I am going to get my clients blogging on Steemit. Paul Edwick especially the author of the main body of this post. A recent website created with PCM to act as a personal hub for himself online to promote his business conference attendance and speaking interests as well as aggregate all his web interaction with a blog too revealed several areas of interest though our work together.

Paul runs a family business [LucyLocket.com] (http://www.lucylocket.com) where 50% of his sales revenue comes from the EU27, therefore whatever happens in Brexit matters a huge lot him. Brexit is one of the debates we follow closely as well as trends and news in Big Data, Machine Learning, eTail logistics as well as Wellness/Mindfulness and Global Business Sustainability.

Until I get his set up I hope you'll read his posts from here.

WORLD CUP 2018 TAKES ON eCOMMERCE

Half way through this World Cup and it’s time to take stock of the impact on e-commerce this global competition, Russia2018 is having. With our small business, Lucy Locket now strategically shipshape we are constantly conscious of being buffeted by the big stories going on across the globe, but generally the effects are confined to individual countries and normally short-lived.

This time is different, four of Lucy Locket’s key six countries with similar market share with sales qualified for the competition, and three have won their way into the knock our stage — all six have shown noticeable changes in order intake and the for the four nations who have made it this far, the changing shape of the order intake graph is following a discernible trend.

Our six countries are UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and USA. In each, our main route to market is the local Amazon platform.

Big e-commerce and the smaller guys

Last Tuesday, 26 June, I bumped into two managers from a “big” internet only e-commerce business and conversation quickly turned to current trading. I shouldn’t tell you the name of their business as they are part of a public group. What we discussed was indicating the potential of a real impact on their market value, meaning shares prices might change, and therefore not for the public domain.

I mentioned that from the opening match Russia vs Saudi Arabia kick off on Thursday 14 June that there had been a marked decline in order intake in all of Lucy Locket’s trading countries, and this certainly struck a chord with my fellow conversationalists.

Running a totally privately run business, I am at liberty to disclose what I want when I want, so it was no problem to say that the first week of the 2018 World Cup had seen reductions of around 12–14% day by day against where we had been running. After the first week, this decline had increased so was more like 15–18%, and of course I didn’t like the look of where this might lead.

My conversationalists were hamstrung to give me their numbers, but as one of them was high in the finance department, I could read between the lines that my experience was similar to theirs, except that I got a very strong steer that their percentages down were bigger than mine.

Now at this stage I should mention that my customer base is massively geared to the female gender. Lucy Locket’s products are likewise projected more to girls than boys, younger kids in the 3 to 7 year-old age bracket.

Nothing in our online listings identifies a target gender as we don’t think like that; if we use “girls” it as part of the phrase “girls and boys”, but more normally we use “kids”.

We don’t map statistics or collect data relating to our customers’ gender (ie the guys with the credit-cards) but from the direct contact we have with our customers they are very significantly female. My fellow conversationalists are no where near as female oriented in what they sell, but a quick review of their offerings I’d predict will show they have a gender bias, maybe 65:35 female:male.

A brief visit to [www.lucylocket.com] (http://www.lucylocket.com) and you can see where I am coming from. Above is an example, one of our most popular products.

First indications the World Cup 2018 is not good for Lucy Locket

Our 6 countries are UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and USA. In each, our main route to market is the local Amazon platform.

Now, this where it gets more interesting — and my fellow travellers in the conversation saw an almost direct replica in experience. England’s first game was on Monday 18 June against Tunisia. It was an evening game, and, as I was soon to see, the time of kick-off was crucial to understand what might happen to order intake.

All day, our media was totally absorbed by the game. Radio and TV discussed endlessly, quite possibly pointlessly, what the outcome might be. After lunch, this went into overdrive. Early evening programmes were brought forwards on the basis that the commute home from work would be earlier to allow everyone to prepare for what was, after all, a convenient 8pm kick off.

So, what happened to our order intake? Well, lunchtime was a damp squib — usually midday to 2pm sees a good bump upwards as gifts are bought around sandwiches, coffee and the like. The afternoon can be a bit problematic in terms of timing, but across the afternoon there are always orders coming in, with a spurt at the end of the day around 4–5pm.

