The numbers are out today on Europe’s social network use. Here at Comscore the amazing figures that nearly 78% of the UK’s online population visit a social networking site on average 15.8 times (average 5.8 hours) every month. ‘Heavy’ users are up to 22 hours a month, still well short of an hour a day though. In the subtext we’re told this doesn’t include under 15’s, and excludes traffic from public computers such as internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs, which if it did would surely swell the figures even more.
Coming soon on the inspiredesignblog … Teekall’s view of Facebook (alternatively titled have you been indexed?)
Pop up retail isn’t of course limited to the offline world. Amazon provides widgets for your blog or website, read the story on Mashable, or the original story on Problogger. Pop up retail is also happening (popping up?) however fleetingly in transactional emails, RSS feeds, blogs and social networks and affiliate and aggregate websites, although this trend seems more in B2B than B2C which inthe main hasn’t got to grips with the opportunities offered by Permission Marketing.
Topshop do this well as I’ve mentioned before, they also do the best bit of all which is join up their online and offline activity. Did anybody see their ice cream van recently? Many UK retailers are really missing the opportunity to use the web to create a buzz about their stores online or offline. Mass interruption advertising is (slowly) dying and the retailers that succeed will be the ones that integrate all their marketing activity, seamlessly and do it well.
A couple of websites worth checking out that are interesting models for a newer, more original retail online world are osoyou.com (following the fashion trend of black, white and a colour), Topshop of course as well as Asos (which I’ve just realised has a cookie to remember your sex, or at least the section you last looked at).
With an announcement today of the iPhone I wonder if this might be the catalyst that retail needs to become more mobile and start using the mobile medium and its opportunities more. It’ll be interesting to watch and see who gets to grips with mobile retailing and when.
Webtogs, is a new etail business, selling “the outdoors, online”. At the moment they’re due to open (according to their holding page) in Summer 07 and have taken the interesting step of documenting their progress towards their launch. I haven’t read all of their blog but what I’ve read makes interesting reading and is a good way of garnering interest pre-launch. Maybe we can expect to see more of this type of prelaunch writing to get us emotionally attached to a brand before it goes live, particularlywith the bigger brands. Some e.g. Topshop and New look have done it with Kate Moss and Lily Allen respectively but this seems very much the domain of fashion orientated businesses rather than businesses generally.
I think they’re missing the boat without an email sign up on their holding page and their logo’s lousy but that apart there’s a few good tips on the design and planning process. It’ll be interesting to see if they make the transition from internet people to retailers. If/when they do become retailers they’ll no doubt understand that when they say …
“The basic rule of successful ecommerce for us, is this: “If someone wants to buy a backpack, sell them a backpack, don’t try to sell them a tent”.
… is of course hopelessly wrong. Cross merchandising, upselling, increasing basket spend are all absolute requirements of succesful retailers, online or otherwise.
We’re designing 4 websites at the moment (at the last count) that all include some sort of social commerce and social network, so here’s some timely research from e-consultancy.
My key outtakes …
- More than half of UK online customers say reviews are extremely or very important in making an online purchase.
- More than half of all online sellers (51%) consider User Generated Content (UGC) as either extremely important or very important to company strategy over the next year.
- Customer ratings and reviews are being used by 28% of online sellers, with more than half (52%) saying that they were considering the use of this feature on their websites.
- The most widely perceived benefit of ratings and reviews among online sellers is an improvement in site conversion rates, improved customer retention and loyalty, and better search engine optimisation.
- The overwhelming majority of survey respondents (97%) said that they found ratings and reviews either extremely helpful or very helpful “as consumers”.
Meanwhile in the ‘real’ world nearly two thirds of fashion retailers still don’t have a transactional website. I know, I know I really must find something new to wang on about.
On the Topshop style blog today a guide to how to queue. Useful if you’re one of the “baying crowds” (their words not mine!). And you can even get a colour coded wristband, attending a store event now becomes a festival and you can look back and say “I was there” or sell it on ebay then you can buy one and pretend you were there! Now if someone had the idea to make fake Topshop wristbands …
On a slightly different typography note there’s an interesting article on the CR blog about the Kate Moss brand, at least the Topshop version of it.
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