The Snow Patrol

Sainsbury's adds list feature

Sainsburys has added a neat new feature. Customers can make a list of all the things they want and then browse through a set of search results. Meijer in the US has had something similar for a while. I'm not sure how useful it would be on non-supermarket sites.

ASOS sees 107% growth

ASOS has reported a 107% increase in sales for the six months to 30 September. Year on year their active customer base has grown by 95% to 947,000. Their international sales rose by 252% and now represent 17% of their turnover.

TopShop and Iwantoneofthose.com introduce games

Two retailers sent me details of games on Friday. TopShop has a Christmas Fairytale game where the customer spins a little merry-go-round and wins a prize - 10% off if you spend £60 online. The aim here is clearly to get more people signed up to their Style Updates.

And then Iwantoneofthose.com have engaged the services of Timmy Mallett on their "incredibly silly" Conveyor Belt game. Again, it has a 'send to friend' function to help IWOOT grow their database.

And the award for Worst Delivery Policy 2008 is...

The Snow Valley online retail delivery report is done, all the retailers have been evaluated, and so I can announce the winner of Worst Delivery Policy 2008.

This statement appears on the delivery information pages of a large multi-channel retailer. They are one of the 24% of retailers that offer Saturday delivery - except they might not offer it. It seems that you pay extra but it isn't guaranteed and if the order doesn't arrive then you can't call them until Wednesday. This is worse than not offering it at all.  

 

Catalogue & E-business magazine have devoted the front page of their latest issue to retailers using free delivery at Christmas. In the article, I ask why more retailers don't use free delivery - our report shows that only 11% do so. The report is out next week!  

Sainsbury's - online sales up 30% to £500m

Sainsbury's say that online sales grew 30% for the 6 months to 4 October. They are 'currently annualising' to £500m, which is about 2% of their total business.

Amazon launches daily text alerts in the US

Amazon in the US has added a text message alert service in time for Christmas. Each day a new promotion is sent to the customer's mobile phone. They can then either go to the mobile site and peruse the details, or they can 'reply to buy' and make the purchase without needing to visit the site at all (the TextBuyIt service launched back in May).

It's been a busy few weeks for Amazon.com, what with this text service and their new Windowshop and Universal Wishlist.

Online sales up 11.5% at Majestic Wine

"Challenging conditions" have not stopped Majestic Wine from growing their online business - their interim results show that web sales grew by 11.5% in the 6 weeks to 29 September. Total like-for-like sales were down 2.1%.

UK online sales to grow 15% in Q4 - latest Christmas update from IMRG

The IMRG is predicting that:

• Online sales will be up 15% for October-December
• 8 December 1-2pm will be the busiest online shopping day/hour of the year

All such predictions should be viewed with caution. Last year, 10th December was supposed to be the busiest day of all time, but we found this was only true for two of our clients. The rest saw peaks in different hours, days, weeks, even different months. Equally, online sales were supposed to grow 50% and they shot up by 82%.

Is this the longest ever wait for an online delivery?

5 years and 10 months - that's how long I have been waiting for a document that I purchased from The Stationery Office on 10th January 2003. Today I received an e-mail telling me it had been despatched.

The title of that document? The Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002. Do you think taking half a decade to deliver the goods might contravene the rules? And will I receive it before 2013?

GAME & Bravissimo introduce wish-list promotions

Two UK retailers have introduced wishlist promotions, in an effort to get customers preparing their lists for Christmas.

Bravissimo is running a 'Win Your Wishlist' competition. The customer sets up a wishlist, adds loads of stuff to it, sends it to their friends, and then if they're lucky they might be selected at random and receive everything that's on it for free.

And then GAME is running a Console Wars promotion. This combines an engaging little game with the opportunity to win your wishlist.

The use of wishlists was highlighted in our 'Top Retail Christmas Promotions of 2007' report (available on our Snow Valley website). It's good to see that UK retailers have been busy coming up with new ideas for the 2008 festive season.