Search results matching tag 'e-retail'

V-retail

878512 — Tue, 22 May 2007 09:48:00 GMT

Is this the future of e-retail interface design? A really nice online store from Swedish company Cicatriz Clothing, which uses video in a really clever way - over to Martina:

the site is made of a series of "video-tiles" which animated one after the other showcasing a model and the products. On click, the video becomes bigger and allows the user to note the details ... the interface not only allows buying in one click, but also updates in real time the number of items still available when you mouse-over the size you'd like to buy.
Last but not least, the product video is always there, even when you review your shopping cart, making the whole site extremely simple but also stylish and usable, which is a combination kind of rare to find.

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eRetailer halves returns by...

878512 — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 17:00:36 GMT

It makes intuitive sense, that by providing fashion advice based on a customer's body shape and size, an eRetailer will sell more clothes and have to deal with less returns. At least, that was thinking behind the Trinny & Susannah Style Advisor we recently built for Littlewoods. Let's hope it has a similar effect to this:

Women shopping on myshape.com first have to register their measurements and give an idea of the type of clothes and fabrics they like. When they go to the site in future they can visit their 'personal shop' or browse items recommended for different body types.
Some 20,000 women registered on the site during a five-month trial, according to The New York Times. Purchasing has been "at a rate far higher than the industry average" and the level of returns is half the industry average.

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10 usability tips to boost web sales

878512 — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:09:05 GMT

Jacob Nielsen with 10 usability tips to boost web sales.

MySpace driving 5% of TopShop's traffic

878512 — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:57:06 GMT

We are all aware, I'm sure, of how important social networking sites like MySpace and Bebo are going to become, both for online retailers and other brands, but the change is happening quicker than even I expected. Hitwise's Heather Hopkins:

TopShop.co.uk and ASOS.com last week received more than twice as much traffic from MySpace than from MSN and Yahoo! Search combined.
The #2 source of UK visits to TopShop.co.uk was MySpace, accounting for 5.1% of site visits. MSN UK Search and Yahoo! UK Search each accounted for just over 1% of visits. MySpace was the #5 source of visits to ASOS.com [accounting for 4.6% of site visits].
Visits from MySpace to TopShop.co.uk are up five-fold year on year and up two-fold to ASOS.com.
When I first noticed this, I was told it was likely a result of the recent London Fashion Week. But the growth has been steady over the past 52-weeks.
It is also not solely a result of demographics. Miss Selfridge and New Look attract a similar demographic profile of young women, but do not enjoy the same volume of traffic from MySpace. The success seems a result of participation in the community and targeted offers. TopShop has a profile on MySpace with a blog that includes special offers and discounts. ASOS and TopShop are mentioned on several profile pages.
This offers a great example of creative brands that are engaging with their audience on the terms - and turf - of their audience.

Update: Heather has responded to me about how much traffic Bebo is driving, and that too is very significant - TopShop gets 2.9% of its traffic from Bebo and ASOS 2.3%.

Now, imagine how successful a TopShop or ASOS widget would be...

US shoppers happier online than off

878512 — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 19:07:14 GMT

Graham Charlton:

Customer satisfaction with e-commerce sites improved for the second year in a row, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) released by the University of Michigan.
Online retail achieved a score of 83 on ACSI's 100 point scale, while offline retailers scored 74.4.

Internet retailing to hit 15% of retail sales by year end

878512 — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 17:47:41 GMT

Internet Retailing:

Internet retailing is predicted to make up 15% of all UK retail sales and be worth £40bn by the end of 2007, according to research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). [It also] predicts that online sales will make up 40% of retail sales by 2020 (equivalent to £162bn).

Browse, don't search

878512 — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 16:13:25 GMT

Browsing seems to be in vogue in the e-retail space at the moment. Next pioneered the approach in the UK, closely followed by the Littlewoods brands. Then there was Uniqlo explorer and American Apparel's Style Grid. Now comes BrowseGoods.com:

a shopping comparison engine by Dotted Pair that has just launched, works like Google Maps for merchandise. The entire universe of stuff is displayed on one page, and then you can drag it around and zoom in and out. Perfect for shoppers who are not sure about the exact item they are looking for but will know it when they see it. If this interface can be licensed and layered on the top of the existing e-commerce engines, we'll see more stores adopting this approach.

