Salmon are a gold sponsor of the IBM Smarter Commerce Summit taking place between 18^th and 20^th June 2013 in Monaco. At the summit you’ll find out how leading organisations are using IBM Smarter Commerce to meet the demands of empowered customers, and gain expert insights that will help you synchronsise the supply chain, optimise inventory, personalise promotions, micro-target marketing, increase relevant and exceed customer expectations across every channel.  You can also hear about how organisations are using social, mobile and cloud to better service their customers and to gain additional competitive advantage.

Keynote speakers include:

• Sir Terry Leahy, former CEO of Tesco
• Wendy Clark, Senior Vice President, Global Sparkling Brand Center, The Coca-Cola Company
• Karren Brady, Vice Chairman of West Ham United Football Club
• Craig Hayman, General Manager, Industry Solutions, IBM Software Group

To register or find out more, please visit the Smarter Commerce Global Summit 2013 website.

We will be running the following workshops during the summit:

Tuesday 18th June
3.30pm – 4.15pm: Cross Border Commerce

Wednesday 19th June
10.15am – 11.00am & 4.45pm – 5.30pm: Everywhere Commerce – the new ‘e’ of eCommerce
12.00pm – 12.45pm & 4.45pm – 5.30pm: Cross Border Commerce

Thursday 20th June
10.00am – 10.45am: Everywhere Commerce – the new ‘e’ of eCommerce

To ask for a place at one of the workshops please email info@salmon.com

If you’d like to meet with a Salmon consultant while you’re at the summit, please Contact Us

Agency to support car brand in new digital and web strategies

Audi UK has appointed Salmon as its new strategic digital and web partner. The main brief is to work with the premium car brand’s in-house team to develop and implement new digital strategies focusing on the management of its website.

The appointment, made after Audi conducted its overall strategic review for 2013, will see Salmon assist Audi in creating digital marketing solutions across a variety of platforms including the hugely successful audi.co.uk website, which has over one million unique visitors per month.

Hugh Fletcher, National Digital Manager for Audi UK, explains: “The exciting partnership with Salmon will help place the brand at the forefront of digital marketing. The agency’s experience and expertise in e-commerce, both in terms of creative front-end solutions and outstanding technical expertise, will help us achieve our goal of giving Audi customers the online experience they want and deserve in this constantly evolving digital world.”

Andy Jones, Head of Customer Experience at Salmon, adds: “We fully appreciate the ever-expanding importance of providing innovative digital solutions and bring to the table nearly 25 years of knowledge and expertise in consulting, design, delivery and support services to leading premium brands.”

Alibaba.com, the Chinese online marketplace, has released an infographic comparing how much consumers are set to spend online by 2015.  The infographic compares retail eCommerce sales in the US, China, UK, France and Germany and brings together some interesting statistics.

In 2012, the US was the biggest market with consumers spending $209bn (£138bn) online, followed by China at $194bn (£128bn).  UK consumers spent $113bn (£75bn). However, in 2013, it’s predicted that things will change, with Chinese consumers spending $265bn (£175bn), US consumers $230bn, (£152bn) and UK consumers $123.4bn (£81bn). And by 2015,  Chinese consumers are predicted to spend $445bn (£293bn) online, compared with $270bn (£178bn) in the US and $143.6bn (£95bn) in the UK.

Other statistics from the infographic  -

• More than 242m people (48% female and 52% male) shop using the internet in China – six times more than in the UK
• Chinese shoppers spent an average of £703 a year in 2012, compared with the £1,083 spent in the UK.
• 12% of purchases were from mobile phones
• Top of the list for what Chinese shoppers is apparel and accessories at 68%.

 

MorrisonsCellar Home Page

Salmon, has helped Morrisons to launch its first transactional eCommerce site, MorrisonsCellar.com, which focuses on selling a comprehensive range of wines and offers customers a unique, personalised and enjoyable shopping experience, including:

An interactive Taste Test allowing customers to discover those wines most likely to suit their palate via three simple questions

The case builder tool giving customers the ability to build and keep track of a mixed case of wine

Integration with Facebook allowing customers to share information with their friends

The new site is built on the same infrastructure as Kiddicare.com, (part of the Morrisons family) using WebSphere Commerce, Coremetrics, Endeca and advanced content management functionality developed by Salmon.

Since the site went live:

• Repeat customers average 15 percent
• All KPIs have been greatly exceeded – visitors, conversion and sales
• Conversion is above expectation, due to the success of the taste test and the depth of the product range

Discussing Morrisons first venture into eCommerce, Scott Weavers-Wright, Kiddicare CEO and Kiddicare and Morrisons.co.uk General Merchandise Managing Director said; “This is the first step in Morrisons branded eCommerce and will enhance the overall wine offering for Morrisons. It will also provide valuable lessons on business processes and systems which will support the launch of other web sites and multi channel services. We knew that the underlying platform, WebSphere Commerce, and functionality would enable us to deliver the new site quickly and yet be scalable for the future.”

