More shoppers open to giving personal info: survey

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NEW YORK – Welcome to the era of the candid consumer.

 

From their food allergies to home addresses, shoppers around the world are becoming increasingly willing to share more personal information with their favorite merchants, as they look for a more personalized and efficient shopping experience, an IBM survey of more than 28,000 people in 15 countries showed.

That is good news for retailers on both sides of the Atlantic as they look for ways to target the right demographic of shoppers with new products.

‘They are willing to share information if there is perceived benefit,’ said Jill Puleri, global retail leader of IBM’s global business services.

‘It doesn’t have to be monetary benefit.’

While consumers around the world still have reservations about sharing financial details such as how much they earn, they are less worried about divulging other private information.

For instance, about three-quarters of the people surveyed were willing to dish out details about their media usage such as the TV shows they watch, while 73 per cent of the group were fine with disclosing demographic information such as their ethnicity.

About 61 per cent of people were comfortable sharing their names and addresses with retailers, while about 59 per cent of those surveyed said they were OK with disclosing lifestyle-related information such as whether they owned more than one car, or had moved into a new home, or had a child recently.

‘These are things that I think are pretty important to a retailer,’ Ms Puleri said, adding that the change in shopper behavior was phenomenal.

‘We have always thought the consumer was pretty guarded with their information,’ Ms Puleri told Reuters.

More than half of the people surveyed were even willing to disclose their exact location and related information, hoping for a more targeted and smarter shopping experience.

‘What it tells us is that they really want a personal experience,’ she said. ‘They don’t want to find advertising in their mailbox or in their email about things they are never going to buy.’

Shoppers in emerging markets such as Argentina, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, South Africa and China were more willing to share private information versus their counterparts in mature markets such as Europe, Australia, Japan, Canada and the United States, Puleri said.

One finding that binds shoppers around the globe is their love for a good bargain. About 53 per cent of consumers said they actively seek out items on sale, but this is not limited to mature markets. Sixty-nine percent of Brazilians who participated in the survey also said they chased sale items.

‘We are still seeing that frugality continue,’ Puleri said.

Contrary to popular perception, shoppers said they are keen to receive more communication from merchants, the survey showed.

That indicates many retailers have not been reaching out to their real target audience, Puleri said.

Shoppers also want information from merchants delivered through channels relevant to them.

For example, fewer shoppers rely on email to find out about new products. Meanwhile, 85 per cent of consumers believe social networks will save them time, Puleri said.

Retailers should pay more attention to ‘noise on the wire’to understand better how their brands are perceived by the public, IBM’s Ms Puleri said.

For example, discussions around some brands focus predominantly on price, availability, where to purchase, etc, indicating that these brands are highly price-sensitive.

On the other hand, discussions around other brands are focused on terms such as ‘self-improvement’ and style, indicating that these brands are less price-sensitive.

With these insights, retailers selling brands with more price sensitivity should focus their marketing around promotions and sales, while the others could adopt a different approach, she said.

While more private information from shoppers will surely help retailers understand their target audience better, the rapid influx of digital data also poses new challenges.

A recent IBM study of more than 1,700 chief marketing officers from 64 countries showed that a vast majority of them recognize a critical and permanent shift occurring in the way they engage with their customers, but question whether their marketing units are prepared to manage the change.

‘There is a ton of experimenting going on, but there is not a lot of perfection,’ Ms Puleri said, urging retailers to get their act together fast. — REUTERS

Source: Business Times 16 Jan 2012

China’s Internet population hits 513 million

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BEIJING – The number of Internet users in China rose last year by nearly 56 million to more than half a billion, nearly half of whom used weibos, or microblogs, according to official figures released Monday.

 

China’s online population – the world’s largest – hit 513 million in 2011, a 12.2 per cent increase on the previous year, the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) said in a statement.

Of these, 48.7 per cent – or nearly 250 million people – now used weibos, compared to just 63.1 million at the end of 2010, posing a huge challenge to government attempts to control information in the country of 1.3 billion.

The weibos – hugely popular microblogging services similar to Twitter, which China bans – have become the most popular medium for web users to vent their anger over corruption, scandals and disasters, or alert others about protests or riots.

The number of people using more traditional communication tools such as emails, web forums or blogs was falling, the CNNIC said.

The government blocks web content it deems politically sensitive in a vast censorship system dubbed the ‘Great Firewall of China’, and is hugely concerned about the power of the Internet to influence public opinion.

In a bid to exert more control over weibos, some cities such as Shanghai and Beijing now require users to register under their real names, making it easier for authorities to track them.

CNNIC said the number of people in rural areas using the Internet also rose last year – up 8.9 per cent to 136 million in 2011 – but huge disparities still exist between rich and poor regions.

While more than 70 per cent of Beijing’s population used the Internet last year, only 24.2 per cent of people went online in the southwestern province of Guizhou – the poorest in China.

