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Internet retailing evolution 2008-2010
Sarah Clark (who is leaving Internet Retailing) has summarised the changes she has observed over the past few years in her tenure. One is so close to the minutiae, it's good to get a birds-eye view.
The whole piece can read at Internet Retailing.
A few salient changes are:
* Customer ratings and reviews are now succeeding in proving themselves with retailers. You can ours on Wallace Sacks, RSPB and Donald Russell.
* Websites dedicated to providing credit crunch-hit consumers with information on the latest discounts and coupons became the fastest growing sites on the internet.
* The first steps towards the use of mobile marketing in retailing were being taken, with the launch of Marks & Spencer’s first mobile campaign promoting its Back to School range. See Thornton's mobile offering as well.
* Multi-channel retailers were beginning to pull ahead of pure plays for the first time with Hitwise reporting that the internet properties of the UK’s top 100 high street retailers received 19.3% more visits during July 2008 than the 100 largest online-only retailers
* Asda signalled a move towards the recognition that the internet has not replaced the need for catalogues, putting three million Asda Direct catalogues into circulation. many of Screen Pages's clients are mail order businesses with regular catalogues.
* Video was becoming an emerging trend, with Oli experimenting with the first ‘click to buy’ fashion videos. Screen Pages is now offering the Treepodia video service to its clients.
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