Postcards from Perkistan

Our Twitter account @perkler and my personal one @justinbarrie follows @mediapost a tweet of all of the news coming from MediaPost Publications.

An article recently caught my eye from Online Media Daily. Gavin O’Malley was writing about the ‘line between media channels becoming increasingly blurred’. He quotes a range of statistics released in a report by Ketchum Public Relations that showed 44% of online shoppers read reviews from other consumers as part of their decision making process when purchasing.

As a result lots of small (and some huge) social communities have sprung up around specific consumer interest points. Interestingly a larger number of these people are now also broadening their reading to related blogs rather than just the comments and recommendations on a specific page.

None of this sounds entirely new - and frankly I don’t really see how this is different to how people shop offline either. I do tend to get recommendations from friends before I buy something big.

It’s more the dramatic increase in numbers and realisation that it is happening online that are interesting. In fact I remember reading something from the NRF around Christmas time about sites that have recommendations and reviews maintaining or improving their Christmas sales while others fell away.

And it’s exactly what we’ve been aware of and building on here at Perkler. When we say we are an online loyalty COMMUNITY, I can see some people reel and sigh “another 2.0″. But in the mission of simplifying loyalty programs, giving consumers power to manage and learn about everything they are entitled to - there seems little other option!

Our community features include rating and commenting. We’ve also built in functions where you can see other people’s virtual wallets (if they allow it) and we think that facilitates a really nice informal recommendation process.

But another exciting development is to start bringing content about brands from blogs and twitter directly into our space. We are working hard on this and think the blurring of media that Gavin O’Malley talks about will be there for all to see in our community.

People suggesting, rating and recommending programs to others. Feeds of anything people say about brands and programs on other social networks built in. A great consumer resource, and one that is responsive to how people are actually starting to shop.

The NRF has sent a link today to a Washington Post story about tapping into shoppers’ psyche to overcome the retail drop-off this holiday season.

Now, as a consumer (and a person) I always laugh at how ‘understanding consumers’ or ‘tapping into thought patterns’ need to be an actual activity for some large organisations - the best ones just get it, think it and act it all of the time.

A Loyalty Tea Party anyone?

Which is why I like the example in the story about Talbots - a womenswear chain. They have introduced a really neat loyalty perk. Loyal customers get the store for a party. Talbots supply the essentials (food,drink and clothing range) the loyal customer acts as hostess and brings a bunch of friends along.

Great way to engage, great perk Talbots!

I’d love to have a tea party at T2 here in Canberra!

When courageous companies come up with interesting perks like this, you can rest assured we will be highlighting them to their members on Perkler but also letting everyone else know that this retailer is really looking out for consumers - that’s the kind of news we want to send around the Perkler community.

Justin