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.
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
Jaeger has released stats relating to its use of interactive hotspot technology within footage of its Spring/Summer 2010 collection.
A linkto player allowed visitors to the retailer’s website to ‘shop the catwalk’ by encoding three full-length catwalk videos from London Fashion Week. In this case, products were highlighted by a subtle, greyed-out box and tracked as the model moved down the runway, each of which is then clickable to purchase.
The videos saw an average engagement rate (viewers clicking on at least one hotspot) of 27% across all videos, a click through rate of 13%, and an increase in basket size onsite of over 300% from people who purchase via the video.
More at: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/9226-jaeger-sees-basket-size-grow-by-300-using-interactive-hotspots?
Five Home Depot stores are testing in-store payment systems from PayPal that let shoppers check out without cash or a credit card. Customers using the system pay by typing their phone numbers and a personal ID number into a terminal that connects with their PayPal account.
Making customers register before they checkout is a barrier to purchase, yet many online retailers have yet to learn this lesson.
The arguments against this barrier are compelling. For example, ASOS halved its abandonment rate at the registration page simply by removing any mention of creating an account.
In a more famous example from Jared Spool, one retailer added $300m to its annual revenues by removing the registration button.
These are lessons that HMV needs to learn in order to optimise conversion rates and reduce abandonments.
More at: http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/8605-why-hmv-shouldn-t-make-users-register-before-checkout
Youth Trends – Hauling
Teenage girls talking about their High Street bargains? No it isn’t the latest show to come to MTV, it’s a new youth trending taking over YouTube!
Definition - haul: In short: a shopping spree a vlog titled “Makeup Haul” or “(Store Name) Haul” is a video showing a shopping spree in that given area, showing products or clothing that will usually be featured in future How To, or tutorial videos. (Source Urban Dictionary)
Who’s doing it? –Teenage girls. It’s big in America and is a gaining momentum in the UK.
What is it? – The trend for teenage girls to show off their latest purchases through the medium of YouTube. Sometimes it’s bragging about bargains, reviewing clothes, or just showing the store bags they have and what’s inside.
So it’s an American thing? The biggest Haulers are American but it’s by no means unique to the US with UK teens getting involved too.
More at: http://www.dubitresearch.com/blog/cat/consumer-intel/youth-attitudes/
