After all the talk, interesting to see Amazon's announcement this weekend that it will launch a Sunday delivery service.
Starting in 7 areas in the UK but becoming the norm, it's about getting deliveries to people who might miss them (or not be around to get them) during the week. It will be a permanent feature in London from the get go.
They've already tested them in December and they are free to members of Amazon's 'Prime' Service.
This is nothing whatsoever to do with digital.
Simply, it's just better business that happens to come from a digital business. If people want Sunday deliveries (and clearly Amazon's test show they do), then give it to them. There is no reason why existing traditional retail couldn't have done it and yet because they haven't, they'll now scramble to keep up.
Online sales already account for about £1 in every £5 spent. Better customer service through Sunday delivery, will grow that.
Traditional retailers have been dealt another blow. Hard to think of an excuse for them though.
This is just, Better Business.
The well publicised vital Christmas retail sales figures have been a double-edged sword but perhaps, a lesson.
Whilst trading was down for familiar names such as M+S and Tesco, in turn causing drops in their share prices, online retailers such as Asos (online fashion), Ocado (online grocery), Argos, Dixons have done well.
Dixons/Currys will have done well too, through the sales of technology products such as the Kindle, Ipad, games consoles and Phones. They are replacing traditional toys as gifts.
John Lewis is saying it sold an Ipad every 10 seconds in the Christmas run-up.
Indeed Tesco showed +10% growth in their online business but it didn't compensate enough, for the decline in their shop sales. Morrisons which is considered to be a big Christmas loser, have only just launched their online shopping site in January.
There is a marked contrast between offline/online and further signifies the consumer switch, both to online shopping and to discounters such as Aldi, Primark and Lidl (up circa +20% in the UK). Asos (online fashion) showed growth of a staggering +30% in the UK in Q4. White Stuff, a clothing retailer showed +50% growth online.
KPMG reported that online non-food sales at Christmas were up by a fifth. That's +20%! In grocery alone, they report 15% of all sales are online and a value of £900 million sold online between December 20th and 23rd (3 days).
A third of Tesco's online grocery sales were by mobile at Christmas and 'click and collect' being a big feature all around.
Apart from convenience of being able to shop whilst watching TV for example, in a recession, the cost of petrol and car-parking is an issue. Equally too, there remains an over-riding view that online is cheaper (and in some ways it should be, cutting out middle-man margins).
Of course too, online shopping is now so easy and intuitive, that it's considered an easy option for most. It's not as technologically daunting as perhaps it once was.
There can be little doubt left, I think, that online shopping has exploded and these Christmas UK numbers illustrate it clearly. The proliferation of devices too, make it even more convenient and the 'same day delivery' issues as promoted by Amazon, bring it into a new phase.
If you're in retail, the value of your brand is now in what you do with it online. The need for large, traditional retailers to start investing in their online brand, is almost past. It's now a must or they will suffer.
Hard to see it any other way.
'Cyber Monday', as it's known, was the biggest shopping day in history and largely because online shopping has matured.
It's now the intuitive choice.
ECommerce is estimated by as reputable a journal as Forbes, to be +21% year on year. Whopping. And the average value of a transaction was 129 us dollars (!) which surprised me. So people buy big ticket items online.
The key story (and we're getting a bit tired of saying it) is the surge in mobile shopping accounting for +17% of the spend and that's up over 50% year on year. Tablets seem to have had the most significant impact with IPads and Kindles showing well.
Apple's IOS was also a star with nearly a quarter of all online sales through these devices so there's a lesson here for retailers.....push your messages out on mobile!!
Of course too, mobile Apps will have helped to steer IOS shoppers into better bargains and better locations, so that's one reason for this growth.
Cyber Monday thrashed all previous records.
So online shopping is where it's at and will continue to impact negatively on pure 'bricks and mortar' retailers. Department Stores will be most hit and then beauty shopping as these two sectors are showing the biggest online activity growth.
Consequently, retailers, need to follow Banks and Book Stores and Music Stores and others, and to start 2014 saying they're going to focus entirely on their online shop and not on their bricks and mortars. Because that's where the fish are swimming.
In time, retail will only exist, online.
Com score, in its annual holiday retail data for online
, is reporting a surge in spending on travel, online
in the US.
In the first 18 days of November (the start of a traditional holiday planning season in the US, but not the peak which is more around Thanksgiving), 10 billion dollars had been spent on travel online. That's 16% up on last year. For the entire season, they're forecasting 43 billion usd an increase of +17%. A 4% increase was expected so it's way above.
It reflects really, a channel shift rather than a sudden boom in holidays. In other words, more people are turning to online booking - not that you didn't know it but it's now fairly proven with these numbers.
Gartner have already reported that 51% of holidays this year will be sold online. There's also a trend where 37% of people said they used their smartphone whilst in a retail travel store, to check prices and book online. I know, because I do exactly that in book stores. Basically shops are just becoming display counters for online shopping.
Amazon are actively pushing consumers into local stores to check things out and then buy online for example - a nice marketing twist.
Whilst these numbers are USA, there's no getting away from the trend. Travel will be bought online more and more and if you're selling holidays, you need to beef up that online presence - now. With numbers like 51% already booking holidays online, that will increase and there'll be very little left at retail level. The travel shop will simply not pay its way. And I've some experience here, having looked after the advertising for clients like Finnair, Stena Line, Panorama, Airtours, lastminute.com and so on, so I know their attitude to the web. And it's not healthy.
Interesting too, that for those of us who have booked travel online, such as flights only, with big airlines like Ryanair, Aer Lingus, BA, never hear from them. They have ALL your details and yet they never ever reach out to ask how you're doing, offer you an incentive or even just a Happy Birthday.
Yet they put their energies into lobbying about airport charges, thinking of new novelty (and offensive) ways to raise revenue and bitching about fuel hikes. When their real revenue opportunity is on their doorstep, at their fingertips.....
Email.
