Ecommerce

Australian Online Retail: Where the Money Is

Australian Baby Boomers and Generation Xers dominate online spending according to recent research from Mastercard.

The report says that 45-49 year olds are the most active online purchasers followed by the 50-64 years olds.

That could well be because they have more disposable income, but nevertheless it proves once again that Australian shoppers have moved wholeheartedly to the online retail space.

Age is neither a factor nor a barrier when it comes to shopping online.

See more report issues...

Australian Retailers Guide to Staying Up to Date with Ecommerce

Start Running Now

2012 is already the most frenzied and chaotic time yet for online retailing according to leading research firm the e-tailing group.

In its latest report: Racing on the Technology Treadmill: Confronting the Pace of Change, it says that even experienced online operators are finding the going overwhelming.

The Chicago based research company has been studying online business for 18 years, and for the past 11 has published an annual survey of online merchants’ tactics, practices, strategies and issues.

For those businesses not yet online it must now seem like they are at the point where the train has almost left the station. If they run like hell they might just make the last train; if they hesitate it will be gone forever.

Find out more...

Perfect Product and Landing Pages

Lessons in Style and Simplicity from Modcloth

Vintage apparel retailer and online darling Modcloth provides classic examples of how to get online shop design right from landing pages to product pages.

Along the way it reinforces some old rules and breaks a few as well.

Clean, Crisp and Inviting Home Page

First the homepage is beautifully simple with one stunning image that immediately draws your eye to the main call to action.

It also helps that the surrounding areas are very clean, uncluttered and have plenty of white space. So there is nothing to compete with the main image and call to action.

There’s no mistaking what the customer need to do next. “Dive into our stylebook.”

So dive in...

What Does it Cost to Run an Online Business?

About a million dollars a year. Frightening, isn’t it?

Time to raid the piggy bank.

The question of cost is one that always comes up with professional online service providers: “What’s the cost of a website?”

It’s always a tricky one to answer. It’s like the proverbial “How long is a piece of string?”

The answer depends on what you are hoping to achieve, what resources you have and what you are prepared to spend.

And so the delicate dance between service provider and client begins. It’s not that we are being evasive or trying to get as big a budget out of you as we can, it just really does depend.

And often we are trying to spare you the effect of “sticker shock” if we told you what it’s really going to cost.

What You Really Need

Thankfully, US Inbound Marketing firm, Kuno Creative has put together a really useful eBook that, among other things, addresses marketing website costs.

Read on...

Gerry Harvey Does Online Business a Favour

The continual missteps by Gerry Harvey in the online world are case book examples of what not to do.

They provide glaring and obvious lessons for any Australian business entering the online shopping world.

So in that respect we should all thank Uncle Gerry for the lessons.

Last week Harvey said he was drastically scaling down his expectations for his online store after only a few months of operation. Previously Harvey had been on record as saying he expected his online store to be turning over billions.

Perhaps now other Australian retail outlets that are considering going online or about to go online, will stop and think:

“Well if Gerry Harvey doesn’t know what he’s doing, perhaps we should think carefully about finding someone who does and learn from them.”

Read more...

$10 Billion Aus Retail Market

Still small, but growing rapidly and attracting international retailers.

The National Australia Bank (NAB) this week released its latest report on the state of the Australian online retail market.

It makes for interesting reading.

Despite the howls of some in the bricks and mortar sector last year, online shopping is not robbing its offline cousins, nor are the bulk of purchases being made overseas.

According to the NAB Online Retail Sales Index - In depth report: January 2010 – January 2012, online retail accointed for only 4.9% of the total Australian retail spend of $216 billion

That equates to a very healthy $10.5 billion online market.

Online Sales Growth Booming

Is Your Customer Data Secure? - Very Unlikely

Most businesses are making it incredibly easy for organised criminals to steal critical data, according a new report from Verizon Business.

While organised crime is getting more and more innovative about online crime, many businesses seem to be going backwards and failing to comply with even the basic security standards.

The reasons seem to be a combination of ignorance, laziness and a surprising reluctance to invest in securing customer and company data.

Organised Crime is Coming to Get You

The Verizon report found that 285 million records were compromised last year (2008), and that 91% of the attacks were by organized criminals.

That is, security breaches are no longer the domain of teenage hackers just looking to make a name for themselves. Your data is now a major target of organised crime, which is investing considerable time, money and resources to get at your sensitive information.

Content is Not King - it is Supreme

How Web 3.0, the Semantic Web Will Affect Everything

The web of the future is going to make content supreme. What’s more, it’s going to make it incredibly valuable in ways that may finally see content creators get real reward and value for their efforts.

Almost since the start of the modern web, industry experts have been continually saying that Content is King: And they’ve been right, but now they’re right in ways that they couldn’t have possibly imagined.

The coming semantic web, known variously as the data web, microformats, FOAF, RDF, Linked Data, Web 3.0 and a whole host of new acronyms is pointing to big changes in cybersphere.

Yahoo recently announced it was embracing semantic web standards , and has already released some interesting tools that point to the future. Many are seeing this as a good thing and direct challenge to Google.

The End of Google?

Never Pay For Web Development Again

10 Free Solutions To Give You a Complete Website

When I first began working in e-commerce I was regularly "quoted" seriously high six figure amounts just to build a website, with another similar amount required for implementation.(It wasn't that long ago.)

Mercifully, things are so much better now. Today there are so many free solutions and services that it is possible for anyone to build a fully featured website for nothing. And in almost no time.

Obviously there will still be design and set up costs involved, but for the most part the change has been radical.

Here then is my list of 10 free services and applications to get you on your way. They are not in any order, so you can choose at random.

How To Get More Customers Online

Some interesting reports have recently been released detailing what techniques and strategies many direct marketers are using to acquire and keep customers.

Direct marketers are usually the sharpest cookies in the marketing arena because they are obsessed with producing financial results, and will usually do whatever it takes to turn a dollar. (No bad taste jokes please.)

Therefore, they are usually worth listening to as they can always back up their marketing strategies with hard results.

The Number One Tactic

According to Target Marketing’s Media Usage Report, the number one tactic for getting more customers and giving the strongest return on investment (ROI) was direct mail.

That’s the printed, personal letter in an envelope with stamp kind of mail.