Orbital Group rescues Readicut
Orbital Marketing Services Group has purchased certain assets of Readicut from the administrator, safeguarding the continuation of the brand. Readicut, which produces seasonal catalogues in knitting, papercraft and needlecraft, had been outsourcing its fulfilment function to Orbital’s response handling division, Orbital Response, for nearly two years. Orbital decided to buy the assets and continue serving the home craft business’s database of 200,000 customers when Readicut went into administration in June.
Nick Williams, general manager of Orbital Response, explains, “We made sure there was minimal disruption to customers throughout the administration process. Everything, including the website, carried on as normal as our call centre team knew all about Readicut’s product range. We have now established direct relationships with the product suppliers and produced our first two catalogues utilising our in- house print and mailing facilities.” Williams is excited about Readicut’s future, and says that with its loyal customer base of
60,000 active buyers and high levels of repeat purchasing, forecasts are positive. Orbital is currently reviewing Readicut’s marketing strategy and product range as part of an overall revitalisation of the business and has appointed a design agency to develop new branding that works across each of the three product areas and is flexible enough to accommodate new product areas in the future.
Orbital Group will be on stand 15 in the CatEx DCA Village.
Adestra boosts social in emails
News
Tactics Views
With email marketers increasingly using social media to grow databases and track ROI, email service provider Adestra has launched a new social sharing feature. The new addition to MessageFocus aims to expand a brand’s reach and awareness by adding social links in emails. It enables brands to share links via social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+, as well as giving recipients the ability to share the email’s content among their friends and contacts. It allows marketers to see how many recipients have shared content; which social networks the content has been shared to; the number of times it has been shared within the social networks and how many times the content has been viewed. To learn more about the feature visit stand 35.
Beaverbrooks sparkles with Elucid
Multichannel retail software provider Sanderson has implemented its Elucid system at Beaverbrooks the Jewellers. The new system will now offer Beaverbrooks’ customers with faster delivery times and an enhanced customer service, as well as processing and fulfilling all mail order and online sales, which will increase the number of orders despatched per day and provide real-time stock levels with improved stock control.
Sanderson Multi-Channel Solutions will be on stand 6 in the CatEx Village.
Comment piece: Russia online fascinating growth in unfamiliar territory
The number of internet users in Russia currently reaches 44 million—almost a 30 percent year-on-year growth. This makes Russia one of the fastest growing online audiences in Europe. At the same time, internet penetration in Russia is only 37 percent, which means that there is still tremendous potential for further growth. Moreover, Russians are big spenders abroad. Citybank predicts that by the end of
2011, Russians will have spent $40 billion outside of their home country with their credit cards—including making cross- border internet purchases. The survey also mentions the UK being the third most popular place for Russians to spend
their money, attracting about 8 percent of the overall spend. The drivers for such behaviour include much higher prices in Russia for almost every product, no cheap, quality alternatives and a relatively limited selection of products. What’s more, online purchases made abroad are cheaper for Russians even with delivery charges taken into account. If you’re looking to Russia for
growth, remember the online landscape is somewhat different from the well- researched online markets of Europe and America. In Russia, for example, Google is not the number-one search engine and Facebook is not the top social network. Local sites Yandex and Vkontakte are top.
By Arkady Sandler
Further, due to the limited knowledge of the English language among the general population, most of the search queries are in Cyrillic and the highest-ranking websites have Cyrillic content. By adding complicated logistics and the fact that among online shoppers most prefer cash- on-delivery methods of payment, it becomes clearer why companies are hesitant about directing their expansions to the Russian market. But it can be done—just recently we learned British retailer Next has set its sights on online growth in Russia.
Arkady Sandler is founder of Essential Commerce, a provider of emarketing services.
Visit stand 25 at ECMOD to learn more about the opportunities in the Russian marketplace.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52