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Tag: ecommerce

  • DHL eCommerce service turns page with bookstore

    DHL eCommerce service turns page with bookstore

    A delivery service launched by DHL eCommerce that makes use of shops as drop-off points has received a boost with the participation of nationwide retailer SE-ED Book Center.The logistics operator yesterday said the operator of the bookstore chain was joining its domestic delivery service known as e ServicePoints, tapping demand in the fast-growing e-commerce sector.

    The collaboration announced yesterday between DHL eCommerce and SE-ED Book Center means that the book retailers’ outlets nationwide will become part of the ServicePoints network. Until now, the participating shops had been small operators. DHL eCommerce started the service nine months ago.

    Under the service, registered and walk-in customers can drop off their parcels at ServicePoints for nationwide delivery. Soon, shoppers will also be able collect their e-commerce orders from these ServicePoints

    Kiattichai Pitpreecha, managing director of DHL eCommerce Thailand and Southeast Asia, said that the ServicePoints service is designed to offer a convenient domestic logistics service for small online merchants that typically need to send out five to 10 products a day. For such deliveries, the customers are usually nearby.

    “Thailand’s e-commerce sector is the second largest in Southeast Asia and has 22 to 25 per cent growth per year,” Kiattichai said.

    “This pattern of growth is expected to continue over the next five years. The Thailand 4.0 initiatives also are encouraging a lot more small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to turn to e-commerce. Therefore, there are a lot of demand for domestic delivery services. We want to offer Thai merchants and consumers a quality choice for logistics with an easy and convenient service.”

    There are around 100,000 small online merchants on the four main e-marketplaces in the country, Lazada, 11Street, Shoppee, and JD.com.

    Through the partnership, ServicePoints will be available at 150 SE-ED Book Center shops in Bangkok and across the country. The service rollout will reach all 394 branches by end of this year.

    DHL eCommerce plans to expand the DHL ServicePoint network to more than 1,000 locations by the end of 2018, before increasing this number to 3,000 in 2019.

    “ServicePoints is a shop-within-a-shop concept that facilitates the need for people to drop products for delivery at a retail shop,” said Kiattichai.

    “The parcels can be processed within seconds and customers will receive immediate shipment confirmation via SMS or email. The process at the ServicePoint is quick and hassle free, with no need to stand in long queues. The DHL ServicePoint network aims to serve the growing SME and C2C markets’ unmet demands.”

    In addition, consumers will soon be able to use SE-ED Book Center outlets as an alternative delivery address for their domestic e-commerce orders.

    “We will continue to offer more access points, more payment options and an integrated service delivering the quality to enable easier and simpler access to the rapidly growing Thai e-commerce ecosystem,” added Kiattichai.

    He expected that over the next 12 months, some 25 to 30 per cent of all parcels handled by DHL eCommerce will be delivered via ServicePoints. This would represent an increase from 5 per cent for previous nine-month operation.

    “The total volume of parcels we delivered in 2017 increased by four times from 2016. We expect the same growth for this year,” Kiattichai said.

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  • China’s online retail market to reach $1.1tn soon

    China’s online retail market to reach $1.1tn soon

    China’s online retail market will hit $1 trillion this year, a year ahead of predictions, according to Forrester.

    The Forrester report revealed the growth in mobile shopping and consumer spending in categories like fashion and grocery would see China’s retail sales reach $1.1tn in 2018.

    Chinese online shoppers will continue to grow by 4.6% annually to reach 631 million by 2022, up from the current 502 million.

    The report, which provides online retail forecasts for Asia Pacific, found China remains the largest market accounting for close to 83% of all retail sales across the region.

    Japan is the second largest with $97bn, followed by South Korea with $69bn, Australia with $31bn and India with $27bn. India continues to be the region’s fastest growing market and is expected overtake Australia in 2019.

    One-fourth of all retail sales in APAC will occur online by 2022, led by China and South Korea.

    Online retail via mobile devices continues to accelerate across the region and is expected to grow 17.64% annually to reach $1.7tn in 2022, up from $735bn in 2017. Mobile sales will account for 80% of online retail sales in 2022.

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  • DHL Launches Same-Day Delivery for E-commerce Merchants

    DHL Launches Same-Day Delivery for E-commerce Merchants

    DHL eCommerce launched a same-day and next-day delivery service for online retailers that is targeted to compete with Amazon, FedEx Corp., UPS Inc., and the U.S. Postal Service.

