Trends in Customer Participation - The Purchase Process

I recently gave a presentation at work about how (and get ready for this) increased connectivity and the proliferation of online communities has resulted in new business models that are dramatically altering the eCommerce landscape by allowing customers to play a larger role in the success and failure of products.

Quite a mouthful huh? The presentation used company examples to trace the evolution of customer participation along two business processes: purchase decision and product development.

I'll admit, it's quite broad and a bit of a "duh" type of subject that has been written about again and again over the past years, with the basic point being that the boundaries between customers and companies are disappearing (or rather, should be disappearing if companies know what's good for them). BusinessWeek wrote about this subject today as well, stressing that passionate customers can be "in effect, extensions of the company's sales, marketing, and product development teams" (story here)

While everyone gets the gist of this subject, what's interesting is looking at the evolution and seeing just how it is that customer impact is increasing. For example, looking at the purchase decision process, customers are getting involved much earlier and influencing a larger audience. When it was just Amazon reviews, existing customers influenced potential customers later in the purchase decision process, after a product had already been identified, by answering a question like "What is this book about." Then came blogs which start influencing potential customers earlier in the process when they're still in the midst of gatherhing information, answering questions like “What are some good books out there.” Now we have a number of social shopping networks like This Next (it's shopcast badge is in the upper left hand corner of this blog) and Style Hive. These sites really jumpstart the purchase decision process by building initial awareness, answering questions like "What should I buy? What's the next hot thing?"

As customers start getting in earlier and earlier in the process, they're really starting to influence more and more potential customers. Specifically, there are more people who want to know what are SOME GOOD BOOKS than people who want to know specifically about THIS BOOK. Likewise, there are more people who want to know what's the NEXT HOT THING than just what are SOME GOOD BOOKS.

It'll be interesting to see what the next step is in this evolution. Is there even another step? Perhaps it's to create demand by legitimizing customers as an official part of your sales force. For example, the BusinessWeek article mentioned Karmaloop which has a street team of customers that can spread the word and earn commission on each sale (think pyramid scheme - which I have tried for makeitmade! though no takers). Or will the next step be going so far back in the process that we find ourselves in the product development process where customers are helping to create real demand by figuring out what customers really want?

upgraded wii-mote!

Talk about fast reaction time! amidst reports of flying wii-motes (had to do it!) joystiq and others report that nintendo seems to have already upgraded the controllers with reinforced straps! if only all companies responded that fast...

read the story here

PS3

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i walk by the sony store on the way to work every morning and people were lining up as early as tuesday night to get their hands on a PS3. today, good morning america was out there taping :)

checked out PS3 on ebay - more than a few units sold at $2,000+! i love it.

caughtoffside!

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I finally got my act together and designed and loaded the cross-promo shirt with caughtoffside.com. The shirt can be bought at the makeitmade storefront on cafe press!

I also tried to update the designs page of my website ... with little success. Not having updated that section in a year, i went in and just messed it up. So what do I do? go running to my brother. Again, kind of wish now that I had learned to build the site from the start. Or at least paid more attention to how everything is linked! I keep breaking my site :(

This whole thing has also made me re-think how to run makeitmade. Specifically to make it more interactive and do have more "special request" designs that can be printed through cafepress. Not only will this probably drive more traffic, but I think I'd have a lot of fun designing them :) Now if only I could make website reflect this new idea ..

YouTube and Verizon

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i'm a bit slow on the blogosphere uptake, but engadget reported on nov 7th that YouTube is in talks with verizon on a deal that would bring its videos to mobile screens and televisions. wonder what type of money this would bring in for YouTube and if these talks started before or after Google ...

banners!

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new excitement in makeitmade world - a coworker's friend is thinking about posting banners on his blog :)

was suppose to watch my nextflix movies today before sending them back (canceled after 2 week free trial but need to get movies back asap), but instead spent time making banners! wow i get a lot of joy out of making these things. perhaps i should rethink my job ...

wired nextfest this week!

