartphone als winkel- en betaalmiddel: hoewel 1 op 2 Belgen betalen via een smartphone nog steeds als “niet veilig” bestempelt, merken we hier toch een vooruitgang."

"Wanneer we vooruit kijken naar de verwachtingen rond mobiel winkelen en betalen, verwachten we dat dit enkel zal toenemen: 4 op 10 Belgen is er van overtuigd dat betalen via de smartphone gemakkelijker is, terwijl 1 op 3 Belgen aangeeft vaker te willen betalen met de smartphone in het komende jaar."

Bron: Deze resultaten kunnen we afleiden uit cijfers van de BeCommerce Market Monitor, een onderzoek dat uitgevoerd wordt door GfK voor BeCommerce, met de steun van PostNL, Google en Worldline.

Meer info: www.gfk.com/shopping-in-belgium 
Originele post op LinkedIn

Digitization of market research: when digital is fully adopted, it disappears

The digitization of market research (and the society) has been a hot topic for a couple of years now: the year of mobile, the year of big data, the year of social ... we have had them all. Most organizations (and research agencies) have a digital department in some way.

All (digital) evolutions of marketing and market research are however triggered by a consumer trend. I have shared my thoughts on the evolutions of the past years and the impact on market research in 4 posts: market research as a gatekeeper, the age of information overload, the rise of mobile and the impact of device switching behavior.

Successful new technologies trigger new consumer behavior ... adapted by a minority or majority of consumers. Those consumers however don't think of themselves as 'digital', 'mobile' or 'social'. They pick out whatever mean suits their goal the best.

Consumers and customers do not care about the segment we put them in. They do not care whether companies or researchers call something a certain evolution, a gen Y characteristic or a result of society’s digitization. For them, a smooth and integrated experience is what counts - regardless the channel they prefer: when technology is fully adopted, it disappears. When digital is fully adopted, it disappears. It doesn't matter if you're talking about shopping, consuming media or (participating in) market research.

When #digital is fully adopted, it disappears #tds15 @Polledemaagt @gondolamagazine

— Bert Hendrickx (@bhendrickx88) 20 augustus 2015

Manufacturers, retailers, media agencies ... and market research can only be truly digital when a digital mindset is adopted everywhere through the organization. It’s not about having a digital manager, a digital department, a digital researcher or digital marketeer, it’s about digital being a part of the mix in every single aspect of your internal and external strategies and daily work.

Breaking down the silos, connecting the dots ... are often used sentences, but it is rarely reality. Today, a digital team or department is needed to keep the pressure up (especially in more traditional organizations), but without having digital enthusiasts in every other department or layer of your organization, it will be hard to get there.

Over the past 2 years, I read some books about digital and its impact on consumers, society and business. Here are my 4 favorites:

• Digital Transformation: a model to master digital disruption (Jo Caudron, Dado van Peteghem)
• The Network Always Wins (Peter Hinssen)
• When Digital Becomes Human (Steven van Belleghem)
• The Rise of the Humans: how to outsmart the digital deluge (Dave Coplin)

Free Wifi via e-mail

It's nice that a store offers free WiFi, especially when abroad. However, needing access to my e-mail before being able to go online ... not so useful after all, is it?

But to be honest, it turned out you did not need the link to go online. After this welcome page, you could just go online :-) Maybe adjust the wording of the landing page a little bit.

Market Research Digitization part 4: device switching behavior

The digitization of market research (and the society) has been a hot topic for a couple of years now: the year of mobile, the year of big data, the year of social ... we have had them all. Most organizations (and research agencies) have a digital department in some way.

All (digital) evolutions of marketing and market research are however triggered by a consumer trend. In this series of 4 posts, I will share my thoughts on the evolutions of the past years and the impact on market research. This last post will provide insights on the impact of device switching behavior of consumers.

It didn’t take consumers too long to use digital and mobile devices to their advantage. Today, many families or persons have access to more than one device, but it would be too easy to assume all devices are used for the same purposes. Research found that consumers feel a different connection to each device, and each device plays a distinct role.

Generally, there are 3 categories (but keep in mind that a lot of devices are seeking out gray areas: phablets, netbooks, hybrid tablets ...).

