Furthermore, noting that the tide’s coming in is not the same as acting upon that insight. The challenge for us all is to make an appropriate commercial response to these insights.

None of the commentators so far seem to have challenged the implication of some of the points. Eg “Basket Abandonment” is a poorly-characterised point (it depends on a shared view of the purpose of a ‘basket’ and the intention behind ‘abandoning’). A different and more challenging interpretation might be that there’s no mechanism on websites to encourage and support building customer preference sets and consideration groups – we’re so obsessed with the “conversion funnel”. Were we to identify this behaviour as “thinking about” and offer a better interaction around that (eg expecting sale to be completed in the store, drawing out the key comparison/difference points, reinforcing learning, etc etc etc) then we’d not get stuck into thinking that’s narrowed by our jargon and models.

So – some clear trends here that won’t go away because we think they’re obvious. The challenges should be whether the trends are well articulated and characterised, and whether we’re going to take an opportunity to exploit those trends.

It’d be interested to hear people’s thoughts on whether the implications of the trends are the ‘right’ ones, or add value.

1) It’s going to be a hard year, with lots of competition for more discerning customers
2) You’re going to have to have a really good offer, attract new customers, hang onto old ones and cross sell like mad
3) Er….that’s it.

Hardly rocket science. How about some analysis on new categories, or how to crack apparel – anything more insightful that ‘it will be hard work’?