brand new thinking
Here’s a story well worth reading for those of you with ecommerce sites. Jared Spool from UIE changed the usual user/register button to be optional.
Annual Revenue increased by $300 million because customers would rather have the option not to register and just pay, rather like the High Street.
The best quote “I’m not here to enter into a relationship. I just want to buy something.”
The UK online spend over Christmas was unsurprisingly a record £15.2 billion. With more than 80% of adults shopping online in 2007 this trend is set to continue according to the IMRG (via Retail Bulletin). E commerce sales overall grew 50% last year with £46.6 billion being spent in 2007.
High street retailers have an obvious advantage with the ability to deliver and control stock and in theory (but not always in practice) an understanding and face to face experiene of how to treat their customers, however some of the major players are still missing out with a lack of ability to buy their products online (browse online, shop instore … how dull), George, Matalan, TK Maxx and Primark, to name but four in a sector that jumped 28% in December last year.
Gloomy recession aside it’s pretty easy to predict that 2008 will see these figures continue to rise and that’s with the same retailers selling to the same consumers. Imagine if some of the bigger high street names got their online act together and started some real online competition, how exciting and innovative their websites could be. So a prediciton for 2008, a fashion retailer wil launch a transactional website this year and it will do really, really well, simply because there isn’t a lot of choice on the online high street.
Amazon entered the world of digital mobile recently with the Kindle. In a bizarre twist it seems they forgot to add any retail to it. I use amazon a lot and I like the review system particularly, but it seems this product should have been released with a big beta button on it. Proves the point that if you don’t know how to do something (like stretch your business into hardware) hire an expert and don’t do it until you’ve got it right and it does what everyone expects it should do. If this product came from apple we all know it would do and it would also have many features we didn’t even know we couldn’t live without. It’d also be a lot better looking.
You can see the scobleizer’s full review here. Watch the video though, I love the phrase about “leaving that kind of money on the table”.
With the strapline of “from designer to downright comfy” Oxfam’s online shop sells a range of what we might call ‘vintage’ fashion including accessories and childrenswear. Here’s another business getting its act together online. This is a great way of using an existing offline social network to create a new online network. Sometime soon are we going to see something like this become a marketplace, (although maybe this exists already somewhere?) percentages of buying and selling going to the help fight poverty, far better than being chugged in the street. This surely is the tip of the iceberg for this kind of charity/business. At the moment clothes/fashion, as this grows toys, bikes, books, etc., perhaps buy online and pick up from your local store, this could be a quiet revolution in charity retail.
The Christmas website makeover constinues. ASOS launch their ‘new season’ look. Product images are bigger, search can be narrowed and there ’s plenty of readability with trends , daily news and a blog. Very fine. I like the idea of creating a design that can be updated seasonally, even weekly or daily I suppose, bringing a bit of visual merchandising to the web, seasonal shop windows even.
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