Insights / News
Tips and Tricks for the Online Retailer
- 17th September
- Nirosha Methananda 275
Mark Capps, Google Australia and Jethro Lyons, General Pants Co. presenting at the Retail 2010 Conference, share some tips and tricks they have learnt about online retailing.
In anticipation of the upcoming Retail 2010 Conference and Exhibition, PowerRetail.net had the exclusive opportunity to interview Mark Capps, Emerging Business Manager for Google Australia and Jethro Lyons, Brand Manager for General Pants Co. who will be presenting at the conference.
Capps and Lyons share the tips and tricks they have learnt along the way, cover online trends, along with examples of who they think are innovators within the market.
Mark Capps, Emerging Business Manager, Google Australia
When compared to international markets, the Australian retail industry has been slow to integrate the online and offline channels – what advice do you have for retailers who are still hesitant?
My advice to any retailers who are still hesitant is to get involved and start learning about their sector – your customers are certainly online and searching for your products and services. We see increasing numbers of queries on everything from flowers to TVs, as well as significant seasonal spikes in the lead-up to Christmas and the end of the financial year. Even if your customers aren’t purchasing online, they’re definitely researching products and services before visiting a store. Research from Google and the Australian Centre for Retail Studies shows that 50% of Australians research their purchase online.
What can retailers do in order to capture their online audience?
I suggest retailers spending time online – try to get inside the mind of their customer. Search online for your key product categories. Does your name appear to remind customers of your range? Do your competitors’ names appear? Shoppers search for products and product brands far more frequently than retailer names. Look at your competitors’ sites, both here and overseas. Learn about what companies like Google are doing and start testing and learning with some small steps, measuring everything you do.
At the Retail 2010 Conference you will be speaking about how localised online marketing can help drive in-store sales – can you share some of your recommendations with us?
People are interested in what is around them – geo-information is exploding: one fifth of searches from desktops are locally related and one third for mobiles. Maps are popular, streetview is launched in many countries, ‘check-in’ local-social services like foursquare and Jump On It are becoming popular very fast.
Retailers should imagine their potential customer’s journey and get control of their online information. Google Places allows you to ensure each of your locations is listed correctly on Google Maps with relevant local information for each store – opening hours, photos, parking, description, payment options and more. When customers search for their local stores, this allows you to show your best store front.
Temperley London: colours and styles change as you click
Can you share some examples of innovative online marketing in retail?
- Big W – was the first significant national Australian retailer to take the plunge and enable multichannel. You can buy in-store or use deliver-to-home options.
- Shoes of Prey – the online channel makes this business model possible – you design shoes using a web-based tool, then your customised product is manufactured and dispatched straight to your door.
- Temperley London - this UK fashion retailer provides a great interface where the colours and styles change as you click – amazing close ups!
Jethro Lyons, Brand Manager, General Pants Co.
You recently launched the General Pants Co. ecommerce website – what have been your key learnings?
It’s been a very steep learning curve in getting up to speed with what is considered best practice, especially around the nuts and bolts of the website, namely the back-end. We also offer 24-hour delivery, but just being able to fulfil that and potentially having to better this in order to remain competitive has had its challenges.
Another sharp learning has been having a solid eCRM and social channel campaign and understanding the impact that these can have on your sales if done effectively. There’s a furious fight for everyone’s inbox at the moment, if you are able to keep your emails entertaining and get them right, it definitely has a big impact on sales.
How has ‘The Bubble’ (General Pants’ mentoring initiative) enriched customer engagement?
The Bubble (launched a couple of years ago) was essentially our first foray into social marketing. The launch of ‘The Bubble’ prior to the online store was definitely beneficial to us, it meant that we concentrated on converting customers, rather than going out with aggressive recruitment or traffic acquisition programs.
We’re also lucky that we get quite a lot of focus groups, to work on initiatives that were relevant to our audience and had longevity. You may do an intensive campaign and see a spike in sales for a short period of time, but if you don’t have longevity you’re not going to maintain that level of interaction and engagement.
Best Buy innovates by using Twitter to help customers post-purchase.
Which retailer/s comes to mind as being innovative with social media initiatives?
Best Buy, which is a US-based electronics chain store, used Twitter and set up an army of their staff called ‘Twelpers’ – so when it came for customers to install the electronics purchased they could send a ‘tweet’ to the Best Buy team and they would respond accordingly. This is a great example of customer service and utilising the online platform, which is relevant to Best Buy and their audience, being an electronics and technology retailer. The issue of relevance is of concern for retailers – it comes back to finding out what is relevant and entertaining to your audience.
Lyon’s tip for retailers about using social media:
Some retailers are actually scared of talking and engaging with their customers, they think it is risky and exposes their brand. I think there is no greater risk than not talking to your customers, listening to them and giving them that buy-in. Forget about over-thinking it, get in there, get busy and don’t be afraid of it!
See Capps and Lyons present at the Retail 2010 Conference and Exhibition.
