Know your customer

What ideas can keep the pet supplies sector on track for success? How can the sector meet the growing challenges of e-commerce properly and successfully? These are the questions that were debated by over 150 delegates from 20 countries and four continents at the International Pet Conference in Berlin organised by Dähne Verlag and Management Forum of the Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt. The opening speaker Catherine B. Crowden, marketing manager at the customer relationship management specialist BSI, highlighted the importance of the virtual retail world. "E-commerce is a shooting star, but that alone is no guarantee of success." Online business in itself was not the sole recipe for success. "Customers are seen to be channel-hopping more and more." Customers would use the virtual offering in completely different ways: some would order online but pick up from the store, other customers would have goods delivered and a third group would find out more online first and then buy in store. But however the customers transacted their business, practising good customer relationship management (CRM) was vital. "Having lots of data about the customer is important in the first instance," said Crowden. "And customers are happy to provide this data, but significant added value then has to be offered to them for this 'gift'." Fressnapf and Payback Fressnapf founder Torsten Toeller also tracked the beginnings of channel-hopping. "We must grasp that the customer no longer thinks in terms of channels, but simply buys where it is made most convenient to shop." Fressnapf had thus not only refined its own online shop over the years, but had upgraded the visual appearance of its stores. The company had also given thought to creating good CRM. The solution was provided by cooperating with the bonus system Payback. "Using the knowledge that we get about our customers through Payback, we achieve much better B to C communication," explained Toeller. This form of communication would result in the disappearance of flyers and similar advertising media. "Above all we want to go into 1-to-1 communication." Lots of praise, therefore, for virtual influences in retailing. However, Gebhard Mang, director of global sales at Eheim, revealed the other side of the coin. The company from Deizisau was currently trialling selective distribution of its merchandise to chosen speciality dealers. "Our primary aim is to rescue the aquatics segment." To grow interest in keeping an aquarium, a high level of…