    The Parcel Metro service is a network of local and regional delivery vendors and crowd-sourced drivers and vehicles designed to ensure flexibility and capacity in last-mile deliveries, according to DHL. It has begun operating in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York, and DHL plans to expand the service to Atlanta and Dallas in the second quarter, San Francisco in the third, and Washington, D.C., later this year.

    DHL’s software platform allows it to find the best drivers for each route. Customers can choose from several delivery time windows, including two-hour, same day and next day, as well as their preferred delivery address. Consumers can use a mobile device to track shipments in real-time, send instructions to their courier, reschedule a delivery and rate the experience. Retailers can customize the mobile interface with their own branding.

    “DHL Parcel Metro is part of a number of innovations we are actively implementing, including augmented reality glasses for greater pick accuracy, ‘follow me’ robots and autonomous vehicles,” said Charles Brewer, CEO, DHL eCommerce.

    E-commerce sales grew 16% in 2017 while total retail sales grew 4.4%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

  • FJ Benjamin sets up advisory board to integrate online and offline retail

    FJ Benjamin sets up advisory board to integrate online and offline retail

    Fashion and lifestyle retailer F J Benjamin has set up an advisory board to help the company integrate its bricks-and-mortar stores and online sales channels.

    The omni-channel advisory board will advise F J Benjamin’s management on strengthening links between new digital channels and the group’s network of over 200 stores and 1,500 points of sale in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

    The advisory board comprises domain experts as well as senior F J Benjamin executives. The domain experts are: Marcelo Wesseler, former CEO of SingPost e-commerce and now managing partner of e-commerce platform developer Codem; Jon Sugihara, head of global strategic partnerships at Google; and Tito Costa, chief marketing officer at Zalora.

    “We are pursuing an omnichannel strategy where we hope to harness our existing customer database in the region, which should have the twin impact of both optimising our regional network as well as growing our business volume online,” said F J Benjamin director of corporate strategy Ben Benjamin, who is also on the advisory board.

    “We have observed the online ecosystem evolve rapidly over the past two years, including last mile logistics, payments and mobile commerce, and feel that the time is now ripe to pursue an economically viable business model that will integrate the online ecosystem with our retail infrastructure.”

    F J Benjamin manages over 20 brands – incuding Guess, Marc Jacobs, Nautica and Swarovski – and operates 226 stores.

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  • Vietnam e-commerce grows but taxes hard to collect

    Vietnam e-commerce grows but taxes hard to collect

    Experts have recommended amending e-commerce regulations that would allow authorities to better manage and collect tax as well as develop the sector.

    Mạch Thị Tuyết Mai from the General Department of Taxation’s policy division, said: “We have encountered difficulties in tax collection.”

    The issuance of business licenses for e-commerce firms remains confusing because some kinds of e-commerce are not included on the tax list. Therefore, it is hard for tax authorities to determine the appropriate tax collection form.

    Most businesses in Việt Nam still use paper invoices, while some businesses have used e-invoices but do not have a system to connect with the tax agency.

    As a result, tax agencies found it hard to identify the revenue of these businesses, she told the Vietnam Online Business Forum held in HCM City on March 17.

    “We are now conducting an electronic invoice project to submit to the Government. The project will encourage all businesses to use e-invoices connected to tax agencies. This will make management easier and we will have to avoid using fake invoices,” she said.

    Another issue is tax collection from cross-border service providers and organisations that have income in Việt Nam, according to the official.

    The sale of products on Facebook, Zalo and websites has grown strongly, but sellers do not issue invoices and declare their revenue, leaving difficulties for tax agencies to collect tax.

    Nguyễn Thanh Hưng, deputy chairman of the Việt Nam E-Commerce Association, said that a number of significant issues in public administration occurred last year.

    He said that it was time for policy and law makers to create a more favourable macroeconomic environment for e-commerce to develop.

    The challenges for policymakers are clearly very different from than those in previous years, according to Hưng.

    Since e-transactions are now commonly used, direct participation of most government departments in developing e-commerce policies and laws is needed.

    “Along with development technology, many new and different kinds of businesses are based on cloud computing, mobile technology, big data, social networks, the Internet of Things, and blockchain technology,” he said, adding that these are all available in the country.

    He said Vietnam should urgently promote research on and application of blockchain technology, and at the same time, should not manage virtual currencies simply by prohibiting and then punishing violators.

    Virtual currencies should be controlled under methods that are in line with the market economy during the interim period as the business community waits for new legal documents on management of virtual assets and digital and virtual currencies, Hưng added.

