Tag Archives: online shopping

Online shoppers given the opportunity to make money

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Two Aussie mums have created a new social commerce website that is promising to revolutionise the online shopping landscape. The site is called Set That and lets consumers explore ‘sets’ of products that have been compiled and curated by other site users.

Set creators are then are able to earn 2% commission – either banked into their PayPal account or donated to charity – for any item that generated a sale as a result of their set.

More than 100 stores have already committed to the site and co-creators, Kim Westwood and Liz Tehan, are in early talks with investors in Australia and overseas.

International retailers like Bloomingdale’s, Marks & Spencer, StrawberryNET and John Lewis, and Australian brands, including StyleTread, Zanui, SurfStitch and THE ICONIC, are already benefiting from new customers delivered by Set That’s virtual sales force of set creators.

“This concept has the potential to challenge existing paradigms and change the face of retail, not only here in Australia, but across the globe,” explains co-creator, Kim Westwood.

Melbourne brand agency Truly Deeply was brought in to create the brand strategy, and design and digital agency We Are Digital worked on the interaction design and user experience of the website.

“Working closely with Kim and Liz, we agreed that, while we wanted to create a social experience, it had to be a place of commerce, not just another social media tool. The brand positioning of ‘bringing people and products together’ is all about creating a stimulating hub for shoppers, curators and retailers,” says Michael Hughes, executive strategy director at Truly Deeply.

Derek Carroll, executive creative director at Truly Deeply, adds, “Building on the design code of social media, we used an algebraic idea of a set being bracketed to create a powerful and simple brandmark. This is punctuated by a colourful custom bracket that becomes the container to create sets of products.”

“Utilising relationships formed with retailers through international affiliate marketing networks has been a great way to enter the market,” adds Set That co-creator Liz Tehan. “Retailers can also join directly with us and, now that the site is live, we can work with those interested to bring their products to people through this innovative marketing model.”

Projections for Set That are to have 300 registered stores by the end of 2013, with that number increasing to more than 3000 by 2015.  The stores are anticipated to showcase 1.5 million products to 200,000 users this year and 15 million to 2.5 million users by 2015.

 

 

Infographic: M-commerce and mobile shopping in Australia

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Online shopping still accounts for only a fraction of the $256 billion total retail market in Australia, and shopping done through mobile devices like smartphones and tablets is just a slice of that, but at $5.6 billion it’s a considerable slice.

In this, another original infographic developed by Marketing, we draw on sources from Nielsen, TNS, PayPal, Quantium, NAB and the ABS to paint a picture of which categories are most popular via mobile, which retailers get the most hits online, and who uses which devices to scratch their ecommerce itch.

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MYOB teams up with Westpac help small business get online

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MYOB and Westpac have announced their plans to advance the digital business capabilities of small businesses, with Westpac also also committing to get 100,000 Australian small businesses online.

The ‘Westpac Ready for Business Report’, surveyed 1000 small to medium sized businesses and 1000 Australian consumers and found that of those businesses, 53% did not have a website but 50% of the consumers said they always use the internet to research prior to purchasing a product or service and a further 53% of respondents said they spent more than an hour a week shopping online.

“The results demonstrate a divide between the ‘digital haves’ and the ‘digital have-nots.’ Many businesses without digital tools such as a website and online invoicing and payment capabilities are competitively disadvantaged,” says Westpac general manager, retail banking, Gai McGrath.

The report found that two of the biggest challenges for small to medium businesses getting set up and knowing where to start, indicating a need for additional support.

“The research also found that 53% of small businesses surveyed believe that they have missed out on business opportunities due to not having a website. These figures suggest that a large group of Australian businesses are missing out on a significant amount of money as a consequence,” says McGrath.

To combat this, Westpac in conjunction with MYOB have developed a digital toolkit called ‘Ready for Business’ which offers small to medium businesses an opportunity to grow their business in the digital space. their business, all in one place.

MYOB CEO Tim Reed says the new technology will provide real advantages for these groups of businesses.