• Smartphone, the on-the-go traffic generator: used for communication and social media, it’s the device that keeps us in touch. More than any device, the smartphone is often the first touch point in a consumer journey.
• Tablet, the shared entertainment center: mostly used at home by multiple people. Half of the tablets sold are used as a shared device.
• Computer, the workhorse: when people need to be productive, need to get things done or need to be efficient, they turn to their computer.

Consumers try to find simplicity in a multi-device world (read the Facebook study), but are unknowingly increasing the challenges for marketing and market research, such as measuring (digital) campaign impact.

A common way to measure campaign impact is analyzing click through behavior. Measuring clicks is however not the same as measuring sales or a change in mindset. Therefor we evolved towards cookie measurement in the past years, to measure actual ad exposure and impact (see also part 2, the shift to observed behavior).

Source: GfK and Facebook (two major challenges for digital campaign measurement)

This cookie approach suits a world where an individual person uses a single device to access the internet and all digital ad contacts can be observed upon that device. We know by now that this is not the reality: consumers use and switch between different devices multiple times a day. Next to this issue, cookies fall short when measuring advertisement in mobile applications such as Facebook or Instagram.

Marketing shifted towards a people-based approach, so should research

In order to deliver personal, relevant content and advertising, marketing shifted to people-based marketing. Research should embrace this consumer-based approach and look for real identities as well, instead of limiting ourselves to campaign based research with cookie tagging or click measurement.

image: people based measurement

By combining data (integration is key!) and insights from a consumer point of view and implementing cross-media research, we can measure impact more precisely and advice manufacturers, retailers, media agencies ... on optimal resource allocation, depending on their soft & hard KPIs.

In June 2015, GfK and Facebook won the IAB Europe research award with a breakthrough pilot, researching the impact of a more engaging, creative TV format versus digital ad exposure. Today we should be ready to make this innovation a standard practice.

Market Research Digitization part 3: the rise of mobile

The digitization of market research (and the society) has been a hot topic for a couple of years now: the year of mobile, the year of big data, the year of social ... we have had them all. Most organizations (and research agencies) have a digital department in some way.

All (digital) evolutions of marketing and market research are however triggered by a consumer trend. In this series of 4 posts, I will share my thoughts on the evolutions of the past years and the impact on market research. Today, we focus on the impact of mobile.

With smartphone and mobile internet penetration hitting 75% in Europe and the Americas (Source: ComScore), we arrived in the mobile era already some time ago. Mobile has often impact beyond obvious observations, for example on consumer shopper behavior. When shopping, consumers use their phones to compare prices, ask for advice or take pictures of products & advertisements (GfK global consumer survey, 2015).

Mobile did however not only change what the path to purchase looks like, but also what’s actually being spend: an average online shopper basket on a computer is worth about € 110, an average smartphone basket only contains a value of € 50 (GfK Belgium, BeCommerce Market Monitor, 2015). This device diversity has huge implications for the online strategy of retailers.

There are two stories to the mobile challenge for market research: on one hand, we need to face threats of research participants using their mobile for research, on the other hand we need to leverage mobile and seize the opportunities as good as possible. I will give an example of a mobile threat (survey respondent) and a mobile opportunity (location based research).

Survey research participation on mobile has impact on set-up, data collection, dropout rates, results ... An important threat is the swipe effect, which raises issues if answer options on a survey question (single or multiple choice) are not all visible on one screen ( i.e., one has to scroll or swipe down to see all the options).

Randomization of answer options might offer a solution to validate relative scores between the options (for example, Coca-cola is better known than Kellogg’s), but not for hard KPIs: Coca Cola aided awareness on computer hits 98%, while on mobile - if only visible after scrolling down, it drops to 88%. The contrary is true as well: top swipeline items tend to score better on mobile.

Source: GfK Belgium, n = 5444, 2014

Thinking mobile (first) and optimizing research for mobile should be any researcher’s concern nowadays. Survey research is only a part of it, it’s the part where we face the challenge of transforming our traditional approach to new devices used by participants. On the other hand, we can also leverage the power of mobile via "research on the go", "research in the moment", "mobile communities" or "location based research".

