Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Gerrit Kolb, CEO of CoreMedia (Part 3)

Gerrit Kolb: Basically, there are two outcomes. Number one is that the story that you’re telling allows you to create packages that are combined with stories that are entertaining and sticky for the customer. The customer comes back because he wants to hear the stories about specific areas of interest. Secondly, people are able to find you because the SEO optimization doesn’t have to trickle. We have real content. At the heart of it, you have to have the ability to tell stories. Stories are always combined with text copies. They’re always rich media. There’s always pictures. There’s social commenting and rating. All of these things make a story engaging and compelling. That is the key for the retailers to survive. That’s a huge development.

Sramana Mitra: In 2007, I wrote a very popular post on my blog defining what I thought was going to be Web 3.0. It was a formula: 4C + P + VS. The four Cs stood for context, community, commerce, and content, combined with personalization (P) and vertical search (VS). By the way, I did a fashion online resale company very early on in 1999. It was before all this became mainstream.

This has been my thesis. All these things need to come together. Even now, we don’t see that as much. We still see that scratching of the surface of the dynamics. I’m completely with you when you say that this is what needs to happen. This is what gets you SEO results. This is what is going to be the future of electronic commerce. Help me understand how the electronic commerce platforms work with your platform.

Gerrit Kolb: You said something extremely interesting. Why is it that this thing hasn’t picked up so far and why is it picking up right now? You’re spot on with your prediction. The question is what’s the tipping point? The reason why this is happening right now is that two years ago, there was a presentation where one of the biggest worries of the retailers was shop roaming. People go to a shop but they’re comparing prices and informing themselves about the offering, and then buy it online because it’s cheaper. This has completely gone away last year.

You have to keep in mind that e-commerce represents only 10% of the total commerce. You’re really talking about 10% of the total revenue. In the last two years, this has shifted. Over 60% of the people that are buying in the shop are now doing their research online. It’s not 10% of the revenue anymore, but 60% plus the 10%. All of a sudden, 70% of their total revenue is at stake. These guys are panicking and for good reasons. That’ the reason why this is a tipping point right now.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Thought Leaders in E-Commerce: Gerrit Kolb, CEO of CoreMedia
1 2 3 4 5 6 7