    At the same time, accepting the experimental use of cryptocurrency in a few international transactions might be a careful but advantageous approach for the policy amendment process, he said.

    “If organisations and enterprises do not participate, they may become too slow in conducting research about and investing in blockchain applications, and Việt Nam could be quickly left behind if cryptocurrency becomes a significant payment method for e-commerce.”

    “In addition, Việt Nam needs to conduct research on the benefits of the sharing economy and make appropriate policies to encourage enterprises as well as other organisations to provide such services for the common purpose of raising socio-economic efficiency,” he said.

    Last year, the Ministry of Finance made public a draft of a proposal submitted to the Government to amend the Law on Tax Administration, which calls the law to be simple, clear, transparent, convenient and systematic.

    The proposal, which requires the use of international standards, electronic tax administration, and a more favourable environment for taxpayers, was an important first step in tax administration for e-commerce.

     

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  • Jack Wills becomes new brand in Zalora Asia

    Jack Wills becomes new brand in Zalora Asia

    British clothing brand Jack Wills has made its Asian online debut on Zalora.

    Its outlet on Zalora will offer more than 200 curated items of womenswear, menswear and accessories,
    “We are excited to have Jack Wills exclusive online across our markets,” says Zalora chief commercial officer Saskia de Jongh. “Through our website, mobile site and app, as well as our logistics network, Jack Wills will expand its reach to more fashion consumers beyond capital cities and store footfall.”

    “This partnership will continue to build on Jack Wills’ ever-growing popularity in this part of the world, supported by our established network of stores in Hong Kong and Singapore,” says Jack Wills wholesale and international director Greg Roberts.

    The Jack Wills’ spring/summer collection, Times of Change, reflects a British heritage-inspired style that showcases simple yet elegant and versatile wardrobe staples with layering essentials, florals and bright colours, says the retailer.

    Established by Peter Williams as a single shop in the seaside town of Salcombe by Peter Williams in 1999, Jack Wills is known for heritage-inspired classics with a contemporary twist. It has become an international brand with 80-plus stores in the UK, US, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Middle East, and ships to 126 countries.

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  • Why e-commerce and social media platforms will keep growing

    Why e-commerce and social media platforms will keep growing

    If China’s online retail sales increased by 30 percent, does that mean the revenue growth for e-commerce platforms would also be about 30 percentIf online sales growth decelerates, does that mean e-commerce platforms will also face slower growth?

    Not exactly.

    That’s because shopping websites get most of their revenue from advertisements placed by online vendors. As long as online sales continue to be a main source of growth, and rivalry intensifies in the online shopping space, the need to increase online advertising spending will go up.

    A decade ago, China’s online shopping market boom had just started. There weren’t too many online shops, so making money was relatively easy for e-vendors and they don’t even have to spend much to promote themselves.

    The booming business has lured more and more brands to migrate online, which in turn has stimulated online shopping. China now has 500 million to 600 million online shoppers.

    With thousands of e-shops competing for customers, a bigger advertising budget becomes necessary. Major e-commerce platforms are the big winners amid such a trend.

    The same is happening to social media platforms.

    Brands used to hire advertising firms to design an ad for broadcast or print media. Now, they’ve shifted to online celebrities, or Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), who get paid in cash or in kind to help promote their products online, and it cost KOLs almost nothing to tap into the huge user base of social media.

    But if social media sites start to charge KOLs to prioritize their postings, that will translate into fresh income streams for these platforms.

    Shopping online and visiting social media sites have become part of daily life, and it is hard to change that.

    So with their massive user base, leading online shopping and social media platforms will continue to enjoy good business.

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  • Online malls lead South Korea retail growth

    Online malls lead South Korea retail growth

    South Korea retail sales inched up 0.7 per cent year on year last month with online malls outshining brick-and-mortar stores, government data shows.

    Sales for 13 online stores and marketplaces jumped 21.6 per cent, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, which did not disclose sales figures.

    At the same time, sales for 13 offline retailers, including department stores and discount chains, fell 9.2 per cent. Convenience stores were the only bright spot, posting 9.8 per cent growth.

    Online malls saw sales soar 25.5 per cent, attributed to people being attracted by online grocery shopping offering fast delivery service.

    Online marketplaces also surged 20.4 per cent, with an increase in third-party sellers in the electronic and home-appliance sectors.

  • Coupang launched Korea’s largest STEAM toy store

    Coupang launched Korea’s largest STEAM toy store

    Ecommerce platform Coupang has opened what it says is the largest Korean online toy store specialising in Steam (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) education.

