Colin Lewis

Marketer/Educator/Writer. Editor-in-Chief, Retail Media, Fellow, Marketing Institute. Ecommerce/Marketplace/Retail Media Expert. Car/Motorsport Nut

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

Iaunched my first online course today - 'The Fundamentals of eCommerce' on the @FutureLearn platform - the 3rd largest in the world with 15m users.
A 12 Week ExpertTrack specifically designed, created and written by me, in 4 sections. Think of it as as Mini-MBA in eCommerce....

[Michael Pettis @michaelxpettis]

1/6
Financial Times: "A company-level OECD analysis of government subsidies across 15 key industrial sectors found that nearly 60 per cent of Chinese firms’ global market share gains since 2005 could be attributed to subsidies."
https://t.co/o2mcZeaagi

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

@emmacore @rorysutherland It was not a proper loyalty programme. It was a subscription programme, which as inevitably going to fail as 70% of their pax are VFR -> low yield.

Business pax -> high yield - want fast pass at airport & guarateed seating at front - not lower fares.

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

@emmacore @rorysutherland If you have run an airline loyalty programme or hotel chain loyalty programme, you will see that people actually change all of their purchasing behaviour because of the loyalty programme.

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

If you look at the share price of Airbnb v https://t.co/bJtHVipae6 in the last 5 years, you will sees that the average punter has worked this out too. Airbnb has hit its TAM. Its PR is better than reality.

[St2station @St2station]

@MyopicEeyore More generally, have never really understood the preference for Airbnb over a quality hotel, *especially* on holiday. The point is to escape from the humdrum of the everyday. Airbnb is ‘Just like home, but you’re getting graded on your housekeeping by a stranger.’

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

'Deadly buzz' actually means something in Ireland. And its nothing to do with bees, wasps or dying. Only an Irish knows what it means when someone say 'deadly buzz'. :-)

[Eoin O'Malley @AnMailleach]

Headline probably needs to be rewritten for an Irish readership.

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

Agreed on this. The Ferrari Luce is a perfect €100,000 Apple branded car. Ideally using a USB-3 plug to power it up :-)

[Bobby Goodlatte @rsg]

My theory on the Luce: this is the car Jony wanted to design for Apple

Apple didn't want to ship it so he made it for Ferrari

This car with an Apple logo on it, priced at $100k... would sell extremely well

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

Ferrari V Ferrari: Chose your weapon of choice.

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

...and there are no speakers or keys or wind down windows because Jonny Ive has decided that we don't need these :-)

Just like we did not need headphone jacks - and look where that has left us.

[Apple Design @TheAppleDesign]

POV: You’re charging your new Ferrari Luce

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

Ouch.

[Tommy @_TommyMason]

Left, Ferrari Luce $645k
Right, Nissan Leaf $35k

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

The new Ferrari Luce. Yours for £440,000. Yes, not a typo. It should be a Fiat for £40,000 with that body.

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

The averahe person the UK flies once or twice a year. A person who flies 12 times a year is a frequent flyer. A tiny percentage are travelling a more. Automating the processs is a probelm that is not worth solving .

[taimur @taimurabdaal]

Really don’t understand the tech obsession with trying to automate the process of booking flights… I think I travel reasonably frequently and it’s really not a big deal to click around for a couple of mins to book a flight…

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

This is 100% true. Airlines are not spying on your with cookies. I know the systems they use (as in the tech) they are neither set up or capable of changing the price because it supposedly ‘recognises’ you.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Airlines don't know who you are and they don't care. The "clear your cookies" hack is one of the most persistent myths in travel, and the real reason prices change is way more interesting.

A single economy cabin has 7 to 12 invisible fare classes, each assigned a letter. Q-class might have 40 seats at $250. When those 40 sell, the system closes Q and opens H-class at $350. When H sells out, M-class opens at $475. The price jumps you see aren't the airline punishing you for searching twice. They're inventory depletion in cheaper buckets happening in real time as other people book.

A major US carrier with 500 daily flights manages roughly 2.5 million booking limits at any given moment. The yield management system optimizes over a hundred fare bucket combinations per route, updated continuously based on booking velocity, competitor pricing, seasonal demand, and days until departure. Your browser cookies are not a variable in that equation. Your individual search history has the same effect on the algorithm as yelling at a vending machine.

The price went up between your first search and your second search because someone in Dallas bought the last seat in the cheap bucket while you were debating. That person would have bought it whether you were on a library computer, your phone, or a 1997 ThinkPad running Netscape Navigator.

The real hack for cheaper flights is boring. Book 6 to 10 weeks out for domestic, 8 to 12 weeks for international. Fly midweek. Set fare alerts and wait for the airline to reopen a cheaper bucket when demand underperforms their forecast. That actually works. Clearing your cookies saves you exactly zero dollars.

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

IAG showing yet again that they could not care less about customers. Focus on customers and margins will follow.

[Business Post @businessposthq]

The goal for Aer Lingus, and all IAG brands, is clear - achieve an annual operating profit margin of between 12-15 per cent.
https://t.co/EF3uTGniQa

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

@Clearpreso Bonus extra: both are near two of the best car race tracks on the island. Bishopscourt - where I will be this day week - is better than Silverstone.

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

@Clearpreso Strangford and Portaferry. The latter just across from the other by ferry. Scenery south of Strangford is amazing. Turnoff motorway at Dromore and drive via Downpatrick is spectacular. If these villages down south they would have Kinsale and Westport house prices.

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

@armano @michaelmiraflor Good piece: wrote on this topic in @MarketingWeekEd in 2020 here https://t.co/27D7dvzZjy based on my experiences over the years of being laid off.

It ain't fun, but it does prepare you.

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

@joehas Hoi Joe, hoe gaat het?

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

28 flights for the person responsible for getting inbound investment? Rookie numbers.

[Brian Caulfield 🇺🇦🇮🇪 @BrianCVC]

I would be very surprised it is that few. I had many years where I took over 100 flights, albeit many short haul. Pathetic that this would be raised as a "news" story.

[Colin Lewis @colinalewis]

@Runsforcoffee1 @joehas Agreed on that. Innovative food startups were the only source of change in that industry - and all were subsequently acquired to add innovation!