ta king trad e talkingl Are we there y et ? Industry commentator Michael Weedon


MichaelWeedon charts the rise of ecommerc e to open 600 stores to trade across the nation.


There are the big e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and eBay. There are the roll-your-own-using-your-own-domain facilities offered byMagento,Wix and the like. There’s near.st which can not only connect EPOS systemto your online shop b make your products visible straight Google search .


through to ut also your


”Nearly a generation has passed


since A azon first opened up shop online in the UK”


since Amazon first opened up shop online in the UK


“ T


he internet is not going to go away, said. “Well,” replied the retailer, less than keen to get involved in e-


r, commerce, “itmight”. This short


conversation took place at the turn of the Millennium. I was trying to persuade the proprietor that online sales would add extra oomph to their cookshop business. The internet didn’t go away. That retailer continues to trade. It still doesn’t sell online, although it does in theory have an online shop, which is, aftermany years, still under construction, with the home page stating: “We’re just uploading stock.”


In some ways it’s amazing howmuch hasn’t changed in the time that ecommerce has been around. Nearly a generation has passed since Amazon first opened up shop online in the UK. Far frombeing caught up in a headlong rush into online, retail is - am ongmajor sectors of the economy - one of the least engaged with doing business online. In fact only


sma est reta er o o usiness on ne are w er than ever.


housebuilding is dragging its feetmore slowly. Online is growing, but the rate of growth is slowing. This is all themore surprising because a) consumers aremore heavily tooled up with IT kit than ever before, with 94% of adults packing smartphones; b) they know how to use it and they are used to buying stuff at all times (bedtime is an increasing favourite, apparently); and c) the options available for even the ll


il t d b


entry for small busines s capital in retail, reducing


38 | housewaresl livive.net li id


It’s arguable that online channels open up the possibility that we are seeing the end of big


es. You no longer need barriers tomarket


• HousewaresLive.net HousewaresLive.net twitter • twitter.com/Housewaresnewsresnews r.com/Houseware /H September/October 2019


There are e-commerce systems such as Shopify, which can unify retail operations from EPOS via their websites to big platforms. There are independent-orientedmarketplaces, each with unique features, such as downyourhighstreet and Trouva.


Not all retailers want to sell onlin e. Primark still doesn’t (although it’s working on C k & Collect). Some want to be visible but not directly open for business.


lic You want loyalty? Don’t we all? Newish


LoyalFree and the new LoLo are just two among manymobile loyalty systems designed to


y,” I


Nearly a generation has passed


attract trade, specifically on thosemobile phones.


Want to be visible on socialmedia? Primark does, and has 7.6million followers on Instagramalone. But you don’t have to be Primark - you can be a tiny shop and still visible. Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are all important to retailers of all sizes. Yet social media service providerMaybe* tell us that 78 % of high street retailers don’t even have an active socialmedia presence. This figuremeasures both the scale of the non-engaged part of retail and the size of the opportunity.


The value of the combination of some sort of online + offline arrangement is clear. By


analysing data collected via a UK-wide survey of over 2,500 consumers, the consumer and location intelligence specialist CACI has found that online sales are an average of 106% highe r within a physical store’s catchment. CACI ha s ift


termed this upl ft in sales as the ‘halo effect’ of physical retailing.


Fashion and housewares retailer Joules says that it sees ameasurable bump in online sales in areas where it opens shops. Next has revealed that 80% of returns come back through its stores (so, good idea to have some stores) and that the online + bricks-and-morta r store recipe works for it. In fact, it so likes the footfall associated with online business, that it now hosts Amazon Hub collection points i n its outlets.


Going the other way, Amazon has been


opening ‘Clicks andMortar’ high street pop-up stores to ‘showcase’more than 100 small online businesses across 10 units in the UK. Now, as there are 29,000 small pureplay online


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