[via]

Update: Shopwave from Mpire is another similar service.

e-Vouchers

878512 — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 19:03:40 GMT

Will Cooper has a good overview of the state of play regarding e-retailers use of discount vouchers.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas the high street invariably becomes a battleground. But at the end of 2006 the stakes were raised even higher by a craze for vouchers and offers that spread virally across the web, creating further tension for major retailers.
Oasis, Borders, Miss Selfridge and Next were among those brands with deals of anything between 10% and 40% off. However, the most high-profile cases, by aim or mishap, were Hamleys, Threshers and Sainsbury's in situations that appeared to catch the retailers out as customers exploited loopholes to achieve discounts of as much as 60% off (see box).
While the spread of the deals was partly through viral emails that became longer and longer as people heard of new deals on a daily basis, another factor was increasing consumer awareness of sites like HotUKDeals, which brings together all coupon and money-off offers on a fully searchable website.
The huge demand for such sites, and for the vouchers in general, was confirmed when it was revealed that Thresher's saw its 40%-off voucher downloaded from one South African-based site more than 800,000 times.
The popularity of these money-off vouchers demonstrated the power of the internet for sharing information and the extent of viral marketing, according to Neil Mason, senior retail analyst at Mintel.
"The launch of sites like HotUKDeals shows consumer hunger for getting a bargain, better deals and not having to pay full price," he says. "The UK consumer is becoming increasingly savvy and we now have a 'why pay more?' culture, hence the popularity of such discount sites and price-comparison sites like Kelkoo, Shopping.com and Pricerunner."
Robert Dirskovski, head of interactive media at the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) believes people are actively looking for such deals to get back at brands. "There's a new breed of consumers who see themselves as vigilantes trying to get back at the marketing industry, as well as a proliferation of sites posting these deals," he says. "If companies make mistakes then there are consumers ready to take advantage."
Staying in control
The experiences of retailers over the Christmas period, whether good or bad, show that something needs to be done, says Mason. "The fact that Sainsbury's, Threshers and Hamleys all encountered some problems with e-vouchers prior to Christmas goes to show that there does need to be greater control and monitoring on the part of retailers when launching these online marketing campaigns," he says. "The promotions appeared to backfire."
But James Roper, CEO of the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), doesn't believe more regulation is the key. "It just shows how effective the web can be as a marketing channel, and certainly doesn't warrant restrictions being put on it," he says.
This is a sentiment that Richard Dodd, head of campaigns and media at the British Retail Consortium wholeheartedly agrees with. "All the comments about it going horribly wrong and that people were being able to gain massive discounts were for the most part a misunderstanding," he says. "What actually had happened was that this was a sale. Really, apart from the way it's marketed, it's in no way different to a store on the high street saying it's offering 20% off.
"Normally you do that through advertising on TV, on radio, and you might put vouchers in magazines or newspapers," he continues. "So online vouchers are just a different way of marketing a sale, and obviously there are some advantages of doing it this way, such as cost."
Dirskovski says that coupons have been around forever in this sector. Traditionally retailers would take out indemnity insurance so that they were prepared for more people taking up an offer than had been anticipated. "I think most big-name brands would be advised to cover themselves, but it's becoming more complicated for brands to judge because of the web," he says. "It could just go like wildfire, as we've seen. I don't think it's an issue for regulation, but for companies to work out. At the end of the day it's their bottom line."
Couponstar, which runs CouponNet.co.uk, provides a service for brands rather than retailers to place money-off vouchers online. Oliver Felstead, European general manager, says that what was seen before Christmas was evidence that the sector has woken up to the effectiveness and ease of viral marketing.
"What's important right now is that a lot of the people we've been talking to are saying there's a shift from brands wanting to do online marketing to actually doing it," says Felstead. "2006 became the year when people actually started dipping into their budgets."
He anticipates that more retailers will embrace e-vouchers, and doesn't expect any drop-off next year, an opinion shared by the BRC's Dodd. "If anything this will only become more common," he says.
Borders is one retailer that won't be scaling back on such campaigns. "This is a historic loyalty campaign that we've run every Christmas for years," said a spokeswoman. "It's not a reaction to any trading climate, but a reward for our most loyal customers, which we then allow them to pass on. The impact was phenomenal and we'll certainly continue it."
But Dirskovski at the DMA isn't quite so confident. "I would be concerned about the damage being done to the image of my brand if I was to be exposed to national newspapers in this way, as well as my profit margins," he says.
high-profile cases of the e-voucher craze
Threshers The drinks brand offered 40% off purchases up to £500, but wasn't aware the offer had been posted on the website of South African wine company Stormhoek, where it ended up being downloaded more than 800,000 times.
Hamleys The toy giant offered 20% off all stock using discount codes, but a loophole allowed customers to use the same voucher more than once. Despite reports to the contrary, Hamleys denied that it was low on stock following the glitch.
Sainsbury's Discount codes allowed savings of between £2 and £12 for purchases above £60, but a flaw allowed users to use these multiple times, with reported savings of up to £43.
All three brands declined to comment on the success of their pre-Christmas e-vouchers. Other brands with deals included ASOS (15% off), Gap (30% off) and Warehouse (20% off).

