Third of UK adults do majority of shopping online

Over one-third of UK adults now do the majority of their shopping online, while a similar proportion split their shopping equally between online and the high street, according to a study by broadbandchoices.co.uk.

A survey of 2,000 UK adults conducted on behalf of the broadband comparison website showed just how far shopping online has come in the 18 years since internet retail giants Amazon and eBay were founded in 1995.

The survey results also show why online shopping is now rivalling traditional shopping -one-fifth of those questioned shop online between 9pm and midnight, demonstrating the flexibility of buying on the web compared to on the high street.

Not only are adults in the UK embracing the flexibility of online shopping, but the freedom of it too. While home computers are by the far the most popular way of shopping online, one in four now shops online using their mobile phone, meaning they can shop wherever they find themselves.

They now buy a wide variety of items online too - a far cry from the early days of online shopping, when purchases were largely limited to books, CDs and DVDs. Now over half buy clothes online, while a quarter do the weekly grocery shop.

A comparison of the high street and online prices of a range of products by broadbandchoices shows why this is, with everything from a two-slice toaster to an Apple MacBook Pro to a Hotpoint washer/dryer found cheaper online.

The average amount UK adults spend online each month has doubled over the last 10 years, and one-third of those questioned said they expect to spend more online in 2013 than in any previous year.

The survey results back-up the findings of an IAB Europe study posted on PureNet’s blog just under a year ago, which showed internet users in the UK made one-third of all their purchases online - the highest proportion of any country in Europe.

How blogs, emails and social bookmarking can be used to drive conversions

To maximise visitor actions on your website - whether they go on to purchase with you or not - you first need to get them there. Then you can get them to take the actions you want them to take; be it place an order, opt-in to your email promotions or share a product or your content.

In order to build a relationship with your prospective customers (and maintain one with your existing customers), you need to communicate with them frequently. Blogs, email newsletters and social bookmarking are just a small number of the communication options you have.

Blogs

Blogging is something that every online merchant should be doing if they're not already. A blog can either sit on your domain, in a dedicated area within your website, or via any of the blogging software that's readily available on the internet. You can post blog articles about your business and the services you offer. You can talk about products, new arrivals, special offers, discounted deals, voucher codes, free reports and promotional videos.

Blogs are very powerful as part of an SEO strategy and rank extremely fast in search results. You can also synchronize your blog with your email newsletter, so that when a blog is created, newsletter subscribers are emailed alerting them of a new blog post.

Email newsletters and promotions

Generally speaking, your list will be split into two separate areas; 1) Front-end acquisition (before the sale) and 2) back-end marketing (after the sale).

1) The first email list is generated from an opt-in subscribe box on your website, be it in the template of the website or on a dedicated newsletter page. You can use basic ‘Sign up for our newsletter’ type text or you can push a free report, free 'how-to' guides or specific tips related to your products. Be creative for your specific website and products.

2) The second is a list of email addresses extracted from customer order information. Incidentally, when a customer buys from you they legally give you permission to contact them via email with additional, relevant information, products, promotions or special offers. In order to maximise your efforts to market to these people however, we would recommend that you ensure they’re still happy to hear from you.

When using the two email list model, legally you should display an ‘Unsubscribe’ link in the footer of emails you send out. If a recipient is not happy about you contacting them, they can simply click the link and they’re removed from your list.

How often should you email your customers?

The simple answer is as often as you can, but always provide information that is valuable to them. A word to the wise however; always test what works best for your business. The best performing campaigns we see are weekly or bi-weekly sends. If you bombard your customers too often with product offers, this can do more harm than good and your customers will unsubscribe from your email list and probably won’t return to your store in the future.

On-site articles

These are different to the SEO articles posted on article directories. They are of higher quality and are for your on-site visitors in addition to generating SEO traffic. Buyer’s guides, how-to and technical articles all written with persuasion to sell your products will rank well on the search engines.

Social bookmarking

Increasingly website visitors are using social bookmarking websites to communicate with one another, via websites such as Twitter and Facebook. So grab any of the free bookmark buttons available online and display it site-wide to ensure your content is as shareable as possible.

T-commerce: the next e-commerce revolution to “watch”

What is t-commerce, exactly?

If you look up t-commerce (or tcommerce) on a search engine, you’ll get results describing touch commerce (mobile), tablet commerce, Twitter commerce (we’re not joking), and television commerce.

Will the real t-commerce please stand up?

We won’t begin to argue that the other T’s aren’t valid. But on this blog, t-commerce denotes television commerce; anything to do with tablets is m-commerce (mobile commerce) and anything social is social commerce (unless it’s Facebook, which has already earned its own ‘F’).

T-commerce is exactly what you’d expect. It’s the use of television to facilitate transactions over the Internet. Research by PayPal in late 2011 found 49% of TV subscribers have an interest in purchasing goods and services through their television or other “screen” like smartphones and tablets.

From purchases or donations relevant to the programme being watched, through to coupons delivered during television ads, the likelihood is we’ll all have heard about t-commerce before too long. As new technologies emerge and more shows and television-related apps adopt in-programme shopping capabilities, we can expect even more innovation in the future.

