Alice.com: CPG E-Commerce Revolution?

25 06 2009

UPDATED NEW LINKS August 31, 2009

The mesmerizing promise of milk, Mallomars and maple syrup via modem is as old as the Internet itself.

alice_logoIt’s powerful, exciting stuff:  When I was a partner in the digital agency I founded, Brandscape,  we worked for a really smart Boston-based company called ShopLink.

It felt like we had a shot at changing the world. Or at least the pantry. (Hey, you gotta start somewhere).

But, ShopLink hit the same wall that most of the others hit: doing this right turns out to be a very expensive proposition.

Alice.com is different in a lot of ways. Specifically:

  1. It offers big-box (read “Wal-Mart”) prices and free shipping.
  2. It has a different business model than traditional e-tail. They take no markup. Instead, Alice.com collects a fee from CPG manufacturers for shipping products out, and passes customer data back to the manufacturer.
  3. Manufacturers set their own prices.
  4. They have signed on 5 of the top 10 CPG companies.

A Weiden + Kennedy blogger makes an interesting and smart point here about how “alice.com uses coupons to create value and urgency using three variables — number of personal uses each coupon afforded, the offer expiration data, and the remaining number of available uses for the offer”.

The iCPG Unofficial Alice.com Link Round-Up

Here’s a link round-up and some screen shots, for when your Boss strolls into your office and says “you’re totally on top of this Alice.com thing, right?”

Alice.Com Screen Shots

alice-shop

alice-add_610x484


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Categories : Innovation, Marketing


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