Exclusive Books has launched a social service for its online store called “stickers”, which encourages customers to rate and share items in the company’s digital store and mark items they want, which can then become eligible for a group discount, earning them individual discounts in the process.
Ben Williams, GM of the online arm, Exclus1ves.co.za, calls the service “retail gamification”.
“Word of mouth is what has sold books since time immemorial,” says Williams. “Stickers is a powerful set of word-of-mouth promotional tools. We think this is something that publishers will really be interested in, which they can use to curate and drive online sales of their titles.”
There are four main categories of digital stickers. The first allows users to share items on social media. The second allows them to rate items, which Williams says is arguably the most important part of the service. There are also “smiley” stickers that are essentially a digital currency and result in group discounts when sufficient users have placed them on the same item. The fourth category is rewards stickers that allow for discounts on items.
Customers earn smiley stickers by rating or sharing items. These can then be applied to items in order to trigger group discounts. Placing smiley stickers on an item will trigger a 24-hour discount on that item once a certain threshold is met. The price is applicable to all users of the service, not just those who have placed stickers on the item.
Williams says this is the company’s take on group buying and it expects a big increase in user engagement with the online store.
Users can opt to have items delivered to their nearest Exclusive Books store rather than paying for delivery. Williams says this makes the potential discounts all the more valuable as it means many items in the online store can be had for a lower price than from other online retailers.
The company is working on a range of additional stickers, including seasonal stickers, title-specific ones, celebrity or author endorsement or recommendation stickers, along with corporate gifts or other promotional stickers.
Rewards stickers remain valid for two years. If a product is eligible for a discount, and a user has further rewards due to them, they can’t apply the personal discount on top of the group one. Members of the company’s loyalty programme, Fanatics, earn stickers more quickly than regular users.
The Exclusive Books website now includes a live sticker feed on its homepage to show customers which titles are trending and which are eligible, or nearing eligibility, for a smiley sticker-induced discount. The service is available immediately.
Placing 150 smileys on an item as an individual equates to a 10% discount. If a group places 100 smileys on an item a 15% discount is triggered.
Parent company Avusa released its annual results on Thursday, showing Exclusive Books was affected by the depressed economic environment and lower levels of disposable income, characterised by lower demand for leisure books and a behavioural shift, with consumers “buying down”.
Trading was further hampered by the refurbishment of two stores and construction work in four shopping malls housing Exclusive Books shops. The company says that, in line with international trends, online and digital sales continue to grow. — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media