Mobile commerce rises

Summer has finally arrived. And with the sunshine we all crawl out from under our duvets and hit the streets – and that means shopping, al fresco dining and generally enjoying everything the high street (and back gardens in some cases) has to offer.

Having all your potential online customers out enjoying the sunshine used to mean glum faces for eCommerce retailers (and some high street retailers too) as people’s minds weren’t generally on buying, but on baking (themselves).

But the growth in mobile as a commerce channel looks set to challenge this idea, as consumers are now more connected than ever (in theory, at least) and this opens up opportunities to sell to them while they sunbathe. Location-based mobile marketing, which can also take into account what your potential customers may be doing as they do it.

This is a significant step forward in the growth of mCommerce. Making it something that any business can do has the potential to turn mobile into a truly universal shopping and spending experience.

But while this is good news for consumers there is one big problem: connectivity.

While research from Forrester suggests that across Europe m-commerce is already netting some €1.7billion a year in 2011 and that it could hit €19billion by 2017, there is an increasingly wide disconnect (literally and metaphorically) between what consumers want to do and what they are actually able to do while out and about.

Research by eBay suggests that by 2016, the UK economy alone could gain some £4.5billion from mobile shopping, but this won’t happen until the networks are fast enough, cheap enough and available everywhere for consumers not to have to think about responding to an offer or whipping out their phone to buy something on a whim while they lick ice cream or surf on their smartphone from the comfort of their deckchair.

UK online retail market set to grow 13 per cent in 2012

A forecast by the Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) suggests that the UK’s online retail market looks set to grow by 13 per cent in 2012.

The prediction confirms the UK’s position as a global leader in the market, only behind the US in terms of market value.

The use of eCommerce websites, driven largely by the increased use of smartphone devices (and the availability of mobile commerce), accounted for an estimated 30 per cent of all pan-European orders being placed with UK retailers.

According to the IMRG, “British retailers export more than the rest of Europe’s e-retailers put together.” Last year, the IMRG’s research found that there were 228,000 UK online retail businesses, which is an estimated 30 per cent more than the year before. By 2015, this figure is expected to rise to 1.5 million.

We’d say that 13 per cent may be a little on the low side. We’re predicting growth of around 15-20 per cent in 2012 as more and more people embrace the latest technologies outside of the traditional desktop eCommerce website. Web visitors already know there’s great value to be found online, but now with smartphones including iPhones, Android and Blackberrys, consumers can easily purchase on the go at any time that suits them.

Third of UK internet users regularly purchase online

We reported in our enewsletter this week that a new study has found UK internet users make almost a third of all their purchases online – the highest proportion of any country in Europe.

IAB Europe, who conducted the study found that UK internet users spend 32 per cent of their total shopping budget online, followed by a quarter (25.4 per cent) of users in Germany.

The study also showed that nearly all (96 per cent) of European internet users conduct research online before purchasing, 87 per cent shop online and 19 per cent do all their shopping online.

In the six months between September 2011 and February 2012, UK shoppers spent an average of £620 (€765) which was the fourth highest in Europe across the six month period.

The study also found that 426.9m Europeans go online every week – or 65 per cent of internet users, with more than a third (37 per cent) accessing the internet using more than one device. Some 64 per cent, of 415.7m people, access the web via a computer, while 21 per cent (139.2m) do so via their mobile phone.

These figures support the view we’ve been putting forward for some time and it’s fantastic news for all online retailers. With the pervasiveness of mobile and sales coming through new online channels like Facebook, it’s no surprise that the UK internet economy is flourishing. Internet retailing in the UK currently accounts for around 13 per cent of total retail sales, a figure that continues to grow year-on-year. Looking at the current rate of growth, by 2016 we predict anywhere up to 25 per cent of UK retail sales will be made online, bringing in total revenue of £145bn.

Want to learn more?

If you would like more information on how PureNet can help your business maximise online revenue, please have a live chat with PureNet, email enquiries@purenet.co.uk or call 0845 625 2009.

Mobile sales break through 5 per cent barrier

We featured an article recently all about how transactions via smartphone (and tablet device) have broken through the 5 per cent barrier of total e-commerce sales for the first time. This is especially remarkable given that same figure was just 0.4 per cent two years ago. While it’s certainly true that the explosion in the availability and use of the likes of iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows devices accounts for this increase, the speed with which it’s happened has surprised even us. The increase in mobile sales we’ve seen for this quarter is really encouraging, particularly as it marks an acceleration in pace.

The figures come from the quarterly IMRG Capgemini Benchmarking Index, which also showed that the total number of visits to ecommerce websites experienced significant growth, reaching 11.6 per cent of total traffic, topping 10 per cent for the first time ever.

This pattern is mirrored by some of our clients, many of whom are seeing growth much higher than the reported 5.3 per cent of all online sales. Over the Christmas period, some of our clients were seeing 9-10 per cent of their total sales coming from the mobile channel. What our clients are also seeing is that the average value of transactions via mobile surpass those of their standard desktop e-commerce websites.

Much like the arrival of the first transactional websites back in the mid-90s, fraud has traditionally been a major concern and barrier to wider consumer adoption of new channels. Encouragingly the growth we’re seeing in mobile seems to be going hand in hand with a general decline in fraud and growing acceptance from the buying public that shopping via mobile is safe.