Online Retail Not Latino-Friendly

Transcription

1 A Global DataSet Report Online Retail Not Latino-Friendly Few U.S. Web Retailers Service Hispanic Market By Donald A. DePalma

2 Online Retail Not Latino-Friendly By Donald A. DePalma ISBN: ISBN: Copyright 2004 by Common Sense Advisory, Inc., Lowell, Massachusetts, United States of America. Published by: Common Sense Advisory, Inc. 100 Merrimack Street Suite 301 Lowell, MA USA No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the Publisher. Permission requests should be addressed to the Permissions Department, Common Sense Advisory, Inc., Suite 301, 100 Merrimack Street, Lowell, MA , , info@commonsenseadvisory.com. See for usage guidelines. Trademarks: Common Sense Advisory, Global Watchtower, Global DataSet, DataPoint, Globa Vista, Quick Take, and Technical Take are trademarks of Common Sense Advisory, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Information is based on the best available resources at the time of analysis. Opinions reflect the best judgment of Common Sense Advisory s analysts at the time, and are subject to change.

3 Online Retail Not Latino Friendly i Table of Contents U.S. Online Retailers Do Not Support a Feliz Navidad... 1 E-Tailers Ignore Ethnic Populations at Their Own Risk... 1 Who Should Read This Report?... 2 Our Review: Visit and Assess Sites, Then Them... 3 Four E-Tailers Offer Spanish-Speaking Latinos a Place to Shop Online... 3 Our Assessment: Does the Site Do Its Job?... 6 Who We ed and How We Collected Data... 7 Message 1: Request for Product Information... 9 Message 2: Minor Complaint Message 3: Compliment about Website Message 4: Where to Buy Products Reviewing Data from the Responses of 50 Leading Online Companies How Well Did Our Latino Content Champions Do with Spanish Queries? Conclusions from Our Reviews and Message Experiment Why Don t Companies Respond to Web Inquiries? Many Responses Did Not Serve Their Companies Well Samples of Good Responses to Our Online Inquiries Unsatisfying Answers Came More Frequently What You Can Do If the Answer Is We Cannot Help You We Wanted to Know Whether They Did Better on the Phone Two Immediate Reasons to Be Better Correspondents View Translated Ethnically-Tuned Sites as a Training Ground for Global Appendix: Web Retailers Reviewed and ed for this Report About Common Sense Advisory Future Research Figures Figure 1: Latinos Aren't the Only Ethnic Group Left Out Online... 4 Figure 2: It Sometimes Takes Some Searching to Find the Spanish... 5 Figure 3: Online Retailers Prefer Webforms over Figure 4: Responses to English Messages Faltered on Where to Buy Products Tables Table 1: Comparison of English and Spanish Sites for the U.S. Market... 4 Table 2: Subjective Assessment of Effectiveness of Spanish Content at E-tailers... 6 Table 3: Help Services Available at Spanish Sites ( SP Spanish, EN English)... 6 Table 4: Transacting in Spanish or Not ( SP Spanish, EN English)... 7 Table 5: Guide to Interpreting Data Tables for Responses to Web Inquiries... 9 Table 6: How Companies Answered Requests for Information Table 7: How Companies Reacted to Complaints Copyright 2004 by Common Sense Advisory, Inc.

4 ii Online Retail Not Latino Friendly Table 8: How Companies Reacted to Compliments Table 9: How Companies Answered Questions about Where to Buy Products Table 10: Sites with High Spanish Content Did Not Excel in Customer Response Table 11: Some Problems Show Up Repeatedly in Company Responses Table 12: How Well Do Companies Perform When Latinos Call Them? Table 13: Summary of Responses for All Companies Copyright 2004 by Common Sense Advisory, Inc.

5 Online Retail Not Latino Friendly 1 Topic U.S. Online Retailers Do Not Support a Feliz Navidad Most American web retailers do little if anything to attract ethnic audiences in an increasingly multicultural society. In Common Sense Advisory s review of 50 leading U.S. e-tailers, we found that only four offered content in Spanish. None of the others even tipped their hat culturally or with ethnicity-tuned catalogs to the needs of this growing market. Only a few could respond in that language to inquiries sent to them via or webform. Their failure to meet the needs of this market bodes ill for e-tailers as the Hispanic community grows and these merchants look beyond the United States to increase international sales. While these shortcomings did not surprise us in our earlier analysis of the corporate websites of the 100 most valuable global brands (see Corporate E- Mail Disconnect, Jul04), we did expect a higher level of response from e-tailers that directly target the American market. Thus, Spanish-preferent Latinos looking to shop online this Christmas will be disappointed in their choices. E-Tailers Ignore Ethnic Populations at Their Own Risk Why should web retailers find the U.S. Latino market interesting? These residents represent 13 percent of the population, a community larger than Canada. They are the fifth largest group of Spanish speakers in the world. They go online more than any other hispanohablante nation. They average more page views than other American web users. Unlike 19 th - and early 20 th -century immigrants from Europe, they often retain their language and culture; more than 70 percent speak Spanish, many preferring it in domestic interactions. Meanwhile, web retail continues growing, driven by increased broadband connectivity plus innovations that have made retail sites easier to shop. E-tailers offer an online selection of merchandise that dwarfs what even the largest bigbox store can offer. Multi-channel retailers like Best Buy, Sears, and Williams- Sonoma see the internet as a complementary channel to their suburban mall and urban stores, extending their reach to consumers. However, as we found, most U.S. e-tail sites leave non-anglophone Americans outside looking in. Marketing to these domestic cultural audiences offers a major opportunity to sell products and services (see Leaving La Vida Loca, Apr04). In our review of the Copyright 2004 by Common Sense Advisory, Inc.

6 2 Online Retail Not Latino Friendly websites of 50 top online retailers, we found that four offer audiences some ability to shop in Spanish (see Table 13). Many failed in our response test in Spanish but 30 percent failed in English. With no answers to their s, potential buyers will likely dial expensive call centers to get their questions answered or click away to a retailer more interested in answering their questions. Who Should Read This Report? If you sell consumer goods or services online, it is time to review your strategy for ethnic communities in the United States and understand that the customer service best practices you develop for Latino Americans you can apply in global markets. Marketing executives, strategists, market development managers, and corporate communications specialists should assess multicultural opportunities and needs not just for this year s Christmas shopping, but in an effort to become trusted suppliers to a financially powerful and growing demographic. The section La Voz de las Compañías documents our review of the websites of 50 top e-tailers. It describes the inquiries we sent in English and Spanish to benchmark their ability to handle foreign-language . The Analysis section discusses the quality of responses we received. The Implications section outlines steps companies should take to improve response in any language. Rather than reproduce recommendations we made in earlier research, we suggest that readers review the listed Common Sense Advisory reports: Why the U.S. Latino market deserves investment. For more information on the size and attractiveness of the Latino opportunity, see Leaving La Vida Loca (Apr04). There you can read our analysis of why Latino America deserves more marketing attention than most companies currently provide. How to best market in other languages online. For best practices on marketing to Latinos online, again see Leaving La Vida Loca. We outline a series of steps that firms can take to improve the way they market to any ethnic group. We make detailed recommendations for more research, a crosschannel marketing plan, better organization, and market-appropriate content. How to communicate with online prospects. For a discussion of how to respond to in general and non-english messages in particular, see Corporate Disconnect (Jul04). We suggest best processes and useful technology to manage effective response, minimize the number of inquiries to expensive call centers, and increase online conversion rates. Copyright 2004 by Common Sense Advisory, Inc.