The Snow Patrol

12 Feb 10

My top 3 Valentine promotions on UK online stores

It’s 12 February and I just received an e-mail from Screwfix with the subject line ‘Nothing says I love you more than a pink drill’. Once again I find myself wondering how many relationships might fail this weekend thanks to online marketing.

But it got me looking through my other e-mails to see what else I had been sent in the spirit of St Valentine. Retailers seem to fall into categories. Some completely ignore it. Some limit themselves to the extraneous use of the word ‘love’ - eg ‘you’ll LOVE 10% off our lawnmowers’. Others promote specific products – in some cases it’s a relevant range such as chocolates and lingerie, in others it’s just anything that’s pink (see Screwfix). Some go as far as having gift finders or Valentine’s categories on their sites.

But I was pleased to see that a handful of retailers had done something extra this year. Here, in order of brilliance, are my top 3:

1. Thorntons – their ’send a love letter’ viral marketing idea is funny and well-executed. A set of drop down boxes allows the customer to write their love letter and then e-mail it to their loved one. The customer themselves gets a media code for a free box of chocolates if they spend £15 and the recipient is encouraged to buy alphabet truffles.

2. TopShop – to get people to buy vouchers for their beloveds, TopMan ran a competition on their blog. TopShop promoted it to their customers, asking them to take a photo of the nastiest thing in their boyfriend’s wardrobe and e-mail it in (or alternatively put it on Flickr – see what I mean about e-commerce endangering relationships).

3. Faith Shoes – anyone that remembers Matching Pairs, a boardgame from the 1980s, will love Faith’s Perfect Match game. The player gets as long as they need to uncover all of the pairs of shoes and bags. The player that does it quickest wins a £250 voucher. I’m not sure quite how many shoes they’ll sell as a result of Perfect Match but it’s completely addictive.

Let me know if you’ve seen any other examples. I’m off to check all of our cupboards at home and make sure that my other half hasn’t bought me anything made by Black & Decker, pink or otherwise.

Posted by Sarah C in marketing, social media, user experience & design No comments

29 Jan 10

39% of UK online retailers have free delivery over certain order value

The 2010 Online Retail Delivery Report, sponsored by MetaPack, is now available and so I thought I would write a few posts drilling down on certain aspects of the research.

Today I’m looking at retailers that offer free delivery if the order is over a certain value. 39% of the retailers in our research offered such a thing this year, up from just 24% in 2005. The average threshold was £120 although if you remove Liberty’s £2500 from the equation this drops to £84. It’s also worth noting that the thresholds vary massively from sector to sector.

The pie chart below looks at 40 UK online retailers that had free delivery thresholds when we evaluated them in autumn 2009. We then looked back at when we had first included them in our research - in most cases this was 2007, in others it was 2008. We found that:

38% of the retailers with a free delivery threshold had kept the same limit year on year
23% had lowered their threshold
15% had introduced a free delivery threshold
10% had got rid of a free delivery threshold
10% had raised the value of their threshold

threshold1

I’m a big fan of free delivery thresholds. If you get it right, then it can really help to push your AOV up. It’s also something that can remain consistent – sporadic free delivery on everything can make customers hesitant about placing an order when there isn’t a free delivery promotion. Free delivery all the time is too expensive. Our stats suggest that more retailers are using thresholds, so it’s definitely something to consider if you haven’t got one already.

Posted by Sarah C in delivery 2 comments

23 Jan 10

2010 Online Retail Delivery Report – out now!

Our 2010 Online Retail Delivery Report, sponsored by MetaPack, was released to the world on Thursday. I noticed someone on Twitter using the word ‘comprehensive’ to describe it and it truly is – 112 pages and enough stats to keep anyone working in e-commerce entertained for hours.

The report will cost £249 from February but we’ve decided to make it free to download for a short time. This way everyone in our industry has a chance to access the findings. £249 is still fantastic value for money, however, for anyone that wants to understand how delivery is changing and what the delivery service of the future will look like.

If I was to summarise this year’s report, I’d break it into two sections.