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just a few reasons to go to the wired nextfest this weekend in nyc:

the hug shirt: The Hug Shirt (F+R Hugs) is a shirt that allows people to exchange the physical sensation of a hug over distance. Embedded in the shirt there are sensors that feel the strength of the touch, the skin warmth and the heartbeat rate of the sender and actuators that recreate the sensation of touch, warmth and emotion of the hug to the shirt of the distant loved one

the pixel roller: The PixelRoller is a paint roller that paints pixels, designed as a rapid response printing tool specifically to print digital information such as imagery or text onto a great range of surfaces. The content is applied in continuous strokes by the user. PixelRoller can be seen as a handheld “printer”, based around the ergonomics of a paintroller, that lets you create the images by your own hand

3D display cube: A patented system that integrates LED technology to create true three-dimensional imagery, the 3D Display Cube has wide spread uses with retail and public display, signage applications, home display, and advertising

dandelion: Interactive dandelion that allows users to blow away the seeds of a dandelion clock by using a real electric blowdryer.

brainball: Brainball is a game where you compete in relaxation. The players' brainwaves control a ball on a table, and the more relaxed scores a goal over the opponent.

sonicolumn: SoniCoumn is an interactive sound installation that can be played by a person’s touch. The installation takes the form of a column-like cylinder, of a height that does not quite reach the ceiling but just high enough for one’s reach. Grids of LEDs installed inside the column light themselves on by the users’ touch and emit unique sounds. When a user cranks the handle, the column slowly rotates itself and plays the light patterns of the user’s touch

sound flakes: If faucets of "do, re, mi ..." are twisted, each sound will drip into the pool and begin to float as flakes of sound. Moreover, they can be stirred and scooped up with a ladle. If you stir the sound flakes in the water, each flake will ring. If one of the flakes is scooped up, it will rotate and sing in the ladle.

lifestraw:LifeStraw is a portable water purification tool that cleanses surface water and makes it safe for human consumption. It is just 25 cm long and 29 mm in diameter and can be hung around the neck. LifeStrawrequires no electrical power or spare parts.

children are like heroin!

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forbes article talking about happiness concludes that too many options make you less happy. i do agree that more options tend to make you less happy, but i think that's because you're taking an expected value on the happiness you feel. more options will result in more intense happiness when you get what you want, but also more intense sadness when things don't go right. all in all, the average of the extremes may result in something less than no options. but it depends on what you're out to get. the stable type of happiness or to feel all the extremes of life's ups and downs

on another note, the article also said that children were like heroin:

"Children share a property with heroin. Heroin makes you feel so good it crowds out every other form of good feeling in your life. You stop going to work, stop having sex. You stop doing everything but taking heroin and that destroys your life. Similarly, children stop you from doing every other thing that use to make you happy because they demand so much attention. When you have one source of joy it is your greatest by definition"

Paper Art

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brother passed on this really cool site of paper art. amazing creations that must have given the artist so much satisfaction. personal favorites are:

I HAVE A SHOPPING CART!! - Part II

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I keep errorying out when I try to add this to the initial post :(

So until I can figure out why, here are my Buddha Board pictures from my shopping cart excitement (see September 6, 2006)!

Happy Shopping Cart Victory: Initial Picture

Happy Shopping Cart Victory: Fading Picture

inflatable iceberg!

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how cool is this! i want one for my terrace. loser plummits one floor down ...

I HAVE A SHOPPING CART!!

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WHOOHOO! After a year of lusting after it, I finally have a shopping cart and it only took me 2 days! I'm quite proud of myself for getting it up there :) Okay, fine so it's not the most glorious shopping cart out there, but it works! And yes, my brother was right, it wasn't too difficult to do, I just needed to go and do it (ahah another makeitmade plug) ...

It's so nice to finally have it up there! I feel a little more complete. Ready to take on the world with my sexually explicit Tees ...

I am positively beaming right now. Buddha Board here I come ...!

Buddha Board

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I don't post frequently enough. I blame it on work which saps me of the ability to write interesting things. My brother gave me this nifty Buddha Board water art thingy in hopes of getting the creative juices flowing. I tried to draw something tonight but it just ended up looking like nothing. Then I scribbled it out and it actually looked better. I am an interesting person. I swear. I'll post the pictures of my water art later when I finally load up my digital pictures. I wonder if I could use the water art quality to gauge my creativity and my happiness ...

okay after putzing around and calling my brother for help, here are the buddha board images as promised:

Day 1: Initial Picture

Day 1: Second Take

Day 2: New Picture

Next step is to get out the glare ...