“Businesses taking up Ready for Business will be able to build an attractive website, raise invoices, get paid online and integrate this with their business bank account where transactions are automatically fed through to their online accounting. What’s more, they will get help along the journey from MYOB and Westpac experts,” he says.

 

Playing favourites: Aussies will spend $1.4b on Mum this year, triple that of Dad

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Fathers everywhere are being ripped off by their kids, with a new study showing Aussies will spend almost three times the amount on Mum for Mother’s Day then they will on poor old dad.

The latest reseach conducted by IBISWorld predicts Australians will spend $1.4 billion spoiling our Mums this year, an increase of 2.7% from last year. The increased spend is being put down to a general increase in disposable income, low unemployment and positive consumer sentiment.

Australian general manager of IBISWorld, Karen Dobie says, “There are a number of factors driving higher spending on mum than dad, including the perception that there is less choice for dad in terms of gift type. Food, alcohol, sporting goods and tools are key Father’s Day gift categories”, Dobie says. “There is also a propensity to buy last-minute gifts for mum, resulting in consumers spending more than they may have planned, and the desire to spoil mum by showering her with the little luxuries”.

The research always found that the average person aged 18 years and over will spend $77.21 on mum this year compared to $76.47 they spent last year. Traditional favourites like flowers and cosmetics will be high on the shopping list and Aussies will spend $298 million this year taking mum out for lunch, up from $286 million spent last year.

Online gift certificates and coupons are expected to remain the third-biggest Mother’s Day spending category, but spending on this sector is actually expected to fall by 2.4% this year.

So when you’re watching mum arrange the expensive bouquet you have brought her while she is unwrapping the expensive hand cream you have has specially imported from Brazil, spare a thought for your poor father who is probably wearing the $6 Big W socks you splashed to get him last year.

Australia Post price increase puts online retailers offside

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The online shopping boom is being blamed for the price of postage bags going up, with some products set to increase by up to 30%.

Australia Post is pointing towards difficult business conditions and increasing operational costs for the price hike.

The changes have left online retailers concerned for the financial hit their businesses will have to endure due to the rises. An online petition to has been started on change.org, attracting angry online retailers, and has already been signed by almost 2000 people. The petition states:

“In Australia today many thousands of families rely on income produced through small businesses that operate online. It is not a new phenomenon but it is rapidly growing – well it was.”

 

The pricing changes came into effect this week.

Australia Post now receives more revenue from parcels than letters, with online shopping accounting for 70% of prepaid packages sent in Australia.

The value of the online shopping market has increased by $2 billion dollars over the past year. NAB’s Online Retail Sales Index found Australia’s annual online retail spending hit $13 billion in the year to January 2013.

The cost of a postage stamp will remain 60 cents.

 

Sephora’s beauty is more than just skin deep

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The retail industry is going through a period of dramatic transformation. While bricks and mortar stores continue to play an important part, it’s now just one of the many connection points between the retailer and the customer.

Indeed, looking at Australia’s online sales, the National Australia Bank’s latest Online Retail Sales Index shows sales grew by 27% to $13 billion over the year to the end of January and illustrates the strength in the online retail market. Approximately three-quarters of these online sales are from domestic retailers.  As online sales become a larger proportion of retailer turnover, retailers must ensure their online offering complements and supports their core business.

Channels are blurring

Customers are using their smartphones to price-check merchandise when they’re actually in the store. Shoppers jump from their smartphones, to tablets, to desktops to the physical store depending on the time of day to satisfy their immediate needs.

The experience has to be consistent

These days successful retail is about providing a fully-integrated customer experience that works across multiple customer touch points. It’s about delivering a connected and consistent retail and brand experience across all the places where the customers are – online as well as the bricks and mortar location. Successful retail is all about providing your customers with alternative ways to shop.

