Outlook for online retail is bright this Christmas: survey
According to a new survey, 93% of consumers are planning to do at least some of their shopping online this Christmas, with 71% planning to buy more than half of their gifts on the web.
The survey by eDigitalResearch and IMRG reveals that more people are planning to shop online this year, and now that the threat of Royal Mail strike action has receded, there is some cause for optimism for online retailers.
Expanding e-commerce across borders
The key to continued growth for many UK online retailers during 2009 could well lie in cross-border selling, with the biggest opportunities right on the doorstep in Europe.
Here, this is discussed, to coincide with the release of E-consultancy’s Online Transaction Processing Guide.
Site review: Reevoo.com
Reevoo provides reviews for retailers like Currys and Tesco, and launched its own website last year. It has recently had a revamp, including a new homepage and updated product pages.
The Reevoo website gathers together a wide range of product reviews, and should be a good resource for online shoppers, so how does it shape up?
Q&A: Firebox’s Naomi Brown on affiliate marketing
Here, we speak to Firebox’s Naomi Brown about how she’s been developing the gadget retailer’s in-house affiliate marketing programme since taking it over two years ago.
Amazon gets the Watchdog treatment
Amazon Marketplace was featured on Watchdog last night, with complaints about dodgy sellers and the availability of pepper spray on the site the target of the consumer programme.
Watchdog (on iPlayer) found several instances of customers buying items on the Marketplace, receiving emails purporting to be from Amazon, paying by transfer service Moneygram and not receiving the products.
Zavvi makes things clearer for customers
Thanks to the collapse of Woolworth's wholesale arm EUK, retailer Zavvi was forced to suspend much of its web sales earlier this week.
Chris Lake criticised Zavvi on this blog for the way in which it handled this news online, just putting a message on the homepage and leaving the rest of the site as it was.
Having just had a look at the Zavvi website, it seems someone at the company has taken note, as there has been a big improvement..
Q&A: Rowan Gormley of NakedWines.com
Launched this week, NakedWines is offering an online 'farmer's market' to connect small wine producers with customers looking for new wines.
The site was launched by Rowan Gormley, who was previously CEO of Virgin Wines. He has been talking to E-consultancy about the thinking behind Naked Wines...
Online Christmas retail is far from freezing this year
Any notion that Christmas will be cancelled this year has been greatly exaggerated, according to the 14th Annual Christmas Retail Survey from Deloitte.
The global auditor and advisory firm reports that for most of the UK population, the economic downturn will not be getting in the way of Christmas, with 57% of consumers saying that they plan to spend the same amounts as they did last year.
Site review: NakedWines.com
Naked Wines launched this week, offering an alternative model of buying wine online, by connecting winemakers directly to customers.
In theory, this will reduce the winemakers' marketing and distribution costs and allow customers to get quality wines at reasonable prices. So how does the website shape up?
Retailer Zavvi suspends web sales
Zavvi, formerly Virgin Megastores, has been forced to suspend web sales of DVDs, games and music products.
The entertainment retailer has been poleaxed by the fallout from Woolworths’ demise after the latter’s wholesale arm EUK stopped providing it with its key product lines.
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
