So how do you become the CEO of an e-commerce agency Christian Grötsch? Posted on 20. February 2015byby Christian Grötsch 0 The shortage of skilled workers in IT is not a new complaint. Even digital natives answer questions about their desired profession with classics like teacher or lawyer. In order for this to change and to create an awareness for new, digital professions, we at dotSource are putting our knowledge to use: for instance through the foundation of an e-commerce degree at the technical university in Jena. Since this week, our CEO Christian Otto Grötsch has been a testimonial for an IT career information flyer at the federal employment agency, Bundesagentur für Arbeit. Screen: Bundesagentur für Arbeit So if you want to know what career path brought Christian to the point of founding our agency almost ten years ago, you can now inform yourself officially. Naturally you can pass it on to school and university students who have a career with a future in their sights. Continue (No Ratings Yet) Loading... Categories Net Find of the Week
The end of Google Helpouts: service doesn’t run itself Posted on 19. February 2015byby Christian Grötsch 0 Screen: Google HelpoutsGoogle Helpouts will be closed down by the 20th of April. On the platform, users were able to help each other via ‘hangout’ with the option of charging for it. The shut-down of the service, which has been in existence for 17 months, hardly comes as a surprise, considering that a search for its promotion or an obvious crowd puller was in vain. Strategically, it was also unclear what gap it was supposed to fill. E-Learning? Support? Service channel? Everything was possible. But maybe exactly that was the problem. There were just a few exciting examples from Google themselves. For instance, they were able to motivate well watched YouTube giants to offer Helpouts. Continue (No Ratings Yet) Loading... Categories E-Commerce
E-Commerce in Games: The Slightly Different Shop Posted on 18. February 201521. January 2022byby Christian Grötsch 1 Companies, like InnoGames and GoodGames are well-known for their entertaining online games, which are intended for the casual gamer. But the game manufacturers have far more to do with the e-commerce branch than it seems at first glance. Even a shop which only sells virtual products for a game needs to be optimised. In contrast to games which you buy in one payment, Free2Play games rely on the continual willingness of the player to pay. GoodGames for example, shows how such a business strategy works. Other game developers also use ingame monetisation, especially with mobile apps. But how does this branch, which pulled 29.3 million German gamers to their monitors in 2014, work? Continue (1 vote(s), average: 5.00 out of 5)Loading... Categories E-Commerce
Book Trade War – Price fixing, TTIP and Amazon Posted on 17. February 201521. January 2022byby Christian Grötsch 0 Graphic: Sam Howzit At the beginning of January the German publishers and booksellers association published statistics which see stationary book trade as remaining a successful distribution channel. Turnover may have sunk by 1.2 percent in stationary trade in comparison to the year before, but shoulders were still being patted, digitalisation has worked and the people are even still coming to the shops. The fact that Thalia gave up a total of 9000 square metres of shop space in the end and Weltbild registered for bankruptcy doesn’t bother anyone any more. Crisis survived, now off into a rosy future…no? While stationary book shops have had a turnover slump of 1.2 percent, the annual results for all sales channels – stationary book trade, train station book trade, e-commerce and warehouse/department stores – fell by 2.1 percent in total. The reason: a strong year 2012 and the late Easter. No one is daring a prognosis for the next years yet. So what does the future hold for book trade? Continue (No Ratings Yet) Loading... Categories E-Commerce
B2C online trade is still shining with growth Posted on 16. February 2015byby Christian Grötsch 0 Federal statistics show that the number of people using the internet for private shopping or orders has grown by 30 percent since 2008. Thanks to higher employment rates, increasing wages, low inflation, low interest rates and a relatively low savings levels, the conditions for trade are currently excellent. A survey among 1,200 companies by the Germany trade association, the Handelsverband Deutschland (HDE) shows a correspondingly positive atmosphere: a good third expect turnover growth, and with multichannel companies it is even three quarters. Growth drivers are still the large orderers: people who order something online at least ten times per year. That makes approximately 14.5 million Germans. Source: emarketer According to this, e-commerce growth should level-off at 10 percent by 2018. It currently lies at 19.3 percent globally. This prognosis includes both wares and services in B2C. However, the end of the growth is foreseeable. The three to five years an even stronger concentration and consolidation processes will come. E-Commerce is maturing and despite current growth, has long been in the first great professionalisation phase, especially in better developed markets, such as Great Britain, Germany, and France. This can also be seen in internet use. Here in Germany this is declining slightly according to an online study by ARD/ZDF this year. Continue (No Ratings Yet) Loading... Categories E-Commerce
Rewe and the crux of the matter in grocery delivery Posted on 9. February 2015byby Christian Grötsch 0 Photo: REWE PresseRewe has said goodbye to their slogan “market prices” and are now working on their online prices. What is making itself felt at the moment is that offers and specials are not valid online. Observers are also talking about other price increases (see the comments ont3n). Even if every fourth German orders groceries online now according to Bitkom, online grocery trade is still a tough business. The problem is that customer and trader points of view differ greatly. Large packaging, toilet paper or even heavy crates of drinks are attractive for delivery from the customer perspective, but at the same time they have an especially low profit margin. Continue (No Ratings Yet) Loading... Categories E-Commerce
Colours in e-commerce: when emotions lead to sales Posted on 3. February 201521. January 2022byby Christian Grötsch 2 Graphic: Johann Dréo Shop operators don’t just have to take care of usability, a functional internal search or the perfect check-out when it comes to raising conversion rates. In e-commerce, as in every other area of life as well, emotions play a decisive role. Spontaneous purchases are initiated by a certain feeling. For instance, you can create feeling about the price: joy at finding such a good offer. Feelings are also triggered by colour. Red creates a different emotion to blue or green. Colours are one of the few stimuli in e-commerce which speak directly to the senses. Apart from the basic colour, the colour scheme of the navigation bar and other controls is important for emotional customer address. White or light grey for instance, stands for seriousness, while the colour red draws attention. But can colour really raise conversion rates? Continue (No Ratings Yet) Loading... Categories E-Commerce
E-Commerce is in the spotlight more and more – and not always in a good way Posted on 2. February 2015byby Christian Grötsch 0 Current numbers show what has long been supposed: when it comes to internet know-how, the Germans aren’t doing so well. We’re doing even worse compared with other European countries. Only five percent of the population can claim to have good internet skills. That is fewer than in almost any other European country. The Germans don’t know how the internet works. Angela Merkel’s #Neuland is closer to the reality than we thought. Continue (No Ratings Yet) Loading... Categories E-Commerce
eBay Turbulence: What will happen with Magento? Posted on 25. January 2015byby Christian Grötsch 0 There are signs of a storm at eBay. Ever since the announcement of the PayPal spin-off there have been rumors of defeat. Continue (No Ratings Yet) Loading... Categories E-Commerce
Dynamic Pricing: Price management the B2B Way Posted on 22. January 2015byby Christian Grötsch 0 Photo: Javierafael Determine the purchasing price yourself – every customer’s dream. With the model of dynamic pricing the purchaser comes one step closer to the realisation of this dream, at least partly. Providers, such as start-up Jet, promise price reductions of up to 15 percent, as long as a product is purchased in a participating shop close to the customer. Continue (No Ratings Yet) Loading... Categories E-Commerce