Just look at the digital prowess of Sephora, the cosmetics and beauty products retailer owned by Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton. Overseas the retailer is successfully straddling the online and offline world, and making it easier, and more fun, to shop for beauty. While Sephora is famed for its bricks-and-mortar stores that encourage customers to dip their fingers into pots of high-end makeup and luscious skincare, the retail brand is also something of a trailblazer in the digital space.

Mobile, social, and in store

Last year Sephora undertook a comprehensive upgrade of its web presence, added specialised search functionality, gave its mobile web and iOS app a makeover, and installed iPads in more than 100 of its bricks-and-mortar stores. The company also added ‘Pin It’ buttons to all its brand and product pages to streamline integration with Pinterest. Sephora sees it as an entirely new shopping experience with seamless mobile, social, and in-store activity.

Interestingly, by integrating with Pinterest and its overwhelmingly female following, a great many of whom are young, well-educated and well-heeled, Sephora is capitalising on immediately measurable commercial returns from social shopping. As an early adopter, the retailer discovered that its Pinterest followers spend something like 15 times more on Sephora products than Facebook followers. With its website overhaul, it made sense to integrate its product pages with the social media site and provide their customers with alternative ways to shop.

While Sephora doesn’t see the same commercial returns from Facebook, its following of more than 4.7 million fans actively engage with each other on the platform by sharing beauty tips and advice.

In the bricks-and-mortar stores, Sephora gives customers access to iPads which are pre-installed with the Sephora app to give customers access to the rich product details that are available on the store’s website. Customers can scan QR codes to access product information, see ratings, and read reviews. This includes customer-written product reviews which can be filtered by location, skin colour, skin sensitivity, and age. So while you’re in store you can look up if a particular product is rated for your particular climate, age group and skin type. You can review your purchase histories as well, just in case you want to buy exactly the same moisturiser, lipstick, or blush as you bought previously.

In designing the iPad app, Sephora ensured that users were given a full experience, not a cut-down version of the website. The magazine style layout allows customers to browse beauty content in the form of articles, videos and images. The app is integrated with Sephora’s ecommerce platform, so that any of the products that feature in the content can be purchased directly from the online store.

Showcase of omnichannel retailing

While the Sephora experience for Australians remains distinctly off shore, the company still provides Australian retailers with a showcase of omnichannel retailing par excellence. It shows us that if you make shopping more fun, more shoppers will come. Sephora’s online offering complements and supports their bricks and mortar stores; the retailer provides customers with alternative ways to shop and ultimately Sephora allows shoppers to jump from their smartphones, to tablets, to desktops to the physical store depending on location and the time of day to satisfy their immediate beauty needs.

 

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In-store experience lab launched to combat online retail surge

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A new customer experience ‘lab’ has opened to help retailers boost the quality of their in-store experience as they fight to ward off the threat of online retail.

Digital signage and softwear provider AOPEN and retail design firm Red Design Group have partnered to launch the ‘Retail Evolution Lab’ — a space established to “empower retail businesses to design, test and trial new retail technologies in a ‘real’ in-store environment”.

The Melbourne-based lab allows retailers to test custom-store environments; technology such as digital signage, touch devices and facial recognition; and elements of storefronts, signage and price labels to determine consumer engagement.

“With global online retail brands like ASOS and Amazon now part of a shopaholic’s everyday conversation alongside local favorites, there’s no disputing that customers are demanding convenient and engaging ways to shop both online and offline,” says Stephen Borg, global strategy director for AOPEN.

Latest industry statistics reveal online retail sales rose to an estimated $13 billion in the year to January 2013 – growth of 27% year on year — to account for 5.8% of total retails sales (excluding food).

Total retail sales by comparion, grew by only 3% year on year according to the ABS.

In-store experience, an area where many Australian retailers are criticised for their lacklustre performence, is billed as one of the keys to keeping bricks-and-mortar retailers relevant and competitive.

 

App-and-mortar economy: Retail apps usage surges 525%

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Forget bricks and clicks, as the world becomes more mobile retailers are looking at the reality of an app-and-mortar economy, according to app services firm Flurry.

