Rethinking online value

Last year I posted a view on how online retailers are re-positioning themselves in the cyberspace. This year has caught some of them "offside". They have gone bust.

Why? Lack of a good online value proposition or OVP according to the terminology of Dave Chaffey.

It is essential to offer convenience, quality, and other things at a reasonable cost. And the delivery is key. Timely, cost effective, traceable.

Many retailers see the online as just another channel. This is wrong. Like me, people do not have time to do things offline. Why Our lifestyle. Our situation. Our priorities. We need help, and are willing to pay for it. Time is very, very precious ! You and I have many things to do


So please, rethink you idea of online value, have a good business idea, but back it up with a good proposition, and deliver what you promise. We cannot but trust you as a business !

We need to do it all over again

2012 has been an eventful year.  Olympic games and other things have caught the attention of many.  It is also a year where we have become somehow used to see companies go bankrupt.  A recent casualty has been COMET, a traditional business selling electric appliances.  It started in Hull, in Yorkshire, where I spent 11 years as a student and then as a university lecturer.  I remember seeing two COMET shops very close to each other in the town centre.  I have to confess I might have been in one of the shops only once.

COMET has gone into administration.  Customers still complain that even by doing this the discounts they offer are not that great.  Other retailers including PCWorld, Currys and others are very competitive.  Electric appliances (TVs, music players, computers and other househould items) are being sold by many other companies which did not use to do that before (my friend Nick Davey has given me this insight).

And then we have the media saying that the problem of COMET is that they did not exploit the online world as they should have.  Its competitors did it.  Still, this does not sound fully convincing, at least from where I stand.  The online world is more complex, challenging and unpredictable than we are used to think.

Before throwing COMET into the online world, we should be asking basic questions about its business.  The business should not be another 'online' brand.  COMET needs to rediscover itself, and see if its origins can still spark and inspire people to be their customer.   What was the vision of the business?  What if it was already achieved?  How can COMET position itself as a valuable, unique and reliable business?

Personally I have not seen any similar business getting close to its customers, educating them about the new technologies we are now using in our daily lives.  It takes more than being technologically savvy to create a good relationship with customers.  I wonder if there are also core values that could inspire people to work for COMET.

We need to do the homework of thinking hard about what the main reason of existence for a business is.  We need to do it all over again.  The online world will be there at any time, but not the ideas and values that make us good companies or good customers.  Time to stop and think about COMET and businesses in general.

Forgive me because I sinned, I forgot my password !

A new bank account, a new security system to learn on top of everything else that goes for me in the cyber world.  Using the magic of the internet I tried to transfer money from one account to another.  The new account came with instructions to change the passwords (not only one) which I did, but forgot those.  

So it was time to phone the bank and ask for forgiveness.  I confessed my sin (sorry I forgot my passwords), and then I was given the opportunity to redeem myself by revealing many more details about my identity.  Ok, this time I remembered details quickly, and I was sent letters with new security details which I have learned now by heart, I promise not to do it again (I mean forgive such vital information).

But then when trying to transfer money to this new account from my old bank account, disaster happened again.  The amount to be transferred looked suspicious for the system, it had to be referred for later approval.  I tried a different route by transferring smaller amounts, and this is when my online access was blocked.

Another phone call to make (not that they are cheap!).  And more questions about my identity.  Telephone security number?  I had forgotten all about it.  I had to go then through about 20 more minutes of questions and calls transfers, plan B of security check it seemed.  Some of the questions were the same as at the beginning of the call, only they were asked by different people, all of them wanted to follow the protocol, to make sure I am who I say I am.  I finally passed the test.  Explained (again!) what had happened and then I was forgiven for the second time in a single day by those who protect my identity.  

The whole thing has made me think about our security systems and how as they become more sophisticated they also become more demanding of our memory and of what we may have said or done.  So I will have to have my own security information stored somewhere else than my memory (not that I am getting too old) and remember specific details for specific accounts.  As if they were members of my family or my close friends group whose birthdays, jobs, family details, pregnancies and bereavements among other things I must remember.  

There is a third bank account which operates differently from the other two...but let us leave that for another post.