Krillionology

Toshiba goes live with new, Krillion-powered website

In an earlier post I asked the question: "are manufacturers' websites cross-channel shopper ready?" With the busy shopping season just around the corner, there's certainly a lot of planning and development going on in e-commerce departments around the world; and the cross-channel shopper is going to be a top concern for any marketer who sells through multiple channels (web store, online retail parter, storefront dealer, catalog, email, etc.)

If you're a consumer-product manufacturer, the latest product locator technology can help you get your website holiday-ready, boost sales directly from product pages, and eliminate potential lost sales due to your customer getting distracted on the way from your product page to the checkout. 

Theory is all fine and dandy, but how does this work, in practice?

Let's take a look at a real-life example: Toshiba's computer division.

Ready to buy? You've got options.

Shoppers on Toshiba's new web store - laptops.toshiba.com - are finding it easier than ever to figure out where to buy the product they want. The reason: they're now connected directly to in-stock product at Toshiba's top dealers and online resellers. Think about that for a moment... you've done all your research and decided that Toshiba is the right laptop. You're on their website, fine-tuning your decision. What's your next step? You're thinking: "where can I buy it now?" 

Toshiba can now tell you - immediately - because the Krillion 360 Product Locator provides up-to-the-minute pricing and availability of that laptop, at online merchants and at local stores.

Best practices: highlight offline and online buying options

Toshiba's new website is a great example of how to do it right. Ready-to-buy shoppers can get complete specs on the company's laptops, decide which one they want, and then instantly see up-to-date pricing and availability information across Toshiba's top local retailers and online retail channels.

The Krillion 360 Product Locator is triggered by the customer entering a ZIP code. It is completely integrated into the website, and instantly presents all the customer needs to know in order to make a purchase decision:

— which national chains have the product in stock
— availability either online or at a local store
— pricing
— contact information

Similar information is available for online-only retailers as a separate, tabbed view.

This is the first time that a consumer product manufacturer has been able to offer shoppers a real-time, fully integrated view of all their buying options, and is a great example of how Krillion can dramatically enhance the buying experience for shoppers on any e-commerce website that aims to connect shoppers with local merchandise.

Tiny details make a big difference

If, like Toshiba, you've made a considerable investment to ensure the website is feature-rich and a delight to experience, then you also want 'where to buy' experience to be integral and seamless. We worked closely with Toshiba to customize the product locator, ensuring that it 'talks' their design language and integrates smoothly with their overall look. We especially like the nice touches such as the color-coded indicator buttons for in-stock/online versus in-stock/local.

Clicking on a red "Buy locally" or green "Buy online" button takes the shopper directly to that retailer's website, with the SKU pre-loaded. For further convenience, a map view is also available:

Many thanks to the folks at Toshiba for being such great business partners as we implemented and fine-tuned the Krillion technology on their website.

If you would like to learn more about how an advanced product locator could speed your customers' path to purchase, contact me here at Krillion: Sherry Thomas-Zon - (650) 965-0233.

Krillion connects Buzzillions users with local, in-store merchandise

If you've ever used Buzzillions.com to decide what to buy, you're going to like a feature just added to this leading online consumer reviews site: a "FIND LOCALLY" button. Buzzillions has always been able to direct its shoppers to online stores… but (until now) not to local retailers. This blue button means you can visit Buzzillions.com to read useful reviews from consumers just like you, narrow down your choices, decide what to buy, and then find out which stores nearby have it in stock, right now.

All your options: Buy online, buy local. Who has it? Where? How much? All on one page.

From the local listings you can easily switch to that retailer's website to complete the purchase and pick up your product today:

So what's the deal here?
The new 'find locally' button is powered by Krillion's, product search technology, and functionality that we helped Buzzillions to integrate into their site. This same technology is currently embedded into leading review sites and shopping engines, including Buzzillions, The Find, ShopSavvy, SuperPages, Topix, and YellowPages.com.

We can aggregate huge quantities of information from our partner companies and websites to create an index of products, retailers, locations and in-store stock availability for 40,000 cities across the United States. Our product locator technology fast becoming the easiest way for manufacturers, shopping engine, mobile apps and web publishers to connect their online readers with local, in-stock products.

The feature is live right now on Buzzillions: look for it on the consumer electronics, appliances and the larger home and garden items.

For more info, our news release is online right here: http://pitch.pe/12006

Sears catches the multichannel bug—in a big way

The other day I walked into a Sears store, asked for a price comparison on a dishwasher, and watched the sales associate access Krillion for a price comparison look-up. Terrific to see our system being adopted by a trend-setting retailer to power an in-store local search kiosk.

If you take a look at what Sears is doing across its channels, you'll see similar sorts of innovation. Sears is an iconic brand when it comes to channels. It's the multichannel giant - storefront, web and catalog. The Sears customer service approach is embodied by its new slogan "shop your way, where shopping revolves around you, 24/7".

What Sears is doing in cross-channel is expanding some boundaries. As DM news reported:

Sears Holdings Corporation is touting its multichannel retail capabilities under the banner of "ShopYourWay," and using its Web site, catalogs and other marketing vehicles to showcase services such as the ability to buy online and pick up in-store, mobile commerce and in-store Web shopping kiosks.

In addition, the company has been increasingly dedicating more catalog real estate to calling out its multichannel capabilities, with various calls to action encouraging readers to shop online or buy online and pickup in store.

