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Latest articles

Christmas 2008 - it's confirmed:
High Street Sales fall as Online Sales Rise

According to Experian, in comparison with December 2007 there was a 2.3% drop in people visiting shopping centres and city centre shops in December 2008 - the month labelled by the British Retail Consortium as the worst December on record.

However, figures released this January by Cap Gemini and the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG), a membership organisation comprising hundreds of enterprises that supply services to e-retailers, show that over the same Christmas period online spending in the UK rose 14.2% on the year, thus outperforming the wider retail industry.

Added to this, research by Paypal suggests that consumers are moving towards a preference for online shopping. Their statistics state that 77% of people who shop online feel that it is more convenient than high street shopping. PayPal's UK Marketing Director Mark Hodson said in response to the IMRG figures, "The latest figures from IMRG show that our love affair with online shopping is as intense as ever, despite the credit crunch. While the high street had a tough time in December, IMRG confirms that people did open their wallets this Christmas - they just did it online."

Even Woolworths, the seemingly interminable store that had always been a familiar part of high streets from one end of the UK to the other, has reached its demise, yet it looks as though its re-launch as an online store has been given the green light.

So why this move away from the shopping centre and into the realms of online shopping? Could it be that the credit crunch has led consumers to become bargain hunters and those bargains are only to be found online? Is it simply because people don't have the time these days to leave their desks and get to the shops?

Or is it because the internet shopping experience has improved to the point where consumers are far more confident to buy online because they can get a much better idea of what they are buying?

Now, thanks to the power of digital multimedia and advanced e-commerce programming, we can see 3D visualisations of products; we can watch videos that show us how things work; we can read detailed reviews from other shoppers and compare products; and on some e-commerce websites we can even chat in real time to a sales adviser.

And what is more, our confidence has no doubt been boosted by the relatively new introduction of EC rules which force online retailers to provide shoppers with certain information including a landline telephone number and trading address as well as being obliged to respond to queries and confirm orders within a given time frame.

As the next generation of consumer starts to take over, online shopping will be considered the natural way to buy and book. The message for the retailer? There is an opportunity here to thrive, providing you move with the times, and providing you make your online shopping experience the best it can possibly be by integrating the benefits of digital media and e-commerce software into your website.

When thinking about how to approach your customers' online shopping needs, it is good practice to think about how the 'old fashioned' high street shopping experience worked for so long. What can customers do in a shop that helps them make the decision to buy? They can pick up a product and try it out, feel it, look inside it, try it on; they can have a sales assistant demonstrate it and give them advice on whether it's right for them and tell them what else they might need to go with it. They know they will be given an instant receipt for their purchase, and they know that if it doesn't work out, they can bring it back.

All these factors that encouraged people to make in-store purchases for decades need to be mimicked in the online shop in order to convince the shopper to click 'buy now'. Using digital media, video demonstrations and 3D imaging to showcase products is vital so that customers can see as full a picture of their intended purchase as possible, as is providing advice and guidance, recommended add-on products, access to reviews and instant confirmation of their order together with a receipt, guarantees and warranties, just like high street stores do.

Get all of this right by using the right level of ecommerce and digital media expertise, add into the mix a good helping of excellent customer service, and you will be well on your way to thriving as a retailer - in the online retail age.