On England vs Tunisia day, orders dropped to almost nothing, lunch time, afternoon and early evening. The country had better things in mind, barbecues to plan and cook, beer and wine to drink, before settling down to the Game.

Then what? Well, as “The Game” moved from general punditry to the main studio with the likes of Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer sharpening our focus on the task ahead, my customers could relax. I’m guessing they were with the family — one eye on the TV, one eye on their pads and mobiles.

It was almost immediate, orders started flowing and we started to recover some of our lost ground from earlier in the day. Not enough to make good entirely, but nevertheless to make up a good portion of the lost ground.

My fellow conversationalists were keenly interested in my observations, and said how closely this had matched their experience. One of them went on to say how he’d had sessions with his e-mail marketers to get them to reflect this changing pattern of order intake in their scheduling of the day’s promotions. They agreed that this late over-performance in order intake did not compensate for what had been lost earlier in the day, but a good deal of the slow trading was redeemed.

Having seen the England vs Tunisia effect so clearly, I was on notice to look out for the other countries and their match days. It made no difference, Germany, France or Spain playing evening games had almost identical effects — the shape of the graph uncannily close, and the fact is, that overall order intake was down for all match days. My fellow conversationalists had only England to consider, but they were on track with me.

Afternoon kick-offs

Afternoon kick-offs display similarities, but the rhythm of the day is different, so the effect is not quite as clear. Certainly, low to very low order intake before kick-off is common, lunch time sees almost no activity at all. But then, get into the run up to the game, followed by the game itself, and the afternoon spurt has been way above normal. We have even been ahead of our usual inday order intake by the late afternoon. Evenings then follow below, but nearer to, normal order intake.

Weirdly, at least this was not at all expected, the evening after Germany failed to go through to the knock-out stage (the game against South Korea) was above normal and we finished with a good day overall. I’d been fearing the worst, but it looks like all those lovely German customers of mine needed to get some time off consoling their men — after all it was just a game of football, wasn’t it? Those who know me will know that I’m not normally this gender specific, but the balance of probabilities is with me on this one.

Anyway, I’ll be letting my German friends at Handlersbund know this, they know me well enough to know this is simply my recounting of facts, and not me enjoying their discomfort at being in a situation that Englishmen know only too well.

The knock out stages

Now the going gets tougher for the remaining teams. Each game has to be won, otherwise it is bath, clean up and go home. Supporters know this too, but we also know that countries don’t lose interest in the World Cup the moment their team is out. The likelihood is that the final on Sunday 15 July will have the highest TV audience of any broadcast since the last World Cup Final, in Rio 4 short years ago.

It’s worth an aside to mention that in the UK the TV audience for the England vs Tunisia game brought an audience 5 million higher than the Royal Wedding of Harry and Meghan a month earlier, nearly 19 million vs 14 million.

In a country of 64 million, both figures are significant with the Russia 2018 World Cup Final due to be watched by a third of the nation’s population. If England progress, and there are only 4 more games for the winner to lift the trophy, those viewing figures are going one way only.

So, should I look forward to a reducing of Lucy Locket’s order intake, or will the goodwill factor mean more orders? Time will tell, of course.

Within just a few days of the opening game, we had lowered our expectations for the entire tournament. We knew that the World Cup would be something of a downer, that much was common sense. But 15%, that was more than we had bargained for.

Disappointing as it looked, we had figured that if we saw our orders return to their normal level soon after the final, then we would need to put this down as an unavoidable side effect of what is, after all, a massive global event.

But we might have been overly cautious. Its too early to be sure, but we are sensing that our six countries are into a new pattern of activity. Two weeks in, and it is almost as though the World Cup is a standard routine of daily life, just like so many other “normal” activities. In fact, the World Cup is already normal, to be planned in and watched along with all regular stuff, eating, working, learning or whatever.

Three days in to the competition is too soon to say, but we are coming back to nearer our pre-World Cup activity levels. May be within the next few days, we may find that key match days are an incumbrance, probably a big one in the countries competing — but on the other days, it is almost back to normal. Give us another 2 weeks to the Final, and we will know whether the World Cup was just the new normal.

Two more weeks after that, and I should have all of these patterns in context, ready to plan for Qatar in 4 years’ time. I am pretty certain that the overall patterns will be the same, it will just be a matter of working out what level of activity we should plan for.