Tag: report

Smartphone web sales picking up

tin-can-phoneNew reports suggests that while more orders are being placed via smartphones some retailers are dropping the ball by being too slow.

The latest IMRG Capgemini eRetail Sales Index suggests that as mobile phone screen sizes get bigger, customers are becoming happier about buying online

Capgemini found that £133 billion was spent online with UK retailers last year, which was up by £18 billion on the previous twelve months. The expectation is that the trend will continue and the market will increase by 14 percent  this year as users become more comfortable with online ordering.

Bhavesh Unadkat, principal consultant in retail customer engagement design at Capgemini said that if retailers invested to improve the customer shopping experience, 2017 will be another record breaking year for online sales.

The findings about increased web sales come at a time when research from Interactive Intelligence has shown that those who respond slowly to customer queries are going to lose business.

David Paulding, regional director for Interactive Intelligence, which carried out the research, warned that dealing with customers in a timely way was essential.

“Retailers can benefit from technology such as cloud-based solutions that can far more effectively handle big data analysis across all interaction types. This will ensure timeliness and consistency across every channel which will give customers the best experience possible,” he said.

UK considers copying US on piracy

stupid cameronThe UK government is so impressed that the US has managed to increase piracy while locking up so much of its pirates it thinks it might try it.

Current thinking in David “One is an ordinary bloke” Cameron’s cabinet is that piracy crimes happen because the penalties are too light. And  the US where P2P pirates face huge sentences for getting caught, has no problem with pirates at all.

A new Intellectual Property Office (IPO) report reveals that many major rightsholders believe criminal sanctions for copyright infringement available under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA 1988) should be a lot tougher.

While the Digital Economy Act 2010 increased financial penalties up to a maximum of £50,000, in broad terms the main ‘offline’ copyright offenses carry sentences of up to 10 years in jail while those carried out online carry a maximum of ‘just’ two.

In 2014, Mike Weatherley MP, then IP advisor to the Prime Minister, said that this disparity “sends all the wrong messages”, a position that was supported by many major rightsholders. The current report examines data from 2006 to 2013 alongside stakeholder submissions, both for and against a change in the law.

It is important that you understand some of the language here. The word “stakeholder” actually means wealthy movie or recording studio which wants the government to tackle copyright infringement so it does not pay for it. Asking them if they think P2P pirates should receive tougher penalties is like asking UKZIP if Romanians should be sent home. In fact if you asked the stakeholders, “do you think that P2P pirates should be publically hung, drawn and quartered and boiled in oil?” they would nod enthusiastically.

“Many industry bodies argue that higher penalties are necessary and desirable and that there is no justification for treating physical and online crime differently. Other stakeholders suggest that these offenses are in fact different, and raise concerns about a possible ‘chilling effect’ on innovation,” the report reads.

But the report actually seemed to lean away from tougher penalties.

Court data from 2006-2013 reveals that prosecutions under the CDPA have actually been going down and that online offenses actually constitute “a small, and apparently decreasing, fraction of copyright prosecution activity as a whole.”

The Crown Prosecution Service didn’t bring a single case under the online provisions of the CDPA 1988 during the period examined.

This lack of case law is problematic by the Federation Against Copyright Theft. ACT has stepped away from public prosecutions under copyright law in order to pursue private prosecutions, because of this problem.

But making sentences tougher causes another problem. The Open Rights Group is worried that overly aggressive punishments that not only have the potential to affect those operating on the boundaries, but also those seeking to innovate.

In other words a person working on a new sharing technology which pushes the boundaries of current legality might face themselves being jailed for years.

“Many internet innovators, prosumers, online creative communities that create non-profit derivative works, fandom producers, etc. All these people – many of whom technically breach copyright in their activities – could find themselves facing prison sentences if making available carried a maximum sentence of ten years.”

 

Businesses suffer from poor presentation

powerpointCasio claims that UK outfits are losing out because of proper presentation training for employees and the poor use of presentation technology.

Apparently companies are under more pressure than ever to give presentations and they are not quite up to snuff, mostly due to a  lack of investment in brushing up their skills.

This is apparently leading to god awful meetings which go nowhere and causing businesses to look at companies who look a bit better on the Powerpoint stakes.

According to the report, nearly half of business decision makers are unlikely to buy from a company that makes a poor new-business pitch presentation.  It didn’t mention anything about taking your gum out of your mouth and your hands out of your pockets.

More than 63 percent of respondents agreed that the use of AV in presentations could be improved.  Perhaps the technology of glove puppets needs a second look.

Another 40 percent thought that effective and innovative use of technology could improve new business pitches.

Casio  sent this on a whopping 7.4 mb file.  Most of it seemed to have been taken up with lots of heavy graphic pictures of smiling people at presentations.

M-commerce continues to wow shoppers

ibm-officeM-commerce is continuing to grow in the retail space, a report has suggested.

In its Online Retail Index IBM said that the new way to spend money has been growing in popularity with smartphone owners opting to use this over traditional means of shopping.

According to the report, mobile commerce grew by 31 percent in the first quarter of this year, up from the same time in 2012.  It said the technology now accounted for 17.4 percent of all online retail sales. The figures were also up from 13.3 percent in the year-earlier period.

IBM said that the trend had grown as a result of many shoppers liking the freedom m-commerce offered, enabling them to shop more frequently and, in some cases, spend more money. It also pointed out that the growth of interactive technologies, such as augmented reality and QR codes, which offered discounts for shoppers using m-commerce sites, had helped boost the adoption of mobile commerce.

And tablets have also fuelled the shopping frenzy, with IBM noting this technology’s larger screens, navigation and easier touch functions made online shopping easier.

IBM said that the growth would continue as a result of retailers embracing the trend and offering their customers sites that catered for m-commerce.