At first, ot seems like a daft decision... To sell your original & new clothing on eBay or Amazon, when you already have a decent and fully featured eCommerce website.
Well that's what UK department store Debehams
(www.debenhams.co.uk) have done and on both sites at the same time!
However, taking a closer look at the detail, this might not be as silly a decision as it first looks.
Firstly Debenhams is not selling its entire product catalogue on either site. On Amazon it has only 1000 selected products available now (increasing to about 2000 by next week), including its more up-market 'Designers at Debenhams' range. On auction site eBay however it is replicating the products from its outlet web store.
The competiton will be keeping a close eye on whether this initiative works for the now-profitable department store....
Showing posts with label ebay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ebay. Show all posts
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Debenhams: The first UK department store to sell on Amazon and eBay
Thursday, October 2, 2008
The trust of strangers
Purchasing decisions are changing because of customers use of social media. As a consequence almost 40% of retailers are using social networks to reach and influence these peer-to-peer decisions.
However, lets just think about this for a second. We allow others to give us an opinion and depending upon the amount of influence they have, we trust that opinion less or more. Therefore the customers (In reality everyone, for we are all customers of some products & services) are influenced differently, but to some extent we value the input of people we don't know. It is now possible for anyone to influence anyone else.
Before you deny this, consider if you've ever read a review on Amazon before buying a product or checked on the eBay seller before bidding on their item.
This report is interesting as it tries to explain why buyers trust unknown sellers in the "vast
electronic garage sale" known as eBay, which, although isn't a social network to the precise letter of the definition, definately creates a sense of community, feedback and trust.
So, its not suprising then that http://www.universalmccann.com/ have recently published their latest research report entitled "When did we start trusting strangers?".
Hint: Way before social media became a popular term and perhaps we may have to look back even before Mr Resnick & Mr Zeckhauser started their research.
This report identifies a trend called casual influence, showing how its incredibly easy to influence other consumers by using quick voting and recommendations. They indicate that influence and online have almost become one and the same thing, as they put it:
Food for thought?
However, lets just think about this for a second. We allow others to give us an opinion and depending upon the amount of influence they have, we trust that opinion less or more. Therefore the customers (In reality everyone, for we are all customers of some products & services) are influenced differently, but to some extent we value the input of people we don't know. It is now possible for anyone to influence anyone else.
Before you deny this, consider if you've ever read a review on Amazon before buying a product or checked on the eBay seller before bidding on their item.
On the Internet, information about past transactions may be both limited and
potentially unreliable, but it can be distributed far more systematically than
the informal gossip among friends that characterizes conventional marketplaces.
Resnick & Zeckhauser 2001
This report is interesting as it tries to explain why buyers trust unknown sellers in the "vast
electronic garage sale" known as eBay, which, although isn't a social network to the precise letter of the definition, definately creates a sense of community, feedback and trust.
So, its not suprising then that http://www.universalmccann.com/ have recently published their latest research report entitled "When did we start trusting strangers?".
Hint: Way before social media became a popular term and perhaps we may have to look back even before Mr Resnick & Mr Zeckhauser started their research.
This report identifies a trend called casual influence, showing how its incredibly easy to influence other consumers by using quick voting and recommendations. They indicate that influence and online have almost become one and the same thing, as they put it:
There are so many tools to do this that we no longer have to really think actively about influencing
Food for thought?
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