Online retailing is the future!

Global On-line Retailing Sales to Hit $1.74 Trillion in 2018

By early 2011, 4% of Australian retail sales were already being generated by online retailing. Macquarie Equities Research reported 18% of shopping centre visitors preferred to window shop at centres before making the final purchase on the internet.

By early 2013, a Deloitte Survey found over 50% of Australians preferred to “buy online where possible”, BUT over 50% of retailers were budgeting only 2% of their sales from online! Operational Retail Management didn’t know, or didn’t care, that Australian consumers were spending more money online with overseas retailers than with their domestic retailers.

But hungry and ambitious entrepreneurs saw Online Retailing as the way for small retailers to become huge retailers. Simultaneously, Online Retailing was ignored being as a competitive opportunity for big retailers to dominate, and become market leaders.

Fast Fashion, Public and Private Luxury Goods – Apparel Industry Lost its Thread!

No where more was the absence of strategic competence, and operational domination more apparent that the fashion industry. Industry research consistently identified a higher proportion of revenue contribution from e-commerce than other industries but many multi-store fashion businesses simply ignored these trends.

Now, bleeding losses they can’t sustain, they cry poor to landlords, scream for a better shake from their suppliers and put unrealistic demands on their teams to perform. Some have still not grasped the need to change and adopt the strategic alignment with sophisticated strategic planning.

Scientific Online Retailing Strategy Creates Opportunity in Implementation

A recent survey of multiple online retailers found four key dimensions to Online Retailing…

1. Information: Providing potential customers with information about product portfolio and shopping process.
2. Transaction: Streamlining the e-commerce interface, including shopping basket, delivery, payment and financing options.
3. Relationship: Building positive experiences and an on-going relationship with customers. These include personalisation, loyalty, involvement, referral and communications tactics.
4. Social Exposure: Coordination and utilisation of social media platforms to:
   1. Allow existing customers to become SMM ambassadors
   2. Create interest and brand preference by prime target audience prospects.

While some traditional retailers are approaching acceptable standards in information and transaction dimensions of online retailing, they are poor or crude in relationship and social aspects.

Successful online retailing requires marketing excellence

This is the generation of specialist scientific marketing… Not seat-of-your-pants “gut feel”. While there is no substitute for experience, (all our consultants have over 30 years solid marketing experience, so we know) there needs to be a compete commitment to sharp-edge consumer behaviour insights, market segmentation profiles, buyer adoption processes and buyer readiness issues.

Success in Online retailing demands…

• You understand the different segments in your market.
• You use of the whole marketing nexus from a resource-based approach towards corporate objectives setting to fulfilment and satisfaction of shopper needs.
• Sophisticated web development, sophisticated copy writing, sophisticated design layout, AND…
• Advanced Customer Value Management , covering: Segmentation, behavioural profiling, positioning and targeting to the prime buying motive… more than EVER before.

To win at Online Retailing, or if online retailing is at all important to you, let us help your Operational teams map out your strategic journey to online retailing dominance, ASAP.