Kiddicare has received a huge boost to its multichannel presence with the news that parent company Morrisons has taken over the lease of 10 former Best Buy stores for its use. The company says the move puts it within reach of a third of the UK’s population.
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Editorials, opinion, analysis, guest writers, industry comment and more…
Editoriaux, avis, analyses, écrivains invités, commentaires sur l’industrie
Online sales are rising strongly this month despite a slump in high street spending this month, according to CBI figures.
Ecommerce was the only part of the UK retail market to report growth in the first two weeks of January, the period covered by the body’s latest monthly CBI Distributive Trades Survey. It found 44% of retailers reported that sales volumes were down compared to the same time last year while 22% reported a rise, giving a balance of -22%.
At the same time retailers offering internet and mail-order sales – the non-store category – reported, on balance, large rises in sales, at +50%. This level of growth, said CBI chief economic adviser Ian McCafferty, was still weaker than the +91% growth seen in December.
“Online and mail order sales were the only areas that performed well in January,” he said, “but growth was still down on last month.”
Across UK retail, traders said sales were disappointing for the time of year (-20%) and that orders were down (-14%), while firms also expect levels to fall again next month (-23%).
McCafferty said: “Shoppers have reined-in spending across the board at the start of the New Year after taking advantage of early discounting last month, which boosted pre-Christmas sales.”
The retail categories that saw the biggest falls in spending were durable household goods (-100%), hardware and DIY (-80%) and non-specialisist traders such as department stores (-34%). Grocers saw sales rise (+6%) though not at the strong levels seen in December (+52%).
“Family budgets are under continuing pressure with inflation still high and wage increases modest,” said McCafferty. “Consumers are still holding off particularly from buying big ticket items like washing machines and fridges.”
Staples, the office supplies retailer, is opening a new centre in the US to drive innovation in its ecommerce services as it sets its sights on becoming the world’s leading multichannel retailer. Meanwhile the UK government and Technology Strategy Board today unveiled a new Connected Digital Economy Catapult centre that aims to become a hub transferring knowledge from the digital industries to their offline counterparts.
Maximising the web purchasing performance of good customers requires deep analysis of real behaviour and that’s something that won’t come out at a focus group, explains Wayne Morris, UK general manager at Maxymiser.
Delivery of music and merchandise for more than 70 Universal Music artists are to be managed by arvato UK & Ireland under a new outsourcing contract. The deal will see stocks of CDs, DVDs, clothing and vinyl records sold through online stores for Take That, Lady Gaga and The Rolling Stones managed by arvato, which will also be responsible for related customer service enquiries.
Beauty brand Clarins has launched its France site, the latest in a largescale digital rollout that will cover 16 countries. Already some 18 sites have gone live, with more still to come, including a range of m-commerce sites.
The idea of the ‘Digital High Street’ has come a step closer with leading retailers Everything Everywhere, Asda and Tescos joining the growing list of retailers signing up to appear on search and discovery app NearMe – adding potentially more than 30million customers to the service that already has an organically grown user base of 500,000
eBay.co.uk, the leading online marketplace, has predicted $8billion in global mobile sales on the site as a new consultation from Ofcom set out proposals to make 4G mobile spectrum available in the UK
As mobile commerce continues to grow at a phenomenal rate – thanks it part to public wifi access – new research from web hosting experts UK2 and YouGov has revealed that more than half of the UK’s public wifi users are potentially putting confidential data at risk by connecting mobile devices to unsecured networks
High street stores will become hi-tech ‘experience centres’ where shoppers will test out equipment, collect online orders and buy from mobile sales assistants, predicts Manhattan Associates in its forecast for 2012.
Cybersource’s eighth annual UK Online Fraud Report says the country’s online retailers expect to grow in 2012. But, it says, fraud remains a concern for many.
Flying Brands, owner of multichannel brands including Flying Flowers and Gardening Direct, said sales had fallen by 24.9% in the latest quarter of its financial year. The company said spending cutbacks meant its bottom line would be in line with expectations.
The high street may have taken a hit this Christmas at the expense of online shopping – culminating in Boxing Day 2011 being named the UK’s biggest ever online shopping day – but much of this rise in e-commerce was driven by mobile, suggests a new report
Leading High Street retailer Topshop has created a fully transactional, multichannel iPhone app that brings the entire Topshop product catalogue to customers and actively engages with them in-store, at home and online
In our latest preview of one of our major events of the year, Internet Retailing Expo (IRX 2012), we take a look at our conference agenda. The Customer Experience Conference will be held on March 22, the second day of the free-to-attend two-day event and is for multichannel retailers considering how they can put the customer at the heart of their retail experience.
M&S has put new technology in place in order to improve the individual’s experience on the site. The personalisation and analytics technology comes from RichRelevance.
A study by Adobe carried out during the 2011 holiday season and throughout 2011, found that tablet visitors spent more per purchase than visitors using smartphones or traditional desktops and laptops, suggesting that tablet visitors were the most valuable online customers in 2011
Lakeland, the creative kitchenware company, has launched a mobile commerce website with the help of its implementation partner Javelin Group, one of Europe’s leading e-commerce consultancy and systems integrator and a speaker at Internet Retailing Expo on 22 March at the NEC in Birmingham
Motors.co.uk, the UK’s second largest car search response networks for motor dealers, has seen visits to its mobile and app sites more than double (123% increase) in the last 12 months, with 15% of total visits to the site now coming from mobile devices. The firm has also seen a 200% increase in visits from iPads
DX Group has opened a new distribution and sorting centre aimed at helping it establish itself as a leader in online retail. The company is targeting the ecommerce industry at a time of fast growth.
Shares in online grocer Ocado fell but then recovered on the news that its finance director, Andrew Bracey, is to leave. An accompanying shake-up of the board will mean ‘greater freedom’ for chief executive Tim Steiner to take the Ocado strategy forward, said its chairman, Michael Grade.
Multi-channel mobile engagement and commerce company Digby has launched Localpoint, a mobile platform that enables location-based marketing, analytics and commerce for top brands to attract, influence, understand and own the relationship with their loyal customers across all channels
