Online retailing is becoming ‘expert in ‘selling’ but forgetting ‘how to give’ I am sure I am not the only one to have been disappointed and disgusted at the condition of some products that arrive on my doorstep, from online retailers. My latest experience was the receipt of some ladies coats from one of the largest online fashion specialists. A business whose strategy I have up until now admired. The-
Amazon Wardrobe: Facilitating returns to drive sales Taking the customer’s money is only half the story of retail. In fact, giving the money back is threatening to become the primary activity in an online world where the customer is now calling the shots. A landscape has formed where the customer returns at will, and the retailer picks up the bill. Buying many sizes and styles with the intention of returning-
Bloom & Wild: Delivering a fragrant revolution I’d recommend that we all spoil ourselves with flowers. Not, for the hell of it, and not any flowers. Just those delivered by Bloom & Wild. Their story is not about flowers, no matter how beautiful they are, but about disrupting a market where with one decisive initiative they transformed the sector. From that point they have blazed a trail of disruption through the-
The Morning Post:- 23rd March Retail Beginning or Retail End? 7 essentials for retail success! Sometimes it makes sense to draw a line in the sand, even when the sands are changing at an unprecedented rate. This is certainly the case in retail. We are not surrounded completely by doom-and-gloom retail news, however there is undoubtedly a lot of it. This reached a focus this morning with the announcement from Next of its-
The Evening Post:- 20th March “Missguided Opinion: Cracks in the E-commerce Golden Egg!” Firstly, let me say I am a huge fan of Missguided. Whilst not the classic target customer I remember the palpable excitement of walking through their first store in Westfield Stratford, conceived in collaboration with Dalziel & Pow. It was such a refreshing store with so many ideas for the new era of physical shopping, not bogged down-
So, imagine a furniture concept that throws out the baggage of the traditional way of doing things, and re-invents the whole process from the perspective of the customer and the designer. More or less, you have Made.com Made is born from a passion for modern, beautiful furniture and the frustration of buying it the old-fashioned way. And with necessity being the mother of invention it was real life experience that-
Don’t get me wrong I’m a believer in e-commerce and an avid online shopper, and I get as frustrated as the next man or woman when it comes to inefficient websites, product misinterpretation and expensive and extensive delivery times. And of course, efficiency is an absolute essential to any online retailer, and will make the difference between survival and extinction in the highly charged competitive online market place. However there-
Why is omnichannel the focus of retail? The short answer to this is because it’s what the customer wants, and never has the old adage “the customer is always right” been so apt or so accurate as in the consumer-centric world in which we now live. Customers want the convenience of the online world with the ability to browse, choose and pay in the comfort of their own homes, and-
So the winner yet again this Christmas was online retail. Also, apparently and a little contradictory, Amazon was at the same time killing off retail itself, which is a little strange considering that the last time I logged on to Amazon, it was indeed a retailer. It all makes for good headlines, even if becoming a little stale and increasingly confusing, however beyond being pedantic about headlines, retail is-
Born and bred online, young fashion retailer Missguided is now cutting its terrestrial teeth as it continues to roll out its physical flagship stores to major shopping centres in the UK. Full of attitude, high on fashion and riding a dynamic rollercoaster the task in hand was always to translate this successful e-commerce formula into real stores considering their limitations of space, product availabilities and operational restrictions. In reality-