(PS look at that! TABLE LAYOUT. oh baby. I'm learning. Slowly but surely)

GTA inspired Coca-Cola Commercial

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Forgot to post about this when I first saw it - but the GTA inspired Coca-Cola commercial is probably one of the most clever ads I've seen in a while. This take videogame advertising to a while new level ...

Not sure if it's officially by coke though, seems a bit more clever than I'd like to give them credit for. I haven't made a huge effort to follow Coca-Cola's efforts but their marketing stance seems to be all over the place. Sometimes they'll have something kind of clever, like my coke interface but then other times they just seem off, like their reaction to the mentos fountain experiment that's been circulating the web. Although their website now has the shading of a bottle with things exploding out of it ... so maybe they've rethought?

sex sells! well so does crack ...

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One of the reasons that the makeitmade designs ended up taking the form that they did is because sex sells. But as mentioned by a videogirl in the Vh1 documentary I watched last night (hop videos: sexploitation on the set) - so does crack. So does that make it right?

I thought about this a little today - whether I should feel bad that at the core, my shirts are just about sex. Yes, to me they mean more and I hope they mean more to those who buy them, but the sex part is undeniably used as a hook and is the first thing you notice about the shirts (see: angry old man's reaction in prior post).

After thinking about it I decided I didn't really feel bad. The shirts are fun and they do mean something to me. I'm not telling people to go out and bang as many people as possible (I mean I'm certainly not as daring as the those stick figures). If they want to, that's cool. But the point of the t-shirts (apart from encouraging people to do something with their lives and not be afraid), is just to be a conversation starter - something to laugh about. But even if the shirts were just about sex, sex is a natural thing and I'm not exploiting anyone or promoting something that people should be ashamed of. So yeah. My verdict is that there's nothing wrong with using cartoon sex to make money as long as it's not hurting anyone.

Now to see slightly more questionable use of cartoon sex: Budapest Marketing Campaign

I sold to strangers today!

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So the goal of weekly update posts was short lived. I also just noticed that someone commented on my prior post - I assume it's my brother since no one else knows about this site, but maybe not. Whoever it was, if you want to add a cart for me just let me know! I'd be game :D

Anyway, today was a turning point in the world of makeitmade. I know, after this past month of silence, it seemed like makeitmade had gone down for the count. But, it's still alive and thumping, and now with more umph than ever!

So what was happened this momentous day? Well, I sold my first shirt to a stranger! And I owe it all to my friend Nikki who really helped me get my act together :) So a big thank you to Nikki who probably won't even know about this blog until a year later!

In all, I only sold 12 shirts today, but it was just a great experience. Most of the people were really nice and it was just encouraging to hear that people liked the shirts. I'm definitely going to try to get out there at least once a week from now until the end of the summer (maybe I can finally make back that initial investment).

Apart from being a great experience in terms of makeitmade land, it was also a great "life" experience (cheesy I know). This was one of those situations where I was so scared to do it and put it off forever - but when I finally did do it, it really wasn't so bad! It was so silly of me to avoid it for so long. Seriously, sometimes you realy need to just go out and do it - and that, again, is the heart of the makeitmade idea ;)

While it was mostly good, I did get lectured by a strange old man. This experience and others memorable ones highlighted below:

Scenario 1

Elderly Man: What is this?

Me: They're t-shirts?

Elderly Man: What is this one them? What are you promoting? Making babies?

Me: Well, they're about doing something with your life?

Elderly Man [scowling]: This is ridiculous

Me [look of panic]: Umm ...

Elderly Man mutters and walks away

Scenario 2:

Woman in her 30s walks by and looks at shirts

Me and Nikki [pouncing]: Would you be interested in some t-shirts?

Woman: I was looking at them and thought they'd be good for my niece and nephew

Me: How old are they?

Woman [walking closer]: They're 4 and 5

Me [slightly awkward]: I don't think these would be appropriate ...

Woman [finally getting a close view, laughing]: Oh my god! No, I don't think they would be

Scenario 3:

Woman sits down next to us and eats a mango. She gives us advice on our pitch because we're not aggressive enough: ... you need to really sell! Talk about how you can dress up the shirt, wear it with jeans and heels for anight out ... oh my god they're banging in the bathroom! I didn't even realize. Oh my god that is hilarious. These are great.