Trends of the past five years

We’ve been doing this research for five years now and the highlights in that time for me include:

64% of the retailers provided a choice of delivery times and charges in 2009, up from just 54% in 2005
84% provided online order tracking, allowing the customer to check the status of their delivery, compared to just 59% in 2005
Premium services have remained proportionally static over the past five years – Saturday delivery was available on 26% of sites compared with 23% in 2005. Nominated day and time of day delivery had increased from 14% in 2005 to 15% in 2009.
Interestingly, larger retailers were much more likely to support premium services – 53% of those on the Hitwise Top 50 Shops List had a Saturday service – which suggests that the demand for such services is there.
39% of retailers now offer free delivery over a certain order value threshold, compared to just 24% in 2005
15% of the retailers offered some sort of collect from store option, up from 12% in 2007
Standard delivery charges have crept up very slightly over the past 5 years but charges for premium services, such as nominated day delivery, appear to be decreasing
Cut-off times are getting later – one retailer could accept orders until 11pm for next-day delivery

Trends for the future

In his introduction to the report, Snow Valley’s CEO, Carlo Rimini, lists the ten trends that we’re going to be watching over the next few years. I really recommend you read his summary. Many of these trends are extensions of what we’ve seen so far – more ‘collect from store’ options; more text messaging; order deadlines getting later and later; more nominated day, time of day and Saturday services; more international delivery.

But he also looks at emerging trends – the basic-standard-premium service, for example, where retailers are adding a supersaver option that takes 7 days but only costs a couple of quid. He also talks about delivery loyalty schemes, such as ASOS Premier and Amazon Prime, and delivery to third party addresses.

We’ve already had hundreds of downloads of the 2010 report and I think this proves that getting the right delivery service in place is becoming more and more important to the UK’s online retailers. I’m already looking forward to researching the 2011 report.

Of course, before the next delivery report, we have the 2010 Online Retail Returns & Refunds Report – this will be out in March. If you want a copy, please sign up to the Snow Valley e-mail newsletter at www.snowvalley.com/subscribe

Posted by Sarah C in delivery No comments

12 Jan 10

Do-it-yourself usability testing – great new book

I’ve just finished reading Rocket Surgery Made Easy by Steve Krug, the web usability guru who wrote the celebrated Don’t Make Me Think.

Rocket Surgery Made Easy is a very practical, hands-on guide for anyone interested in running usability tests on their websites. It’s also very short - it only took me 3 hours - so I recommend you read it. However, to try and give you a brief summary, Krug basically has 6 maxims:

1. A morning a month, that’s all we ask – he believes that you should schedule a usability test session once a month to last for a morning and to be followed by a debrief over lunch

2. Start earlier than you think makes sense – if you’re testing a new site, start by testing the scribble on the napkin

3. Recruit loosely & grade on a curve – when you’re looking for people to come in and test your website during these sessions, don’t get too hung up on finding people that fit the profile of your ideal customer, not to start with anyway

4. Make it a spectator sport – you must make it a priority to get as many internal observers along to these sessions as you can, especially senior management

5. Focus ruthlessly on a small number of the most important problems - each session should result in a list of the top 10 issues on your site and you should spend the next month fixing them

6. When fixing problems, always do the least you can do – he has seen too many usability tests fail because the suggested fixes became over-complex. If there’s an issue on your site that is affecting sales, find the simplest way to solve it…and then solve it.

He also provides sample scripts, checklists, and documentation to get you up and running. If you’ve got any interest at all in usability testing, then you need to get hold of a copy:

Thanks to Matt Curry for the book recommendation.

Posted by Sarah C in e-commerce books, user experience & design No comments

10 Jan 10

Robert Dyas – good example of instore web kiosk

I was really pleased to see this web kiosk in the new Robert Dyas shop that has opened near me in Sheen.

A few years ago I had a really depressing experience in Robert Dyas. We were putting them to the test for our Online Delivery Report in 2006 and I tried to take something bought online back to a store. The shop assistant looked at the despatch note and said “oh my God, look how much they charged you for delivery!!!”. I politely pointed out that as she worked for Robert Dyas, SHE had charged me £4.99 for delivery but it was completely lost on her.

I hasten to add that Robert Dyas was not alone in this – I had similiar experiences with several high street retailers. But the fact that Robert Dyas is now installing web terminals in this way is surely a positive sign that they are bringing stores and online closer together as part of a multi-channel strategy.

It’ll be interesting to see if they borrow the John Lewis PACT idea - as Robin Terrell explained in his Internet Retailing keynote last year, PACT stands for Partner Assisted Customer Transactions and it encourages JLP staff to show instore customers how to use the website, thus educating staff about the internet and giving them a credit for any sales that occur in this way.

robertdyas2

Posted by Sarah C in multi-channel No comments

07 Jan 10

Christmas online sales in the UK – a round-up

Marks & Spencer – online sales were up 32% in the 13 weeks to 26 December, although total group sales were only up 2.6% according to their trading statement.

