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hello
my name is matt britton and i look after
google in europe the middle east and
africa thanks for joining me
how can you kick-start your recovery and
build a strong and sustainable business
for the future in the midst of the
pandemic and the economic
crisis that's all around us still well
we've seen that digital tools have been
a lifeline in the lockdown
and we can tell that they're going to be
an important catalyst for economic
recovery
and that's what this is all about we
want to help you to meet rapidly
changing consumer needs
as they happen using digital skills
smart tools
and real-time insights that can turbo
charge your business
let me introduce you to janine
oberstorff she runs a pet nutrition
store and a dog school called heimat
hunt
in mendon in germany like many of you at
the start of 2020 most of her sales were
done
in store or on her training courses she
had an online
presence but it was a sideline and when
the crisis hit
she had to move really fast to focus
almost entirely on
online sales and our tools were there to
help her make that shift
and make it quickly so that she could
show her stock availability and opening
hours as they changed to her customers
and she was typical her online sales
increased by over 30
during the lockdown the impact of the
kovic 19 pandemic
has been felt by everyone in all corners
of the globe by people by businesses by
communities and what we've all learned
is how much
of a lifeline the digital world has been
in this lockdown
it's been a lifeline for all of us
getting accurate news or health
information
shopping teaching our kids at home
staying connected with our loved ones
but also a lifeline for everyday
businesses so that they can keep selling
when premises were shuttered to enable
home working by millions
to help people find new customers and
launch new products and services
mckinsey did some work that estimated
that we've left forward in our use of
technology by
five years in as little as eight weeks
that's enormous a sixty percent increase
in internet usage
a 30 times increase in the use of google
meet our video conferencing
we've seen search interest in e-commerce
through terms like online shopping or
how to buy online grow by 200
worldwide all of this means it's really
clear that online tools and capabilities
will be a catalyst in the comeback the
health information
education the economy for people and
communities
and for businesses like janine's and
like your business at google we've long
worked hand in hand with all of you and
with communities around the world to
help people thrive
in an increasingly digital environment
and that's
more important than ever so recently i
launched our pledge
which is to help 10 million people and
businesses in europe the middle east and
africa
find jobs digitize and grow over the
next 18 months
this is urgent it's vital and we are
committing to help you
as business leaders we have never seen
times like this before
we've made hard decisions about how to
keep our employees safe how to connect
with customers
how to keep operating under such
difficult circumstances
for many the focus has been to survive
now we have to focus
on how to thrive there's a big
opportunity to capitalize on digital
land
and the new dynamics all around us it's
clear that retail
will play a pivotal role in the recovery
of economies all around the world
jobs exports prosperity and the social
role of retail will be central to that
recovery
if i look at what the eu commission says
there are 3.6 million
companies active in the retail sector in
europe representing four and a half
percent of economic value added
accounting for around nine percent of
jobs in europe
retail is essential for consumers
households spend up to a third of their
budgets
in retail shops and the role of the
retail industry in europe's economic
recovery can't be neglected it should be
central and at google we've been working
closely
not just with you but also with your
industry bodies to understand where and
how we can best help
accelerate that recovery it's time to
get your business ready for what's next
and that's why
i'm delighted that we're going to kick
off a month-long sprint
of activity that's dedicated to helping
you accelerate recovery
and to help you to be ready for what
comes next
throughout this month we're going to
help you better understand consumer
insights and how to turn those insights
into immediate action
in a really dynamic market we'll also
share free training and online events
and tools and resources
that will help your businesses build
stronger digital presences
for the future as the world around us
has changed we have seen an acceleration
in changes to shopper behavior you can
explore these in google trends let me
give you a few things that we've seen
firstly demand for virtual formats
in spain interest in virtual gym
increased by 10 times
searches for virtual pub quiz emerged in
the uk and searches for the pharmacy app
have grown globally by
over five times year on year secondly
our expectations of home pickup and
delivery have wrapped up
where i live in the uk people have been
searching for afternoon tea delivery
would you believe it
and search for compost delivery has
increased by 10 times year on year
we've also seen a renewed appetite for
live information if you look at google
maps we've seen searches for gas station
open growing globally by over 10 times
year on year
searches for the quietest time to go
shopping have also emerged pretty clear
why
and then changing demand from one
category to another from one product
type to another
something that really amused me i've
seen that searches for smart casual
have gone down substituted by rising
searches for loungewear
it's a great tool for looking at
real-time changes in consumer behavior
but there's a bigger question which is
how much of this change
will stick and interestingly three out
of four consumers
have tried new stores new sites and new
brands
the majority of them expect to keep
those postcoded so it's a huge
opportunity
to connect with new consumers and new
customers right now
now we all know that in the digital
world consumer decision making has
become more complex
our decoding decision study looked at
how that happens we identified this
messy middle
a space between the trigger and the
purchase which is where decisions are
made
more complex by the huge amount of
information and huge amount of choice
available to today's consumer what we've
seen is that there's a sort of cycle of
exploration
and evaluation exploration and
evaluation as we go about figuring out
what
and how to buy we also know that the
messy middle has become even messier
over the course of the pandemic
our routines have been disrupted our
preferred brands have often been out of
stock
so our decision making parameters have
also changed
