E-commerce Berlin Expo 2020 recap: How to run your e-commerce business? Key takeaways from Made.com & Beiersdorf

We cannot believe that it has already been a month since our E-commerce Berlin Expo 2020 took place in STATION-Berlin! However, the memories are still vivid. We decided to analyze some of our presentations from the EBE2020 and show you some key takeaways coming from them.

Today, we are going to tell you a few words about what Gemma Comabella from Made.com shared with us as well as Tom Pham who represents Beiersdorf. How to build a strong e-commerce brand? Check it out.

Made.com: building an online brand for the digital generation

Made.com exactly knows what is going on with the world of e-commerce – and Gemma showed it just right.

About Gemma:Gemma Comabella, MD DACH at MADE.COM
Gemma Comabella joined MADE.COM as Managing Director in March 2019, overlooking the German-speaking market. Prior to MADE, Comabella gained broad experience in building global fashion brands. After years at the e-commerce giant Zalando, she joined Vestiaire Collective as Country Manager for DACH and the Netherlands, and later as CMO at Showroom.de, Hubert Burda Media’s fashion startup. Gemma Comabella holds an MBA from ESADE Business School.

Watch the presentation here!

Long story short: Made.com wants to make the design more accessible by allowing their audience to design any furniture of their choice. Then, Made.com is producing it – using fabrics/industries all over the world, ensuring the quality of the unique design.

And Made.com knows that Millenials is the group they not only want to address – they need to address them. Millennials are creative, very open to changes and inspirational.

They are mobile-minded, too, what was spotted by Made.com.

Millenials mean mobile. Made.com’s 75% of traffic comes from mobile (it does not include their mobile app). What do they do on mobiles? Well, they are getting socially connected. This is why another principle that Made.com implemented is to think social first and engage.

Using User-generated content (that is free to obtain since Made.com is so loved by users – customers) hits the jackpot for Made.com. With using UGC, Made.com gets amazing pictures they wouldn’t get elsewhere, and their users can sparkle and show their photos and life to the world.

That is exactly what Millenials strive for and want. And this is what Made.com wants: amazing, unique content that helps them build a bond with their customers, and reach to new customers.

Also, via mobile. So make your business shoppable. For example, with Instagram shoppable posts with tags of products with links to buying them directly.

How to go a step further? Introduce AR & VR. By implementing a special creator that shows you how your dreamy piece of furniture is going to look like EXACTLY in your room, Made.com makes you play with their brand, their capabilities and their possibilities and builds your loyalty with the brand. Once you see how great something fits, there is a chance you would like to purchase it right here and right now.

To make things easier, Made.com gives their clients possibilities to visit special showrooms: digital physical spaces under one condition: the MADE Customer journey starts and ends online. By providing some human touch and shows a bit more of their online brand, some people may ger persuaded to actually start their journey with the brand. However, the purchase needs to be made via online channels since Made.com is an online brand.

Millennials became the most important shopping group for e-commerce. The sooner you believe in their potential and stop forgetting about them in your e-commerce communication, the better. Made.com prepared a handy checklist for those who want to get “young people excited”.

Beiersdorf: Be Visible, be Shoppable, be Loveable: delighting NIVEA fans

Building a lovable and trusted e-commerce brand is not the easiest nut to crack. Tom Pham came to the E-commerce Berlin Expo to show how to do it right, showing the example of Nivea.

About Tom:Tom Pham, Global Ecommerce Operations Manager at Beiersdorf
In a new era of eCommerce, where DTC business becomes more significant, it is important to stay relevant and be present where your consumers are. In this session you will be able to learn how Beiersdorf pleases its consumers by giving them an opportunity to shop for exclusive products from the NIVEA Haus on Amazon.

Watch the presentation here!

With great power, comes great responsibility. This is why Nivea had everything to be loved on the paper but still needs to go the extra mile in order to attract new clients. A fairly newly built Nivea Haus in Hamburg (built-in 2006) is one of the steps taken by the brand to attract more clients (it has around 1 million visitors a year!). The idea behind Nivea Haus was not to generate sales, it was to bring first-class brand experience to the customers: get treatments or products.

But, how to attract clients all over the world? The answer was to become Amazon Seller as Nivea Haus. Tom Pham highlighted quite a few differences between being an Amazon Seller and just Amazon Retailer. They may not be seen at first glance, but they are definitely up for consideration for anyone who wants to conquer Amazon.

Tom highlighted four key benefits of being an Amazon Seller. First of all, you can rely on better visibility. The second one is that it helps you establish your brand in the most efficient way. You also gain direct access to potential consumers and, therefore, are able to boost your sales.

There are a few learnings to take.

In terms of assortment:

keep it exclusive. Don’t sell your products to any distributors or middlemen, keep it just for Amazon.
adjust your price tag. It needs to cover various Amazon fees – remember.
have it e-commerce ready. It has to be understandable for the consumer and ready for the delivery via many countries and markets (so it is not getting damaged and therefore, it is not destroying any impression about your brand).

Delivering such a set of rules for assortment (introducing gift sets or better packaging for sale) resulted in making Nivea a top seller in many categories.

In terms of content:

take care of SEO. Optimizing content for keyword secure visibility is a key on Amazon, so it is perfectly indexed by Google or Amazon search afterwards. Titles, description and bullet points need to be visible but also relevant and same time packed with keywords and information.
introducing mobile-first visuals. Explain as much as you can with the pictures, test them. Nivea introduces visuals with bullet points, with the picture of a package, but also some pictures with the texture or colour of particular cosmetics
backend information. Size and weight of products, show details and be transparent with details

In terms of marketing activation:

SEA. Performance marketing for Amazon is very importantAmazon since paid listings are the first ones to see by a potential client.
external traffic. It’s especially important when you launch a new product since it is not listed and indexed sufficiently. How to go up in ranking on Amazon? Bring traffic from your Facebook, Instagram or newsletters.
special events. Black Fridays or autumn sales – this is when clients expect brands to create deals.

In terms of customer support:

ratings & reviews. Even negative reviews can give you precious feedback to improve your services or products.
customer communication. The support has to be provided as quickly as possible, as precise. Clients do not want to wait for ages for being served.
seller rating. Clients want to buy from a trusted seller, and sellers want to be trusted as 100% positive rating gives you a special “badge” of a trusted seller.

Combining content, assortment, marketing activation and customer support helps Nivea be visible, be shoppable and be lovable.

Do you like our insights? Would you like to see more of them? Let us know, we will prepare many similar materials for you very soon. There were so many amazing e-commerce findings shared during the EBE2020 that we definitely have a lot of content to cover. Speak to you soon!