Can ecology meet technology ? The case of Greenweez

WHAT IS GREENWEEZ ?

Greenweez is a French company, pure-player seller of ecological and organic products.

Data for those of you who like numbers:

• 2 million visitors on their website per year

• 30 employees

• More than 200 000 references are available

• 500 000 newsletter subscribers

  

WHAT DO THEY SELL?

Organic products, products that respect environment; products that aim at improving your well being. Examples to be a little bit more concrete: bins with separate compartments for household waste sorting, solar chargers, and so many other products. When I went on their website I was quite astonished by the number of references they have: a very complete on-line catalogue from outside lamps to sun cream.

Ecology is also at the centre of their business principles: use of recycled paper, hybrid or electric vehicles, bike parking lot…

Generally, consumers are satisfied with Greenweez products. The problems seem to be more about after-sales service, or long delivery delays.

AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES?

• First of all, let’s recall that Greenweez is a pure player: you can only buy on internet or on your mobile   
• Their website is very well conceived: an intuitive navigation, no color saturation. In short, a website you enjoy navigating on. Their communicational devices are also very subtle. For example, if you want to subscribe to the newsletter, there is in permanence a little tab on the left of all pages.  And surprise, when you subscribe, they announce you “you are now registered to the newsletter. The 200€ winners will be announced at the end of the month on the Facebook page of Greenweez.com” => A very subtle incitation to register to Greenweez’s Facebook page
• Problem: if you want to shop via your mobile, you have to go on the website through your navigator. And since the site is so complete, you have to zoom and un-zoom quite a lot. A smartphone application would be very useful.
• Use of Facebook (6 109 fans today on their personal page - https://www.facebook.com/greenweezcom?sk=info). It’s not only a fan page: Greenweez regularly offers polls and coupons on their Facebook page.
• Use of Twitter (1 539 subscribers to their feed)

·      What I think is their best advantage in term of new technologies: you can pay with your mobile number, and don’t have to enter your credit card number each time. To attain that goal, Greenweez has been using Buyster since November 4^th.

BUYSTER (http://www.buyster.fr/)

•  Principle: you create an account on Buyster. A process during which you eventually have to indicate your credit card number. Two guarantees are here brandished to make you feel confident: 
• Buyster is agreed by Banque de France (French central bank). 
• And you can choose to apply for a secured payment : typing in your confidential code that has been furnished by your own bank for every transaction. If you want more simple, its also possible : when you pay a product via Buyster, you just enter your personal Buyster code, and Buyster does the rest.
• After you have entered your credit card number, you choose a personal code, that you will use for your transactions
• Then, when you buy something off the internet or via mobile, you can choose to pay via Buyster. And then all you have to do is enter the code you previously chose when subscribing to Buyster. => Time savior, and confidentiality issues.
• You can buy Buyster applications for iPhone, but not yet for Android phones or Blackberry phones. A recommendation for them : start developing applications for all mobile-systems

• Another issue is that this kind of devices is not well spread in France yet, the main obstacle being trust issues.
• But, once these hesitations are overcome, the use of e-payment is bound to grow. Buyster for instance announces future partnerships with: Bouygues Telecom (telecommunications), Boulanger (domestic households, leisure), Kiabi (clothing) to name important French companies.

My conclusions:  YES ! Ecology can meet technology. There are yet some adjustments to be made (especially on mobile shopping) but Greenweez is a good example of mixing two new tendencies in consumption: consuming ecological, organic products, and easiness of commercial transactions (people don’t want to spend hours for the sole transaction act).

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