Overseas shoppers are showing growing interest in what UK retail has to offer, the latest figures from theBritish Retail Consortium(BRC) suggest.
Retail searches from overseas grew by 57% in the first quarter of 2012, compared to the same period last year, according to today’sBRC-Google Online Retail Monitor. That’s well ahead of the 11% total growth in retail-related searches that the monitor detected during the period.
Stephen Robertson, director general of the British Retail Consortium, said the figures showed the potential importance of exports to the UK retail sector. He said: “Internet search traffic from developing countries like Mexico and Pakistan has more than doubled. These statistics demonstrate the growth potential of online for UK retailers and the part retail can play in building a recovery based on exports, given the right conditions and a genuinely free-trade world market place.”
Peter Fitzgerald, retail director atGoogle, said the figures showed the importance of an international presence for retailer brands. The highest growth came from Mexico, with growth of 135%, while searches from Pakistan rose by 101%. “Interest also grew in the BRIC countries,” said Fitzgerald.
The other big trend to emerge from the monitor was evidence that shoppers on tight budgets are researching their purchases on the internet to make sure their money is going as far as it can.
Searches for both food and drink and health and beauty items grew by 21%, while mobile searches for food and drink grew by 172%. In total, the number of searches taking place on mobile and tablet devices grew by 132% in the quarter.
According to a survey of 4,851 U.S. online consumers conducted by online comparison site PriceGrabber between March 13 and 26, Pinterest drives buying: 21% of respondents who use the site say that they have purchased a product after seeing its picture on the site. The most commonly purchased products were food- and cooking-related (33% of those purchased), fashion/clothing (32%), home decorating (30%) and crafts (26%).
Searching for recipes is the favorite interest among pinners: 70% of Pinterest account holders cite cooking and recipes as the top item they pin. 65% of Pinterest users pin home decorating inspirations, 53% craft ideas, 41% fashion and shopping ideas, 34% entertaining ideas, and 33% gardening.
How regularly do Pinners use the site? 37% of users surveyed log in a few times a week, with only 10% saying that they use the site a few times a day. 55% have created between 2 and 10 Pinboards.
And there’s still a lot of room for growth: 58% of consumers do not have a Pinterest account, and 32% said they are not familiar with Pinterest.
More at: http://therealtimereport.com/2012/04/02/pin-commerce-21-of-pinterest-users-have-purchased-a-product-they-found-on-the-site/
Some have questioned the effectiveness of Facebook as a commerce platform, but can you dismiss an ad and marketing channel with 800+ million users?
Here are some tips for increasing the opportunities for commerce on Facebook.
Recently, Bloomberg published an article about several retailers, J.C. Penney, Nordstrom, Gap and Gamestop, who all closed their Facebook stores in 2011.
As a consultant implementing s-commerce (Social Commerce) solutions for my clients, I am writing to let you know that Facebook commerce (f-commerce) is alive and well and customers are making money selling products and services via Facebook.
I can’t speak about the f-commerce implementations of the aforementioned companies, only from my own experience.
For one company, Grassroots Festival, we created a Facebook store to sell discounted tickets on the festival’s Facebook fan page.
The Facebook store generated a 4.1% clickthrough rate, resulted in a significant ROI and also cut-out the middle men in terms of ticket sales, who require substantial commission.
We have also seen considerable success with smaller clients who do not currently sell their products online. The success of their s-commerce efforts has prompted them to commercialize their businesses online with e-commerce functionality on their websites.
For larger online retailers, unless they are offering specific incentives for their Facebook Fans to purchase from their Facebook stores, why would a consumer purchase something anywhere other than their website?
It is even more effective to find a specific niche or focus on clearance lines, rather than replicate your entire inventory in a Facebook store.
We have many hotel clients who have seen considerable volume in their Facebook stores specifically for gift vouchers, a growing category in the hospitality sector. Their websites are not usually geared up for anything other than booking rooms, and even then, they usually use a third party booking engine rather than managing their own functionality.
More at: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/9428-why-facebook-commerce-is-alive-7?
It’s a store retailer’s worstmobile commercenightmare come true. 29% of consumers who use a smartphone to research a product while in a retail store end up purchasing the item online, many fromAmazon.com Inc., according to a new study by market research firm ClickIQ.
Of consumers who used a smartphone to research in-store and then purchase online, 55% were men and 45% were women, says the survey of 406 U.S. consumers who have researched a product while in a store and purchased that product.
For store merchants wandering their aisles watching shoppers on smartphones, age is a key indicator of who is comparing products and buying online. 26% of consumers age 30-39 and 25% age 18-29 recently used a mobile device to research a product while in a store. The numbers fall drastically from there with only 12% of those age 40-49, 6% age 50-59 and 2% age 60 or over researching products in a store using a mobile device.
Some big retailers are being hit the hardest by thism-commerceactivity. Respondents possibly visited more than one retailer but the study shows that the retailers most frequented for research wereBest Buy Co.at 36%, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. at 30% andTarget Corp.at 29%.
To find out what happened after the in-store research was complete, survey respondents were asked to state where they eventually purchased the product they were researching. Best Buy did the best job of retaining the sale. 35% of those that researched at Best Buy ended up purchasing at the Best Buy store with another 14% purchasing at BestBuy.com. However, 21% purchased the product from Amazon.com. The rest did not purchase. Of those that did their research at Target, 29% purchased at the Target store, 8% purchased at Target.com and 21% purchased from Amazon.com. Wal-Mart retained 26% who purchased at the Wal-Mart store and 10% who purchased at Walmart.com. Wal-Mart lost 24% to Amazon.com.