and consumers need more help than ever
they want help
they're more open to discovering new
brands they're more open to being
influenced by new information and they
want you
to help them decide
now this is a really big shift for you
as a retail business
and we hear from you that more than ever
you need to do
four things number one understand the
consumer shift
be really insights lead in real time two
respond to the shift to be agile to do
something different as a result of
what's going on
three to learn from what's happening to
be data driven so that every time
consumer connects with you you can
improve and then
to be always focused on building trust
being privacy first particularly in
europe where people care a lot about
their online safety and security
now doing these four things well will be
vital
to your recovery and it will be vital
for moving from surviving
to thriving and that's where we at
google can help
kobe had also changed what we do and how
we do it it meant that we launched many
new features and products very very
quickly
to help you succeed one of the things we
announced was free product listings
earlier this year and we're on track to
bring those
to europe the middle east and africa
later in the year
let me tell you a bit more about how
google can help you on that first thing
which is about being insights led just
like
janine in germany you have to understand
how consumer behavior is
changing and we recently launched rising
retail categories it's a tool you can
find on think with google
and it services fast growing product
product-related categories in google
search
shows you the location where those
searches are growing and the queries
that are associated with them
now mediaworld which is an italian
electronics retailer
use this type of insight to great effect
during the lockdown in italy
all their stores were closed and they
were able to use these insights to help
them to prioritize which product stock
to hold
and they also adapted their advertising
returns targets
to ensure that they had the space to win
incremental volumes from competitors
secondly being agile you need to respond
to the shift
and reach the right people at the right
moment with smart shopping campaigns
your existing product feed and assets
get combined with google's machine
learning
and that means we can show a variety of
ads across different networks
our systems pull from your product feed
and then they test different
combinations of the image
and the text that you provide and show
the most relevant and best performing
ads to your potential
customers across the google search
network who will display network
youtube and gmail in europe smart
shopping campaigns can be used with any
comparison shopping service that you
work with
so that the ads will show on general
search results pages and on any other
services
that the comparison shopping service has
opted into
and in the czech republic kitari which
is a musical instrument and audio
equipment retailer
use smart shopping campaigns to grow
their sales and to grow their sales from
export to countries
like the uk they saw an 800 boost in
revenue
thirdly you need to be data driven to
optimize
you want to respond by making sure your
store
is improving every time a shopper visits
so that makes it easy for them to shop
with you
and grow my store is our tool which
provides personalized reports to you on
the key elements of the customer
experience including payment returns
fulfillment
and many other things it provides you
with local benchmarks
trends in digital traffic and best
practice tips
so that none of you is left behind and
you can compete with the world's most
sophisticated
online retailers and that's what janine
did in germany she used this tool and it
helped her to drive a five times
increase in revenue
and a five times increase in online
orders by making really simple changes
to her e-commerce site based on the
recommendations
from grow my store a couple of examples
just adding a search bar
or displaying the user's shopping cart
on every single page
to prompt them to check out
finally you need to help shoppers join
up online
and offline and that's why we recently
updated google my business
and our local inventory ads these help
connect local shoppers with the products
they need quickly
and promote your alternative fulfillment
options like in-store
or curbside pickup now when somebody
searches for a type of store or a
product
they can quickly and easily see what
local fulfillment options exist
and whether something is in stock near
them
cast rama the diy retailer turned 100
stores into contactless click and
collect
points and activated local inventory ads
and they were able to balance existing
shopping campaigns which capture online
demand
with local inventory ads to help support
local stores in need
and the results during the most peak
weeks of the lockdown their digital
sales grew by
10 times
we've all seen how online tools have
been a lifeline in the lockdown we can
all tell they're going to be a catalyst
for the comeback whether it's for health
information education or the economy for
people
or communities but also for businesses
like janine's
and businesses like yours now we
recently conducted a large
retail focus project with euromonitor we
looked at the physical retail
e-commerce and marketplace sales across
retail industries in 10 different
countries
and here's what was found in the next
five years
winning retailers are going to need to
deliver integrated online and offline
experiences
because as consumers shop both online
and in-store
multi-channel and marketplaces are going
to drive nearly 90 percent of the sales
growth in the next five years
so it's and not all the future of retail
is not about either physical or online
retailers are going to need to move on
from focusing solely on where the
transactions happening
to refocus on integrating online and
offline experiences
consumers are going to expect these
experiences to be seamless
but also they're going to expect retails
to help them navigate that messy middle
of decisions
and that overwhelming amount of choice
and that's your opportunity
to get in front of them when they're
looking for you and complete that
transaction
the one thing we can be certain of is
there's more change and more
uncertainty ahead it's also a huge
opportunity
to introduce yourself to new customers
to be more helpful and to win
more business times like these remind us
how important it is to work together to
seize that opportunity and to build a
better path
to the future for you for your customers
and for
economic recovery in these ever changing
times
at google we're here to help i want to
say thank you for watching
and thank you for your partnership and
we look forward to working with you
to accelerate your business into the
future with success
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