E-Commerce 'Retail is Detail' - The two dots..

I have been telling a story for quite some time now that highlights the importance of attention to detail when it comes to your brands presence online. This attention to detail helped deliver 70% baseline growth in 36 hours, is easy to execute, relevant to all brands today and it will still be relevant tomorrow.

Earlier this year while working as the Lazada CBO in Malaysia I was frustrated, and embarrassed to be honest, when we were going to a meeting with the Estee Lauder team about the MAC launch we had been working on. Every search I did for "MAC Lipstick" came up with products that were not from Estee Lauder's flagship store but other sellers on Lazada. The customer experience was, let's say not great: hero images were "cheap", the seller ratings were below 80% and the price was 3 times higher than the Flagship store. WHY IS THIS HAPPENING!!!

It took me just under an hour to work it out. Do you know what MAC stands for? Make-up Art Cosmetics apparently. Did you know what the brand name actually is internally at Estee Lauder... M.A.C. That's it! The difference is in the two dots.

I call it the "Normal Person" search as that is what I looked for and I would consider myself somewhat normal. When we went in and changed the brand name from M.A.C to MAC right away the Flagship store assortment came to the top of the Lazada search results, remember search accounts for 60% traffic or GMV in many cases. We immediately saw an improvement in the customer experience; MAC lipstick content was great, CR% increased for the brand overall (nobody was converting on the other seller MAC), and we saw immediate top line sales growth of 70% after 36 hours that was maintained.

It was just a small change early in a brand journey online but it is this level of detail that will make a break a brand is we continue to invest in our brands online. The relationship you build with a customer when they are searching online is a very important entry point to an overall brand strategy.

We too often focus on the big topics, the strategic direction, how we can step change a business. Sometimes the best thing to do is get our basics right first. Don't forget the 2 dots, the devil is in the detail.