The number of people surfing the web on mobile phones reached 356 million in 2011, up by nearly 53 million, the industry group said.

It added that while the number of web users continued to rise in the world’s most populous country, the rate of growth was gradually slowing. — AFP

Source: Business Times 16 Jan 2012

S’pore a safe haven for intellectual property

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Becoming regional centre for IP mediation also boosts R&D, reports VICTORIA HO

 

 

SINGAPORE is quickly emerging as a safe haven for the creation of new intellectual property and knowledge, according to a senior World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) official.

 

Mr Wilbers: A well-functioning IP office creates real trust for industries and creatives, which will attract more from outside to invest here. Foreign investors want a jurisdiction that is functioning.

Erik Wilbers, director of arbitration and mediation centre at WIPO, told BizIT that Singapore has been taking firm steps towards becoming a centre for IP mediation in the region, and that has had a positive impact on local IP creation as well.

WIPO is a United Nations agency and has 185 member states. It was created in 1967, and its arbitration and mediation centre in Singapore, the first of its kind outside of Europe, was set up in 2009.

On Sept 28 last year, Singapore signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with WIPO, establishing a dispute resolution procedure for IP disputes filed with the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS).

This new resolution option allows IP disputes filed here to be mediated using WIPO rules, and went into effect on Jan 3 this year.

‘Legal procedures take time and money, and mediation promises to handle (the case) faster and at lower cost for both parties,’ said Mr Wilbers.

With this new option, Singapore took a step forward in raising its credibility as an IP services hub in the region, he said.

‘Singapore is perceived as a neutral force internationally and in the region. It also has the logistics facilities to make it a suitable venue for parties from around the world to convene for arbitration,’ he said.

At the opening of the arbitration centre here two years ago, Law Minister K Shanmugam said there was a large increase in the number of arbitrations taking place in Singapore between foreign parties.

And raising the country’s profile as a safe haven for IP creation is all part of growing a country’s own IP generation.

Mr Wilbers acknowledged that the number of patents filed here is small in comparison with international research powerhouses such as Germany and Japan.

But he insisted that protecting foreign IP has a direct spillover effect into the local creativity and R&D scene: ‘A well-functioning IP office creates real trust for industries and creatives, which will attract more from outside to invest here. Foreign investors want a jurisdiction that is functioning.’

Furthermore, Singapore’s proximity to regional neighbours that are growing their IP creation means the country should prepare for the increase in IP disputes that it can help provide services for.

According to Francis Gurry, WIPO director-general, software licensing disputes are the most common in the region.

Business Software Alliance (BSA), a trade group, said in its 2010 global software piracy survey that the commercial value of piracy rose to US$59 billion in 2010.

China was highlighted as the biggest culprit, with 86 per cent of its PC users using illegal software. And the country’s user base of about 206 million PCs is twice as many as those in the United States.

With commerce moving to the East, there will be a natural rise in dispute volumes, Mr Wilbers said.

This phenomenon is already seen in Hong Kong, which is growing its already-strong position as an arbitrator because of its close distance to up-and-coming China, he added.

‘Singapore is strengthening itself by joining a small group of ‘classic’ arbitration venues: Hong Kong, Geneva, Zurich, Paris, London,’ he said.

IP tied to economic prosperity

IP patenting in China has quickly risen in volume, a natural result of the country’s economic growth giving rise to more R&D dollars spent in its industries.

‘China is coming up as an important patenting nation. Sure, it has piracy problems still, we know that. But it’s a sign that its economy is maturing, where development is going away from being exclusively industrial,’ said Mr Wilbers.

According to WIPO statistics, China’s applications made up 1.8 per cent of the world’s patent filing volume in 1995. By 2009, this had risen to 17 per cent.

As China battles its piracy issues and strives to protect its own IP, he thinks the country will eventually settle into a natural balance with a much lower piracy rate similar to that of countries like Japan and Korea.

‘A very big driver of protection of IP rights in China will be its own innovative capacity, its own universities and protecting its own domestic industry,’ he said.

In terms of spending, China had 2.2 per cent of the world’s R&D share in 1993. In 2003, this figure was 12.8 per cent.

As a benchmark, the US has maintained its R&D share at 36.8 per cent in 1993, and 33.4 per cent in 2003.

A recent analysis published by Thomson Reuters found that China’s overseas patenting activity was increasing, with filings in Europe, Japan and the US growing at 33.5 per cent, 15.9 per cent and 14.1 per cent respectively.

The report pointed out that a possible catalyst for the Chinese patenting activity was the availability of utility models, which are more affordable models providing 10 years of protection, compared with 20 years for regular invention patents.

About half of Chinese patents filed in 2009 used this utility model.

Many of the patents filed in China are created by domestic companies, not overseas imports, noted Mr Wilbers.

‘In the past, there was lots of piracy in Japan and Korea, but that has shifted with economic progress. Economics can perhaps do more for rights protection than the law,’ he said.

Source: Business Times 16 Jan 2012