Researchers or clients often think about location based research in a complicated way (beacons, GPS ...), but one of the best use cases of location based research with mobile might just be TripAdvisor: from location feedback without mobile (evaluate us when you get home) to location based research leveraging the always connected consumer (a poster that says: "evaluate us now").

The mobile evolution: rate us when you get home VS rate us now

The mobile evolution triggers us into thinking mobile (first), but we should be careful to avoid thinking 'mobile only'. An omni-channel research experience, or a device-neutral set-up, should be the starting point.

'It's not our job to tell research participants what they can or can not do' - @RayPoynter #bqmr #mobile #mrx

— Bert Hendrickx (@bhendrickx88) 24 november 2015

In the last post of this series, I will dig deeper into the role of mobile in the device mix and the consequences of device switching behavior. For more information or an extended version, feel free to reach out!

Market Research Digitization part 2: information overload

The digitization of market research (and the society) has been a hot topic for a couple of years now: the year of mobile, the year of big data, the year of social ... we have had them all. Most organizations (and research agencies) have a digital department in some way.

All (digital) evolutions of marketing and market research are however triggered by a consumer trend. In this series of 4 posts, I will share my thoughts on the evolutions of the past years and the impact on market research. With this second post, I will focus on the daily information overload consumers experience.

With the world at our hands, media consumption has drastically changed. Twitter is our main source for news items, hearing something hours after it happened is considered ‘very late’. The amount of available information when looking into a potential purchase is almost unlimited: consumers face the challenge of selecting relevant information and messages.

“The increasing amount of (digital) touchpoints causes an information overload for consumers.”

Market research often ask consumers about their “path to purchase” or “media behavior” via established techniques such as CAWI, CAPI, CATI ... to help marketing departments understand advertisement impact. Exposure to digital banners, pre-rolls ... is however not always actively remembered (which online ads did you see today, yesterday, last week?), neither is online media consumption (which websites - ideally which website pages - did you visit when looking up information about your new microwave?).

"Established research techniques don't capture what is not actively remembered"

With our established techniques, we cannot measure the impact of unconscious media exposure. In order to tackle this challenge, we make the shift from claimed to observed behavior. Instead of surveying research participants we leverage today’s technology to actually observe and register their online behavior and ad exposure.

“By leveraging today’s technology, we make the shift from claimed to observed behavior”

One of the advantages of observed behavior is the ability to compare what consumers think they do (claimed behavior) with what they actually do. When researching cross-border purchase behavior, GfK found for example that for only 50% of online purchases, consumers could correctly tell whether it was purchased domestically or abroad.

Source: Obstacles to the Digital Single Market (published)

Market Research Digitization part 1: market research as a gatekepeer

The digitization of market research (and the society) has been a hot topic for a couple of years now: the year of mobile, the year of big data, the year of social ... we have had them all. Most organizations (and research agencies) have a digital department in some way.

All (digital) evolutions of marketing and market research are however triggered by a consumer trend. In this series of 4 posts, I will share my thoughts on the evolutions of the past years and the impact on market research. Today, we start with the changing role of market research as an information gatekeeper.

A gatekeeper is a person who controls access to something, for example via a city gate. In the late 20th century the term came into metaphorical use, referring to individuals or organizations who decide if a certain message will be distributed by a mass medium.

The role of the gatekeeper

Newspapers, TV stations, radio broadcasting ... are traditional examples of gatekeepers, filtering information towards consumers. Today, consumers are being kept up to date via the web, social media, their mobile ... companies as Google and Facebook have become today's gatekeepers, defining what is (not) relevant for even a specific individual.

Market researchers used to be such information gatekeepers as well, defining what part of the consumer voice companies got to hear. We collected (and still do so) data via interviews: face-to-face, via telephone or via an online survey. Being heard was a privilege of 8, 12, 250 or maybe 1000 customers, selected by the researcher for participating in consumer research.

Due to the online and mobile evolution, consumers are now able to shout out to the world whenever, wherever they want. The challenge of market researchers is no longer to collect and hear some of the voices, but to isolate relevant from irrelevant ones.

From hearing one voice to isolating the relevant ones (visual: GfK)

In the following posts, we will dig deeper into the impact of "the age of information overload", "the rise of mobile" and "device-switching behavior".