Ken Platt, Head of Multi Channel eCommerce Delivery for Morrisons.co.uk, added: “Morrisons has a late mover advantage. By creating a scalable platform, focussed on user experience, the rapid roll out of further categories is certain and promises to set Morrisons.co.uk apart from its competitors.”

Salmon has provided a wide range of eCommerce services to design and implement the site and will provide 24/7 application support. Salmon used innovative working practices and approaches which combined Morrisons’ deep understanding of wine and customer behaviour with Salmon’s extensive eCommerce expertise. These enabled Salmon to deliver an innovative and functionally-rich site in a short period of time, which not only matched Morrisons business vision but also enhanced it.

Craig Harper-Ashton, Director of eCommerce at Salmon said; “Salmon played a key role in making MorrisonsCellar.com a reality. We are delighted to see Morrisons realise the benefits of the new working practices adopted for this project.”

About MorrisonsCellar.com Taste Test
A clever, interactive test to help guide consumers through the mystery of wine, the Taste Test is based on a scientific principle relating to the number of taste buds any one person possesses. Consumers will be asked three simple, non-wine related questions, the answers to which are then converted by a complex algorithm and a piece of clever technology to reveal a score and flavour profile. The four profiles are sweet (0-3), fresh (4-6), smooth (7-9), intense (10-12).

The entire range of Morrisons’ wines has been tasted by a six-strong team with calibrated palates and awarded a score against agreed criteria to enable it to fit within one of the four profiles. Red, whites, sparking and fortified have all been judged using the same scale so if a customer is a score 4 it is expected that wines within the fresh category of all colours will appeal to them.

Salmon has been selected by DFS to create, deliver and manage the implementation of their new multi channel eCommerce platform. The platform will be a key component to help drive DFS’s new multi channel strategy.

Established over 40 years ago, DFS is Britain’s favourite sofa company and is now the largest company of its kind in Europe. DFS has over 90 stores in the UK and 2 in Ireland and was looking for a partner with strong multi channel experience to deliver a new online and multi channel experience for the UK and Ireland. With a number of existing suppliers and systems already in place, DFS needed a partner who could provide a wide range of services and who had experience of working with multiple third parties. Read more »

Salmon employee, Perry Gascoine was one of the 5 referees from Great Britain selected to referee blind football at the London 2012 Paralympic Games. He reveals all about the games and the Olympic village…

Have you settled back into normality after living and breathing the London 2012 Paralympics?

It’s been difficult adjusting since being involved in something so big with a global audience of millions and all the pressure of dealing with live television, to refereeing in front of one man and his dog on the local rec! I have also refereed a Futsal England training game yesterday.  It is also difficult to have to go into shops and buy food when two weeks have been fully catered! Read more »

Advantage Africa is a niche charity which helps those who experience extreme poverty and exclusion in the most deprived areas of Africa. Salmon has been supporting the charity since 2006 and this  year donated £58,770 to continue to support and encourage the invaluable difference Advantage Africa makes to lives.

Working in some of the most deprived areas in Kenya and Uganda, Advantage Africa helps local charities and organizations provide sustainable and practical aid to some of the most disadvantaged children and adults in the world, aiming to tackle not only hunger and poverty but prejudice and exclusion of as a result of disability and HIV/AIDS. Read more »

Stop

When was the last time you watched an actual customer (not part of your team) use your web site? It’s important to remember who your web site is for. It’s easy to forget or lose sight of the views of real customers. You may have too much knowledge around the difficulties and constraints of a system or industry which means that online experiences are bent to fit these restrictions. Or you may just be busy doing other stuff.

Look

Often the way you think your customers use your web site is different from the way they actually use it. And often what they do and what they say they do are very different things. Watch the mouse.  Very often this indicates which part of the site they are focusing on and what they are looking at. Read more »

Salmon employee, Perry Gascoine is one of the 6 referees from Great Britain selected to referee blind football at the London 2012 Paralympic Games. The Paralympic Games is the second largest sporting event in the world and Perry will move into the Paralympic Village on 28th August to lend his expertise to the Games. We simply had to ask…

How did you become a referee of blind football?

I referee on the FA National Futsal League and was introduced to the possibility of doing a blind conversion course in 2009. I was impressed by the skill level and jumped at the chance. I attended the international referee seminar in February 2010, I was selected to officiate at various home internationals. Then I was offered the opportunity to officiate at the 2010 World Championships in Hereford organised by IBSA (International Blind Sports Federation). It just went on from there really! Read more »

Salmon was pleased to sponsor the Endorsement Manager of the Month awards at the London Market Group Forum on 26th July at the Willis Building in London. Congratulations to the winners – Ropner Insurance Services and Chubb.

The awards were presented by Christopher Croft, LMG Secretariat who also gave an update on modernisation. Chris attributed the fall in E-endorsements in June to the Jubilee celebrations, noting that the July figures have already ‘oustripped June volumes’. Read more »