Next – their trading statement shows that Next Directory sales were up 6.8% for the 22 weeks til Christmas Eve, with total sales up 4.6%.

Shop Direct Group – according to their trading update, online sales grew by 19% in the 6 weeks to 1 January. Online sales accounted for a whopping 65% of their total sales (it was 56% this time last year and they’re aiming to get to 70% by 2011). Total sales were up 6.3%. Shop Direct owns Littlewoods, very.co.uk, Woolworths.co.uk, Additions, Great Universal, Choice, Kays, Empire Stores and Marshall Ward.

Ocado, who hope to float this year, told The Times that sales grew by 30% during December and by 49% for the week ending on Boxing Day, when the company took £8.9m despite the havoc caused by bad weather.

Sainsbury’s – their trading update for the 13 weeks to 2 January shows that online sales were up 15% and they delivered a record 500,000 orders in the 4 weeks running up to Christmas. Total sales were up 6.2%.

John Lewis – in their trading statment they say that total sales were up 15% for the 5 weeks until 2 January. For John Lewis Direct, their weekly trading stats show that sales on johnlewis.com were up 56% year on year for the week to 19 December. As ever, I strongly recommend that you click on that last link and sign up for JLP’s weekly trading updates, as they make fascinating reading/benchmarking.

Posted by Sarah C in sales stats No comments

05 Jan 10

30 Dec 09

E-commerce budgets – how much should online retailers spend on their websites?

One of the questions that we often get asked by retailers is ‘how much should I be spending on my website?’ And so I was very interested to read a report from Prologic that covered this very question.

They surveyed 40 UK online fashion retailers. 30% said that they expected their e-commerce IT budget to be between 5% and 9% of their online sales, with a further 13% indicating that theirs would reach 10-19% of sales:

ecommerce-itbudget2

Other highlights from the report:

63% of the retailers say that e-commerce is their top priority for investment this year
Overseas growth, site usability, and widening the range sold online are the main focus
Web sales represent an average of 6.3% of total sales
Key multi-channel integration aims are: allowing a customer to return goods bought online to a store; letting customers check instore stock online; and providing gift cards that can be redeemed online and in-store

I have to query one point, however: according to the report, 30% of the companies questioned can already allow customers to check store stock levels on the retailer’s website. While retailers in other sectors have achieved this, I only know of one UK fashion retailer that can do this at the moment and so I would be very surprised if the 30% figure is true. Download the full report.

Posted by Sarah C in multi-channel, sales stats, strategy No comments

29 Dec 09

Online retail delivery trend # 1 – the basic-standard-premium service

Our Online Retail Delivery Report 2010, sponsored by MetaPack, will be published in 3 weeks. In the introduction, I summarise the key delivery trends that we have seen over the past 5 years, and what we see on the horizon for 2010 and beyond.

One of those trends is the growth of a three-tier basic-standard-premium delivery service. Most retailers have two delivery options – standard delivery usually priced around £3.99, taking 3-5 days, and a premium service, which is usually next-day for £7.99 or so.

But we’re starting to see an extra tier – what ASOS call their ‘SuperSaver’. This is either free or low-cost to the customer and takes longer than the standard or premium services. So ASOS delivery service now looks like this:

SuperSaver, free, delivery within 6 days
Standard, £3.95, within 3 days
Next-day, £5.95
Nominated day, £5.95
Same day, £9.95

ASOS added their SuperSaver service in 2009 but Amazon have been doing this for some time. And it’s not only the big boys – as if to prove my point, I happened upon a small footwear site over the Christmas who have followed this trend, with four options:

purefootwear

This is one online retail delivery trend that I expect to see increase this year. To find out what our other 8 online retail delivery trends are, make sure you get hold of a copy of our Online Retail Delivery 2010 report – for more information, visit www.snowvalley.com/golden-chariot

Posted by Sarah C in delivery No comments

22 Dec 09

VIP customers book slots for Next online sale

The Next sale always causes a big stir on the high street, with people getting up ridiculously early to grab the bargains.

This year they’re doing something similar on the web. I received an e-mail this morning telling me that the online sale starts on 26 December, but as a valued customer I qualify for early access on 23 or 24 December.

All I had to do was book myself a time slot on one of those days and then be online at the appropriate time. The caveat is that I have to have something in my basket by 7.30am or my slot will be cut short.

It’s a great idea – not only does it reward loyal customers while also encouraging them to spend money in the sale, it also allows Next to control the amount of traffic that is hitting the site. I’ll let you know how I get on tomorrow!

nextagain

Posted by Sarah C in features, marketing No comments

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