1 Notes
Serving in both directions
At shop.org last week I saw the CEO of drugstore.com talk about how the company is doing, and what is coming in the future. It was a stark reminder that managing innovation within big companies is a massive problem.
Drugstore.com had done some great research on what their customers were buying, and how that had changed over time. They talked about how that was influencing the products that they choose to show on screen each time a user logs-in. They even talked about the uptick in spend it caused. Its smart marketing, but its hardly innovation.
I have been following Alice.com for a while now and think it is a good representation of what drugstore.com should actually look like. Much like drugstore, Alice is an online store for everyday household products like soap, detergent and toiletries.
Just consider the design and layout of the home page. Alice is clean and simple, tells you know exactly what you need to do, and what you will get in return for your time investment. But the differences extend way beyond the surface. Alice lets you ‘upload your home’ (or, all the things you use in the home) and has a simple tool that tells you when you getting short on that thing. The tool will go ahead and order it for you, delivering it to you at home for free, before you run out. Now that is really thinking through how the consumer thinks about the category - basically, never wanting to run out - and designing a product dedicated to addressing that.
Add to that the API they provide to manufacturers, the data on consumer usage patterns that they aggregate and feedback to the manufacturers, and the integration with couponing, and you have what I believe is one of the slickest start-ups out there. Serving in all directions.
Looking forward to seeing what comes next from them.