The Gap lesson on SEO and usability

878512 — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:22:03 GMT

Chris Lake goes on a tirade:

After almost three years of weak sales Gap CEO Paul Pressler has stepped down to enjoy more than £7m worth of severance pay. Why is the 3,100-store company suffering? One look at Gap’s website tells you all you need to know.
With just 107 words of readable text on its homepage, the Gap site is far too fond of pretty pictures for its own good. The main consequence for Gap is rubbish search engine visibility. Is it any wonder that the firm sales are in freefall?
Look at the cached version of the homepage in Google and you’ll see that Gap is preventing Googlebot from doing its work, with its warning about ‘requiring cookies to be enabled’. Make sense of that, Googlebot!
The result here is that Google is only indexing around 85 pages from the Gap website, which explains why the company is totally invisible for relevant search terms. And you can forget about finding deep links straight into product pages.
If it wants to increase sales by attracting new customers then it is time for Gap to take another look at implementing a search strategy. Because I can’t see any search engine marketing in action whatsoever, and that includes paid search.
How bad is it? Well just try finding Gap for anything non-brand name related:
‘Men’s clothes’ – not in the top 100 on Google.com, despite Gap presumably generating a healthy percentage of its $14bn-a-year sales from men.
‘Wool motorcycle jacket’ – not in the top 100 on Google.com, despite it selling and labelling a product in this exact way.
‘Women’s styles’ – not in the top 100 on Google.com, despite it ‘optimising’ its title tag for this term.

Gap relaunched its website in late-2005 and all sister brands, including OldNavy and newcomers like Piperlime, use the same template. Which would be fine if it didn’t suck so badly.
See, it isn’t just offsite search that is the problem. Try searching for something once you visit Gap.com and you’ll soon realise that you can’t. Gap’s executives felt that the new website didn’t need an onsite search tool.
Which begs the question: “Are Gap’s executives all smoking crack?”
That said, we know that consumers think of brands as a single entity, with web and high street amounting to much the same thing. So it follows that a bad experience online or offline will affect the consumer’s perception of the brand as a whole. [It] might be one of the reasons why some people have stopped visiting its stores.
About one in twenty of Gap’s (declining) sales dollars are processed online, so while the company has generated significant traction you’ve got to wonder about the opportunity cost of it being blinkered to best practice.

Britons are Europe's keenest online shoppers

878512 — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:15:50 GMT

UK online shoppers are topping the European league both in terms of the number of items bought and in terms of overall spend:

The research shows that the average UK online shopper bought 18 items online in just six months of 2006, compared to 14 in 2005 (an increase of 29% year-on-year).
They also spent approximately £804 (€1201) compared to the rest of Europe who spent on average of £503 (€750) and bought 10 items online.