Captain's Log, First Entry

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I’ve decided keep a running log of what makeitmade efforts I undertake each week. Similar to how dieters track calories to face the reality of how much they eat; I will track my efforts to face the reality of how much I’m slacking.

Efforts this week:

• Stuck some of the fitting room flyers in the bathroom of the Soy Luck Club
• Looked longer at the Sales Tax ID form and decided to put fairs on hold for now
• Bought a folding aluminum table from eBay for use in Union Square selling or The Market NYC (http://www.themarketnyc.com/flashmain.html)
• Talked to someone about potential website designers who are cheap and will give me a shopping cart (http://www.6d.com.br/, http://www.goldmic.com/home/)

Associated Narrative:

So this week started out with a healthy dose of motivation! On Sunday I walked through a street fair in Greenwich Village and for the first time, really noticed some of the people running the stands. And I was struck by how these people have succeeded in making something happen. Here I am. Fluent in English and college educated and I can’t get my act together to set up a stand. Taking this deep shame back home with me, I search my apartment for the packet sent to me by the NYC Tax Department. The way things work is that before you can register for a fair with someone like Clearview, you need to first obtain a NY Sales Tax ID. What’s a little frustrating is that once you obtain an ID, you have to file your sales tax every quarter or so, even if you don’t sell anything. And if you don’t, you get fined like $50. Additionally, it’s kind of costly to participate in a fair, around $250 a day. Given my track record with t-shirt sales, I wonder I’ll be half-assed about it at the fair, make a loss, then be discouraged for another 2 months. I think I need to be a little smarter about things and not just go through the gestures. So, what I’m going to do is set up a sidewalk stand first. I’m still not certain if I need a permit but I don’t think I do. And the worst that can happen to me is probably I get yelled out. The problem is that I hate being yelled at! I really need to stop being a baby about this stuff though! So I will do this. The next weekend of sun, when hopefully my folding table has arrived, I will set up a stand and try my hand at selling to strangers.

the first step

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First and foremost:

Hi to anyone who finds this and reads it! Hopefully I’ll offer up interesting stuff to keep you reading :)

Next on the list:

So what’s this blog about? Why was it so important that I hound my brother to serve up a blog tagged to the makeitmade.com domain? And why would I abandon my semi trusty Xanga blogs which have served me relatively well for so many years?

Well, part of it might be to have a new start with a new me. I know it’s a bit cheesy and hey, that’s what I thought when I saw it on my friend’s Xanga signoff. But there is some truth in it. While I’m nowhere near knowing who I am, I am a lot closer than I was my freshman year of college. I’m still the same person, but different enough to want a new blog that’s free from the embarrassing clutter of years passed. I’m sure I’ll still have embarrassing clutter on this site, but that will be for the new new me to decide, circa 2013.

Part of it probably also has to do with a desire to funnel traffic into my tshirt site which is now only 4 letters away (www.makeitmade.com). I don’t think this effort will be too successful, but I’m still living that dream! This tshirt project was my first effort to makeitmade and I’ll keep milking that dream until reality forces me to move on. Knowing my delusional tendencies, that will be for a very, very long time.

Lastly, part of it definitely has to do with how important the idea “makeitmade” is to me. So what does it mean to me? Well, it’s about just doing something with your life. Not just thinking about what you should do, but doing it. And that’s something I need to be reminded of. Everyday if possible. So from here on out whenever I post something, I’ll be reminded that life is short and that I have a goal. That goal is to makeitmade. I’m not certain what “made” actually means, and figuring that out is part of the journey that I hope to document here. But whatever and wherever it is, that’s where I need to be.

Finally:

So what can you expect on this blog? I’m not quite sure yet. It’ll probably mostly be about my recent endeavor to makeitmade (okay I promise I’ll stop doing that soon). Posts about what I’m doing wrong, what I’m doing right, and what I need to start doing to make everything that’s currently wrong, right. It’ll probably also just have a collection of things that I find interesting – news, other posts, etc. that spark something in me. Perhaps this running log of interest spikes will help me learn more about what makes me tick and help me think of new ideas to pursue. So I don’t know. We’ll see :)