What's interesting is that Sears is pushing hard on in-store pickup to drive customers cross-channel. Sears calls it "Buy Online, Pick Up In Store" — and makes it really easy for customers to take advantage of this convenience feature:

- items available for store pickup are marked with a special icon on the website
- easy proof of purchase when you arrive at the store (email printout, credit card)
- in-store kiosk at the special Merchandise Pickup area for fast check-in
- Ready-in-Five (minutes, that is) guarantee
- get it yourself or send someone else

Sears knows that people who elect to pickup in-store will often purchase additional items once they get there - boosting the average order value (AOV). What we know is displaying LOCAL product availability to a customer who has decided WHAT to buy tends to boost conversion to purchase. And that's why it makes sense to embed that data into your online site. Enabling cross-channel purchase and adding these sorts of convenience features is something that multichannel retailers of all stripes have implemented or are evaluating. The big guys jump in first, set expectations and habits with consumers, and eventually other retailers feel the need to add it, too.

Cross-channel isn't just something retailers are looking at, of course. Manufacturers are also enthusiastically adopting it because Krillion lets them tell their customers which local retailers have the product they want, in store, right now. This is convenient for the customer. Also, the manufacturer closes the deal, and the retailer gets the transaction.

We're seeing a lot of interest from manufacturers of larger items that are typically purchased offline. But, again, once shoppers start to expect this convenience feature, we predict that they'll demand it for all types and sizes of products.

Here's how it works at Sears:

Krillion and ShopSavvy: in-stock products at major local retailers, on your phone

Some news from the sidewalks... ShopSavvy is one of the most popular shopping applications for the Google G1 phone. And it just got better. Its developer, Big in Japan, has implemented Krillion within ShopSavvy so that its 400K+ users can get up-to-the-minute inventory information on products at local big-box retailers.

How does it work?

- fire up ShopSavvy on your G1 phone

- scan (or type in) the barcode of a product

- ShopSavvy compares in-stock product and pricing at nearby retailers

(ShopSavvy is extremely location-aware — recently added Skyhook functionality)

Down the road, we have some enhancements planned for the ShopSavvy app - stay tuned!

Read about the announcement: AppScout/PCMagazine, GigaOM, Gizmodo

ShopSavvy and Krillion Connect Mobile Shoppers with Great Deals on

In-Stock Products from Local Retailers

Shoppers with location-aware Google Android G1 phones can find nearby

retailers that have the exact product they want -- in stock, right now

A powerful new feature is now available for users of ShopSavvy, Big in Japan's popular shopping application for Google Android-powered mobile phones. Through technology developed by Krillion (www.krillion.com), shoppers can now view real-time product inventory at local stores when they use the ShopSavvy application to scan a product barcode. This means they can quickly identify a local retailer with in-stock product and then purchase the product online for immediate pick-up at a nearby store.

The ability to connect ShopSavvy's 400,000+ users with real-time pricing and inventory from major retailers means that mobile, location-aware shopping has taken a big step forward. A simple integration with Krillion's StockCheck tool means that Big in Japan can enhance the shopping experience for ShopSavvy users and boost its ability to monetize referrals. 

"Directing shoppers to local stores is a core feature of ShopSavvy, and being able to present our users with up-to-the-minute, local inventory across hundreds of product categories and merchants adds huge value for our users," said Alexander Muse, co-founder of Big in Japan. "Our recent enhancements to ShopSavvy's location awareness make our new relationship with Krillion even more compelling for ShopSavvy users."

"Krillion is the most prominent local product shopping search platform for mobile and web applications, because we can connect shoppers with accurate, local product availability and pricing information, wherever they are," said Joel Toledano, co-founder and CEO of Krillion. "We enable developers of mobile shopping applications, as well as our client base of manufacturers, web publishers, and search and shopping engines, to easily implement a real-time display of in-stock products from more than 40,000 retail locations across the country, including Best Buy, Home Depot, Sears, Target, and Wal-Mart. This enables our network partners to better serve their audience and monetize their apps and websites, while directing more ready-to-buy, local customers to our multichannel retail partners."

News: Panasonic.com selects Krillion to power local product availability

We are excited to announce that Panasonic and Krillon have entered into a partnership that enables shoppers who visit Panasonic’s U.S.website to access real-time, local in-store availability on specific products they've research online and want to pick up immediately at a local retailer.

To accomplish this, Panasonic.com is using Krillion's StockCheck™ technology and our newly released 'product availability API'. Three product lines (cameras, camcorders and HDTVs) and now using the embedded Krillion product locator widget to provide Panasonic's online shoppers 'where to buy' information. Additional Panasonic product lines will be supported in the coming months as we continue to roll out new product categories across the Krillion network and partner sites.

The addition of the Krillion 'product availability widget' is among several key enhancements Panasonic is making to its website to better serve the needs of today’s web consumers. These improvements are aimed at those people who actively research products online as they make purchase decisions — prior to walking into a store. With local product availability at the product sku level, Panasonic not only enhances the customer experience online but also significantly improves linkage with its dealers, ultimately reducing the number of steps for customers who will likely go from product research to purchase offline at their local store.

Read the full release here

More on our partnership with TheFind

Update: Greg Sterling over at Screenwerk was kind enough to offer his insight on what our partnership with TheFind signifies. As Greg hints, this is surely the year when pure-play shopping portals see the value of embedding real-time data feeds that give shoppers another reason to hit the BUY button.

News update - The Find selects Krillion

It's been a busy week for the Krillion team. Today, we announced our partnership with The Find. This is a significant step for Krillion and has been a great opportunity for us to work together with a major shopping portal/search engine to provide our local product search and inventory information for web shoppers—no matter where they are on the web.

Here’s how it works: TheFind will now use Krillion's data feed to supplement the information it provides shoppers on local products and where to buy them. This means that TheFind users will now be able to get real-time inventory information for certain categories of merchandise they are researching for purchase.

Krillion aims to forge relationships with search engines, shopping portals, YP operators, publishers and manufacturers, and to thus act as a supplier of essential data that connects ready-to-buy shoppers with local retailers. Look for more announcements shortly.