More at: http://www.internetretailer.com/2012/03/16/29-store-mobile-researchers-wind-buying-online
Social commerce company Reevoo has released research that suggests bad reviews are good for business.
The company found that 68% of consumers trust reviews more when they see both good and bad scores, while 30% suspect censorship or faked reviews when they don’t see anything negative at all.
Not only this, but shoppers who go out of their way to read bad reviews convert 67% more than the average consumer.
Reevoo CEO and founder Richard Anson said that though this may seem counter-intuitive, negative user-generated content is actually one of the most effective conversion tools.
This is because shoppers who seek out bad reviews are highly engaged with their pre-purchase research, viewing almost four times as many products as the average visitor to a site, and staying considerably longer.
The company discovered that three times as many consumers actively seek out and read negative user-generated content as look for positive content: negative reviews are even more popular than ‘most recent reviews’, or ‘reviews from people like me’.
Figures quoted are from data collected across Reevoo’s network of 150 UK and international partners and from Reevoo.com, the company’s consumer website, as well as from independent consumer surveys.
The results contrast with a study last year, which found that reading between one and three negative reviews would deter the majority of customers, though much depends on whether there are any good reviews to outweight thr bad.
More at: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/8638-bad-reviews-improve-conversion-by-67
Facebook is investing further in its outreach programme to retailers to bring clarity to the term “social commerce” and promote social integration on their websites.
Gavin Sathianathan, Facebook’s strategic partner manager, is leading the social network’s bid to promote social commerce in the UK and said that agreed definitions are a key building block in its evolution. “It’s really important we nail what we mean by ‘social commerce’,” he said. “At Facebook, we do not equate ‘social commerce’ with opening a store within the network.”
The comments follow a story last week in which retail brands including John Lewis and Reiss told new media age that selling items via social networks, such as a Facebook Store, was not on their 2012 agenda, favouring to hone their m-commerce strategies instead (nma.co.uk 19 January 2012).
Defining social commerce, or “f-commerce”, simply as a transactional store on Facebook is a restrictive way of thinking, according to Sathianathan. “From a defininiton perspactive, it’s important we’re all clear on that,” he saidd. “When I talk to retailers about this, I try to make it clear that it’s about how we can bring social media to bear on the purchase process, be that in a Facebook store or not.”
Most of the discussions taking place between Facebook and retailers centre on integrating Facebook functionality, such as a Like or Shar’ buttons, into their own websites, according to Sathianathan.
Top of Facebook’s priority list are supermarket and FMCG brands, while those that have experienced notable success in their f-commerce strategy stem from the fashion and ticketing vertials, according to the social network.
“We talk a lot to FMCGs and grocers [whose goods or services are not necessarily social] and talk to them about the social aspects of their products,” said Sathianathan. “For instance, a can of baked beans may not be social but the meal you have them with could.”
Earlier this week, Unilever used its Facebook storefront to help debut its Lynx Attract for Her brand – the first time it has attempted to appeal to female audiences with the brand (nma.co.uk 23 January 2012).
The FMCG giant sold all 100 cans it was offering via the platform, retailing for £3.25 each, within two hours of launch in a campaign that met most of its initial performance metrics.
More at: http://www.nma.co.uk/news/facebook-urges-clearer-understanding-of-social-commerce/3033576.article
Mobile discovery company Shazam announced Tuesday (11/8) that USA Network’s hit show Covert Affairs will now feature Shazam for TV. Covert Affairs joins several other “Shazamable” shows, which means it will include call-outs during the show for viewers to use the Shazam app to tag music in the show and gain access to special photos and video. This feature will be available beginning with the second season of the popular TV-drama. Shazam for TV is an innovative app that allows users to interact with TV shows and access exclusive content using their mobile devices. When a user tags the episode, they will be taken to a unique Shazam mobile commerce store powered by Delivery Agent. Delivery Agent manages all commerce for NBC Universal and dozens of other entertainment corporations as well. Viewers will also be able to use Shazam for TV to download wallpaper on their phone, share content on social media websites, “like” the Covert Affairs Facebook page, in addition to purchasing show merchandise. One of the most unique features of this application is that users will be able to access and purchase fashion brands seen on the show. For example, if a Shazam user is watching Covert Affairs and they notice the main character is wearing an article of clothing that they want to purchase, they can simply tag the episode on Shazam and choose the option to “Shop Covert Affairs”. Users will then be able to purchase the fashion brands seen in the show directly from the mobile commerce store. As a new feature to the Shazam app, all merchandise will be available to purchase through a single-button buying process.
More at: http://www.zippycart.com/ecommerce-news/3145-shazam-integrates-television-and-mobile-ecommerce.html
- 38% of men, but just 29% of women own a smartphone.
- Facebook is used by 56% of people – 60% of women, but just 52% of men.
- 14% of men shop using apps, but only 8% of women do.
- 27% of male shoppers use price comparison sites, while only 19% of women do.
Retailers are proving to be the gateways for brands, with 75% of people visiting retail websites, but less than half that number – 33% – going to brand websites.
Meanwhile, 63% of shoppers will buy through either a retail or brand website. For social media campaigns, this figure falls to 6%.
***
Using social media, the main reasons for connecting with brands was found to be:
- 32% – finding out something new
- 23% – for brands to connect with them
- 24% – to be sold something by brands
- 12% – for brands or retailers to help them have fun
More than half (54%) of people thought brands or retailers used social media to sell more products, while 43% thought it was “because everyone else is”.
