News headlines in 2018 have been full of woe for UK high street retailers.
A few days ago, House of Fraser became the latest high street name to seek a Company Voluntary Arrangement (CVA), a type of insolvency process which will see 31 of its stores closed and some 6,000 jobs cut in a bid to save the struggling business.
Shoppers are interacting with more touchpoints across more marketing channels and devices than ever before.
But which of these is having the biggest impact on consumer choice, and how are Britain’s favourite brands making the most of it?
How is retail being changed by digital?
What better way to find out than by looking at six icons of retail, three from the US (Macy’s, Walmart, Walgreens) and three from the UK (John Lewis, Marks & Spencer, and Boots).
Here are their digital transformation journeys, as they fight to compete with online and agile competitors.
With mobile now accounting for the majority of visits to retail websites, it’s crucial that retailers deliver a mobile experience that drives conversions.
To help ecommerce professionals understand how to improve mobile UX we recently examined 15 leading retail sites from the point of view of smartphone shoppers.
In which we take a look at the experience of searching for a product, clicking-through to an ecommerce store and purchasing the item, all from a customer’s point of view.
Much like previous investigations on UK retailers John Lewis and Halfords this explores the customer journey in a nutshell, looking at visibility, relevancy, ease-of-use and speed of experience.
Here we’ll be taking a look at Boots, and making suggestions on how it can improve the customer experience and perhaps increase conversion.
There are two things you should know about me: Number one – I wear glasses. Number two – I love it when traditionally difficult-to-use services in the offline world are digitally transformed.
There are probably some more things too, but none of them appropriate to this post.
Recently I went through the rigmarole of booking an eye test and ordering contact lenses through a high street retailer.
I realised that during all of the telephone calls and repeated visits to my not-quite-so-local branch, that most of this experience could be carried out much more conveniently online.
In the run up to Christmas, which British retailers are going the extra mile to fuel their sales?
Christmas campaigns have become as much of a staple as turkey and brussel sprouts – get it right or face the wrath of the people.
Although we would rather have a face full of mince pies washed down with mulled wine, it’s British retailers’ Christmas campaigns that are right in our face this November.
Writing on this blog affords me a rare opportunity to talk positively and constructively about things that I care about. Which makes a change from the usual negative bile I spew on other websites and at home.
We have a responsibility to offer guidance, tips and best practice to help improve everyone’s digital experiences and we love highlighting examples that we think will offer inspiration.
I don’t think we’ve ever said “Brand X sucks”, at least not without offering constructive criticism or highlighting where things could be improved.
But when we’re researching certain topics, as I was doing last week when investigating whether top UK retailers use guest checkouts it’s difficult not to be frustrated with poor user experiences and thoughtless design.
This article is designed to show how a few of the poorer checkouts I’ve experienced could be improved, with just a few simple tweaks. This isn’t for naming and shaming; it’s for prodding in the right direction for the benefit of their customers.
Graham Charlton wrote a cracking post on 11 of the world’s best ecommerce checkouts which I encourage you to read as it contains essential advice for best practice.
Mobile marketing is still a developing industry and one that does suffer something of an image problem.
Taken purely in terms of clickthroughs and conversions mobile ads don’t always deliver the best returns, so it’s up to the mobile networks to continue improving ad units while also convincing marketers that it’s not all about clicks.
To assist in this endeavour, I’ve rounded up eight case studies of mobile marketing campaigns that proved to be a success.
For more in-depth case studies, head over to our Case Study Database which is available to Econsultancy subscribers.
And for more on this topic download the Econsultancy Mobile Marketing and Commerce Report or read my post looking at eight great examples of mobile marketing from Southeast Asia.
Supermarket giant Tesco was recently the victim of a viral blog that highlighted the laughably poor standards of cleanliness and service on offer at one of its London stores.
The Tumblr entitled ‘The very worst Tesco’ includes images from the Haggerston store in east London that show empty shelves, piles of boxes blocking aisles and a video of an alarm going off throughout the night.
Tesco chairman Sir Richard Broadbent said in an interview with The Sunday Times that his company had taken action to clean up the store in reaction to the Tumblr and that it was vital for the retailer to provide an excellent in-store experience for customers.
An effective site search tool is hugely important tool for ecommerce as it’s a common way for shoppers to navigate sites and find products.
In fact up to 30% of visitors will use the site search tool and these tend to be highly motivated shoppers who know exactly what they’re looking for.
The speed in which results are returned is very important, but there are also many other factors that influence the overall user experience and could be the difference between making a sale or losing a potential customer.
I’m not a regular visitor to Boots’ website, so when I clicked on it recently, I was surprised that the number of usability issues and potential barriers to purchase I found.
The site does appear to be due a revamp, and there are plenty of areas for improvement where Boots could reduce customer friction.
Here, I’ve picked out some of the most serious issues, and what Boots can do to improve conversion rates on the site.
NB: I have no inside knowledge of Boots and its online performance. It may make a fortune online, but from what I know, there is lots of potential for improvement, so here we go…