The US based measurement specialist found time spent in retailer apps grew by 525% during December 2011 and December 2012, in a study of more than 1,800 iOS and Android shopping apps.

Retailer apps indexed well above the general shopping category, which was broken down into five sub-categories: retailer apps, price comparison, purchase assistant, online marketplace and daily deals. Together, these five categories experienced 274% growth throughout the year.

The opportunity for retailers to extend their relationship with consumers outside the store has never been greater, Simon Khalaf of Flurry writes. “In the new mobile app economy, devices are always with you, always on and always connected… In the new app-and-mortar economy, they serve as virtual, portable show rooms that consumers can use to shop anytime, anywhere.”

This growth in retail apps exceeds overall app growth, which came in at 132% over the course of 2012, showing the uptake of retail outpacing general app growth. Time spent in price comparison and purchase assistant apps has grown significantly, up by 247% and 228% respectively. However online marketplace and daily deals apps did not grow as quickly, with 178% and 126% increases respectively.

Retailers saw the greatest increase in share of time spent, which grew from 15% of time spent by consumers in shopping apps in 2011 to 27% by the end of 2012. The enormous growth in retailer app share has come largely at the expense of daily deals, down in share from 20% to 13%, and online marketplace apps, which contracted from 25% to 20%.

This suggests that retailers are beginning to better respond to the tectonic shift created by the collision of online- meeting offline-shopping through mobile apps, Khalaf says

Retailers need to re-examine the consumer relationship from the ground up and through the lens of mobile-first, Khalaf concludes.

Retailers fight off internationals: local multi-channel spend strengthens

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Australian retailers have hit back against large international players, outpacing the growth in online sales shown by overseas giants, recent figures show.

Domestic online retail has shown near record growth in recent months, with sales increasing by 28% year on year in January, compared to 25% year on year for international operators, NAB’s Online Retail Sales Index found.

Domestic retailers accounted for 73% of the $13 billion spent online in the year up to January, with the adoption of multi-channel strategies, live inventory management techniques and enhanced stock turnover credited for their strong performance.

Online retail sales rose to an estimated $13 billion across the year and are now equivalent to 5.8% of traditional bricks-and-mortar sales when food retailing is excluded.

Overall, growth for January was unseasonably strong at 27%.  Even though January is typically a weaker month for the online sector, 2013 experienced a strong post-Christmas period, NAB group chief economist Alan Oster says.

“Online remains much stronger than traditional retail, up just 0.4% year on year in December 2012, on a non-seasonally adjusted basis,” Oster points out.

Trends in the individual sub-sectors of online retailing remain divergent, with ‘Household Goods & Electronics’ showing above average growth over the past three months, after a long period of underperformance.

‘Auctions, Departments & Fashion’ remained the largest sector, grossing almost half (48%) of online sales. ‘Recreation, Toys and Games’ accounted for 20% of spend, while ‘Groceries, Liquor & Specialised Food’ claimed 13%.

Those aged in their 30s and 40s remain the key demographic for online spending, while Western Australia’s share of spending continues to rise, as the state outpaces the rest of the nation in growth terms.

“It’s clear that our domestic retailers are now fully comprehending the potential of the online retail channel,” the report concludes.

Amex partners Twitter on tweet-to-buy system

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American Express has partnered with Twitter to launch a tweet-to-buy system allowing users to buy products with two short tweets.

The credit card company announced on Monday that it will allow its members to make purchases on Twitter using only hashtags, in a system similar to local start-up BuyReply, which launched last August.

Dubbed ‘Amex Sync’, the service requires cardholders to sync their card with Twitter and tweet hashtags such as #BuyDigitalCamera to @AmexSync in order to express their interest in buying. Amex will then tweet back a confirmation code for the users to reply with in order to complete the transaction.

Among the first products to be offered will be discounted Amazon Kindle Fire HDs and Xbox 360s. It is unclear how the product sales will be promoted other than via tweets from the various companies involved, and the system will only roll out in the US at this stage.

