Google Plus ... or Minus?

After a week of playing with Google+, along with 20m other visitors, I’ve liked a number of features including:

1.  Some nifty little functionality, like the ‘circles’ which allow you to segment your social network more easily than Facebook or LinkedIn.

2.  It works seamlessly across platforms within GGE (Great Google Empire), meaning I can switch straight to my gmail account from it with a single click.  And it’s always accessible on the top bar.

3.  It offers Skype quality video/audio chat, and easy access without Skype’s annoying ‘buy minutes today’ advertisements.

Yet after posting a couple items and photos, I’m not sure I’m ready to scrap either Facebook or LinkedIn.  Part of the challenge is I’m not sure what niche or area it is fulfilling that warrants giving it more time in my ‘laptop day’.  It could replace Facebook, which I use mainly as a ‘mass broadcast’ to friends, with a more ‘refined’ and segmented approach.  I like that, but do I really have the time to re-connect with all those on Facebook and bring their details over to Google+?  Funny enough, there isn’t a feature on Google+ to allow importing of Facebook or LinkedIn contacts – I’m sure the GGE would have hit a big ‘+1’ on that idea, and had no ‘like’ from the folks at Facebook.  Similarly it could replace LinkedIn and the business use of Skype, but the hassle factor weighs heavily again – is the reward worth the effort, especially if few of my existing contacts are into Google+ in these early days?

The challenge for any social network, particularly one like Google+ which arrives probably a couple years too late to give Facebook or LinkedIn serious runs for their money, is the same problem brands have faced for many years:  first mover status usually wins out over late arriving ‘me toos’.  Think of all the brands Coke and Pepsi have seen off over the years.  How Tide dominates laundry care.  Admittedly, challenger brands can take on the early-to-rise gang successfully – especially when innovation can be a huge differentiator and allow sectors to redefine themselves rapidly.  But what we may be witnessing with Google+ is similar to the online only banks from the late 1990’s/early 2000’s:  simple idea, which on the surface sounds good, but which may not be worth it to change behavior and switch.  In the case of online only banks, few survived once the established banking brands got their acts together … and that little old financial crisis of a couple years ago! 

For Google+, Facebook, and LinkedIn, the battle is clearly set over one asset:  your time.  At this stage, I’m skeptical GGE can pull it off, but I’m certainly not prepared to write them off!  After all, GGE came to the market with an outrageously high share price of $85 per share in 2004.  Current value $618.  They must have done something right in the last seven years.

Stupid Size Me

It appears that the “Supersize Me” trend is fading.  Sellers of the 48 oz. killer cola and 1 lb. burger belly buster are coming under intense pressure from health professionals and anyone with common sense to either withdraw or post prominently their caloric and nutritional components.  The extra long cigarette is going the way of the 8 track tape, a recognition that too much of a bad thing is … too much.  And now we see that some of the supersized big box stores are struggling a bit, and actively looking for smaller format stores or alternative approaches to increase revenue/customer and reduce costs.  Ironic, really:  what made these brands so successful was the ability to drive down costs, and provide one stop shopping, by developing huge temples to retail shopping.  Now they need to increase revenue by going smaller.

What’s interesting about the ‘sub-size me’ retail movement is how it seems to have brought full circle the battle of local merchants vs. big retailers attempts to build superstores in the first place.   Another irony:  instead of superstores annihilating small local merchants, it now appears the big box stores are trying to replicate them … albeit with significantly stronger marketing, operations, and purchasing power. 

But here’s the trick we suspect the ‘stores formerly known as big box stores’ are likely to be missing:  the shopping experience.  In the face of ever increasing options for cheap on-line shopping, the task of bricks and mortar retailers is to ENHANCE the shopping experience.  Provide personal advice and guidance.  Give access to fun or interesting events.  Encourage sense of discovery and exploration.  Immediate gratification, not just without hassle but with an enhanced outcome.  Shoppers need to exit the store having spent the time being enticed, entertained, informed, or engaged – enough so that they’ll come back, and look forward to the experience.

So the real question is how will big box retailers provide this enhanced shopping experience?  Most wouldn’t know decent in-store customer service if it hit them.  In fact, they’re not geared for it – the mantra of “pile it high sell it cheap” demands keeping staff costs under control.  Hire teenagers, minimum wagers, lots of part timers, retirees.  Think the small format Target clerk can compete against a local merchant in terms of knowledge, personality, flexibility, attitude?  I’d put money on the local merchant winning that battle.

What we’re seeing in this retail revolution towards different formats is a slight capitulation by the big box stores, an acceptance that maybe having a degree of specialism and convenience and service actually matter.  What we suspect is their quest for new formats is a knee jerk reaction to Wall Street pressure:  same old stuff, just less of it in a smaller space.  It’s unlikely to work – just ask the big box retailer Tesco, and their much ballyhooed attempt to break into the US market with small format stores. 

And the big winners?  Independent merchants who bring passion and knowledge to their efforts.  Those who remember that their customers are unique and have many other options.  Above all, those who ‘service and sell’ … rather than stock and smirk.