Five ways the Royal Mail strike could affect e-commerce
With a two-day strike scheduled for Thursday and Friday this week, and the possibility of further industrial action in the run up to Christmas, online retailers are justifiably concerned about the possible effects on their business.
I've outlined a few of the potential problems for online retailers below...
Did retailers send more emails at Christmas?
With more people shopping online, it seems an obvious time to increase your email marketing efforts and get customers onto websites and into stores, but a surprising number of retailers didn't send emails last Christmas.
According to a report by Snow Valley, 38 of 107(36%) retailers studied didn't send an email in the three months before 28 December.
Online sales provide some cheer for UK retailers
Some of the UK's leading high street names have been revealing their retail figures for the Christmas period so far this week, and though high street sales have been affected by the credit crunch, e-commerce is still a growth area for these companies.
Today, Next and Debenhams both reported a drop in their like-for-like sales for the period up to and including Christmas, and both reported a rise in online revenues.
How are etailers handling Christmas delivery?
With Christmas only a few days away, many online retailers have already passed their deadline for delivery before Christmas, though some are still offering the chance for last minute shoppers to buy online in time for the big day.
So how are retailers keeping customers informed of this? Those that are still offering Christmas delivery should be making it clear to customers, as this gives them a big advantage over rivals for the next few days, and should see them picking up sales from last minute shoppers.
Holiday shopping forecast 2009: a lot like 2008, with more coupons
The NLA explains why it is going after the news aggregators
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
