Multichannel

Should retailers use pop-up shops?

Pop-up shops are temporary outlets, which allow brands to have a presence on the high street, or to extend their existing offline presence into new areas for a short time.

They have been used by a number of brands and retailers over the last few years, sometimes for experiential marketing, other times as a direct sales channel.

While brands like lastminute.com have used them to promote campiagns, others, such as eBay, have used pop-up shops as a direct sales channel.

The online auction giant opened a temporary store near Oxford Street in the run up to Christmas 2011, selling items via QR code displays.

In this extract from our How the Internet Can Save the High Street report, I’ll look at the pros and cons of pop-up shops…

Four ways to improve the customer experience with IT and marketing collaboration

The rise of smartphones and tablets has ushered in a huge shift in how consumers engage with brands.

These changes have fundamentally altered the path to purchase, which used to be a linear process, into a much broader mix of browsing and discovery, with social recommendations and easier access to information driving the online buying process. 

Most notably, this shift is changing the way IT and Marketing, two divisions that have often worked in silos, must operate in response.

Underscoring the importance of these changes, Gartner recently reported that future ecommerce success depends on improving the customer experience, with top CIOs now ranking it as the largest opportunity to implement technology in driving business innovation.

Four key cross-channel marketing challenges from Digital Cream

Held every year in cities across the world, Digital Cream brings marketers to a selection of exclusive invitation-only roundtables, each with a different theme.

Last month, it was London’s turn. One of the roundtables focused on cross-channel marketing, the findings of which have just been released in our free-to-access Cross-Channel Marketing Trends Briefing, sponsored by Responsys.

The speed of change means that companies are finding it difficult to keep up.

Full details are available in the free report, but for a quick summary, read below…

What makes a good ecommerce business?

I was asked a great question recently whilst at a breakfast networking event hosted by Clearwater LLP, a corporate finance advisory firm, who had been giving everyone an insight in to the previous 12 months’ M&A activities in the retail market.

We heard about the winners and losers, and Gareth Iley regaled us with possibly the most entertaining skirting board anecdote I’ve heard, illustrating the rise of the niche players.

Over coffee afterwards, he asked me a really interesting question, being: “What makes a good ecommerce business?”

I thought it would be a fun question to pose here, and I’ll start the ball rolling with my instinctive answer to him at the time.

Five reasons why omnichannel retailing could be distracting you from success

Could multichannel or omnichannel strategies actually hold back a successful business? In this post I’ll discuss the problems for retailers.

As the barriers to publishing have dropped, the amount of bad advice has increased. I imagine you’ve been told in numerous articles, inforgraphics and presentations that multi or omnichannel is the way forward.

Truth is, the pursuit of omnichannel status could actually be holding your business back. Time to think again. Or is it?

pie-segment

The trillion dollar ecommerce pie: are you getting your slice?

First the $1 trillion part: According to a recent report from eMarketer, ecommerce topped the trillion-dollar mark for the first time in 2012.

This was not a one-time fluke, or even something unexpected, on the contrary, this number is expected to rise: The National Retail Federation and Shop.org both reported that eRetail spending grew by 15% over 2012. 

ComScore recently reported that ecommerce represented 10% of all discretionary dollars spent in 2012 and that web sales for 2013 are expected to increase from 9 to 12%

How can you get your slice? Truly, a trillion dollar question. We have prepared some tips that can help you on your way to having your pie and eating it as well.

Stats: Multichannel commerce variations across countries, people and products

The global edition of our Internet Statistics Compendium saw a bumper update this month, collecting some of the most interesting freely accessible data published about all things digital – including social media, mobile and ecommerce.

One area which I think is particularly deserving of our analytical curiosity is multichannel commerce, and PwC’s recent report on the subject is excellent reading at a time when shopping across offline and online internationally is still a relatively mysterious beast.

Start Me Up! A profile of Noodle Live

By using mobile app and cloud technology to make it easier for attendees to collect information at exhibitions, Noodle Live have also found a way to give added value to conference organisers and exhibitors.

I spoke to founder Clemi Hardi about improving events with multichannel ideas.

Research: Asia-Pacific travellers use social media more than any other region

Travellers from the Asia-Pacific region are leading the way when it comes to social media usage, with over 70% of APAC travellers saying they used the channel to gain inspiration for at least one element of a recent trip, compared to only 51% globally. 

These figures come from recent research, the Digital Index: Travel and Tourism Study, which is based around the responses of 4,600 people from 13 different countries.

The report examines how digital technologies have contributed to fundamental changes in the tourism industry, and specifically highlights findings that demonstrate APAC respondents are ahead of average in terms of digital usage.

60+ key takeaways and soundbites from JUMP 2011

Last Wednesday more than 1,500 marketers descended on Old Billingsgate in London for JUMP, our annual multichannel-focused event.

By the end of the day the consensus was that we’d done a good job. In a nut that means two things: 

  1. The speakers were great and shared the right kind of ideas and insight. 
  2. The Wi-Fi worked.

I thought I’d share some of the key takeaways from JUMP.

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