Short code tweet-to-buy systems allow consumers to buy products directly from offline media, similar to QR codes and a number of scan-to-buy systems launched by publishers, but without the need for consumers to download an app. By removing the need to scan to buy, calls to action could also be placed in broadcast media.

For Amex, the move is about helping merchants track ROI on social media while encouraging consumers to help promote brands while they’re purchasing them.

“Our merchants want the ability to better track conversations – and to see whether these conversations on Twitter are resulting in better business,” says David Wolf, VP of global product and business development at Amex.

“You can turn a hashtag into more than just a conversation – you can turn it into a trigger that actually can spark commerce,” adds Joel Lunenfeld, VP of global brand strategy at Twitter.

Amex’s Sync program has offered discounts on products for people who tweeted hashtags or shared information on Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook and Xbox Live since launching in March last year.

Local player BuyReply launched text-to-buy in February, taking the short code concept beyond Twitter and email into the most basic of native apps. The system allows consumers to respond to calls to action from TV, radio, magazines or catalogues by SMS’ing a short code to a designated number which will reply with a link to a checkout.

 

Desktop cannibalised: 40% of shopping searches now come from mobile

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Around 40% of shopping-related Google searches now come from smartphones or tablets, a study by the search giant has found.

Looking into the habits of smartphone users, Google found that mobile and tablet search queries have grown by 138% since last year, reinforcing the shift from desktop to mobile being witnessed.

To illustrate how ingrained smartphones have become into users’ lives, Google looked at how the devices are used across the weekend in Australia, finding they’re in the average users hands as soon as they open their eyes, and one of the last things to leave them before the weekend ends.

On Saturday mornings, the devices are commonly used to check the weather (sometimes before getting out of bed), banking and booking travel. The afternoon and evening is the most common times for people to check sport scores, shopping and searching for food.

Australians check in on social networks throughout the weekend, but activity spikes at 10pm Saturday and 8pm Sunday. The impact of consumers having search in their pockets everywhere they go flows into face-to-face social settings also, with the phone often used to settle arguments on the spot, look up the definitions of new words, or cheat at the pub quiz.

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Travel research is a favourite pastime for tablet owners, with 63% researching travel on their device.

Head of mobile ads at Google Australia, Jason Pellegrino, says mobile isn’t just a box to tick off. “It affects the way you plan your whole campaign,” he says. “This is what advertisers and marketers need to get right this year. They have to prioritise multi-screen and build digital-led content and campaigns that work across all screens.”

 

Pinterest to test new look for greater ecommerce referrals

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Pinterest is to test a new look in a bid to boost ecommerce referrals and increase engagement on the social scrapbooking site via aided discovery.

The almost-three-year-old social network announced it will soon test an update with a small number of users that features changes to navigation, increased image sizes and more information below each pin.

The update follows the launch of accounts designed for marketers last November, as the site begins to pave the way for brand pages.

Changes have been made to the navigation and search panel of the site, in an effort to make getting around more intuitive. The changes will enhance the image based nature of its search tool, to make searching more visual for users, a feature that Google and Facebook are likely to watch closely as they move to enhance their own social search offerings.

Pins will now be larger and contain more details, including related pins, copy and links to aid discovery and deepen engagement on the site. In December last year, 1.2 million unique Australian visitors accessed the site, spending an average of three minutes and thirty-six seconds per visit, according to figures from Nielsen.

The changes will mean businesses on the social network will need to optimise copy and links attached to pins, adopt a greater focus on platform management and ensure high quality, larger sized images are available, Matt Owen from Econsultancy writes.

“In theory this should deepen the site’s already impressive engagement figures, but for business accounts it means something more important: cross and up-sell opportunities,” Owen says. “By highlighting other content and even users related to an original pin, there’s an increased chance that your account will be found through a users’ organic connections, and a chance to showcase more of your products, services, and even those all-important influencers who already engage with your product.”

When rolled out universally, the changes look set to deepen engagement and boost ecommerce referrals, making the site an even stronger social commerce tool.