    The new theme store offers more than 390,000 Steam education items at low prices.

    Steam education refers to a creative teaching framework that integrates the five disciplines. It started as a Stem initiative in the US, and later arts was added to the mix. Unlike the traditional lessons, this latest education trend uses fun games to learn knowledge and senses that can be applied in a daily setting. The initiative encourages children to think comprehensively and flexibly, which contributes to their creativity.

    Coupang opens Koreaís largest STEAM toy store

    At Coupang, customers can find art supplies, blocks, remote control toys including drones, board games as well as instructive toys that can be used as tools to learn the five disciplines, grouped by age category as well as toy type.

    Flagship items include the Lego Boost 17101 unveiled at CES 2017 in Las Vegas. The toolbox offers hands-on experience of building a robot, cat or a car.

    Lee Byeong-hee, the head of baby category in Coupang, says the Steam initiative has been widely accepted as a new teaching method to nurture talents for future.

    “Customers can take advantage of the opening promotion and shop top educational toys from various brands at affordable prices.”

    Coupang is one of the world’s largest and fastest growing e-commerce platforms.

  • FedEx Opens Shanghai Hub, Prepares for A Surge On eCommerce in Asia

    FedEx Opens Shanghai Hub, Prepares for A Surge On eCommerce in Asia

    FedEx recently opened its 1.4 million square foot Shanghai Pudong International Airport hub on January 8. FedEx’s new hub is now considered as the largest of its kind, installed with the latest sortation technology temperature-controlled storage.

    FedEx Corp. anticipates a growth in online transactions in China as the company opens its new hub in the country. Air cargo volume in China has grown steadily together with the demand of cross-border eCommerce market.

    It is approximate that the value of goods to increase to at least 43 percent to $117 billion this year. China’s air cargo volume is projected to increase to at least 6.2 percent in 2018, which is now considered as the biggest gain in the past 7 years, according to China’s Civil Aviation Administration.

    “There’s an opportunity to bring a lot of products and a lot of convenience to the Chinese consumers… With the wealth of Chinese consumers and the worldliness of Chinese consumers, they’re going to demand goods from the U.S. and Europe and parts all over the world,” David Cunningham Jr. Chief Executive Officer of FedEx Express

    China’s growing demand for cross-border eCommerce

    FedEx says that their latest facility can send real-time information such as shipment and flight status to its customers’ mobile smartphone devices. The hub also has dedicated areas for entry-exit inspection and quarantine to speed the customs clearance process.

    China’s growing demand for cross-border eCommerce has generally increased for the past 10 years, urging carriers to reorient their operations to mainly focus on the Chinese Market.

    United Parcel Service Inc. has now set up at least $10 million venture with SF Holding Co. in Hong Kong in May to cater to the growing demand of the Chinese Market. FedEx currently operates 66 flights in and out of the Shanghai hub each week.

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  • Alibaba, Tencent rally troops amid $10 billion retail battle

    Alibaba, Tencent rally troops amid $10 billion retail battle

    China’s tech giants Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Tencent Holdings Ltd, worth a combined $1 trillion, are on a retail investment binge, forcing merchants to choose sides amid a battle for shoppers’ digital wallets.

    Since the start of last year, the two companies have between them spent more than $10 billion on retail-focused deals, boosting their reach online and in brick-and-mortar stores.

    The aggressive drive, supported by large cash piles and soaring share prices, is part of a battle to win over consumers and store operators to the two firms’ competing payment, logistics, social media and big data services.

    The result: fewer and fewer retailers left without allegiance to either Tencent or Alibaba.

    “All of the retailers in the brick-and-mortar world are very worried. They have to take a side,” said Jason Yu, Shanghai-based General Manager of market research firm Kantar Worldpanel.

    “Otherwise they are afraid they will be eaten alive in the future.”

    Alibaba is China’s top e-commerce player and its affiliate Ant Financial leads in mobile payments. Tencent’s strengths lie in social media, digital payment and gaming. It also has a major stake in the second-largest online retailer, JD.Com.

    Tencent and JD.com have a growing range of allies, including French grocer Carrefour SA, which has announced a potential investment from Tencent, and U.S. retail giant Walmart, which has a stake in JD.com.

    Tencent also bought a stake in Yonghui Superstores Co Ltd, apparel retailers Vipshop Holdings Ltd and Heilan Home, mall operator Wanda Commercial, and this month snagged a strategic tie-up with grocer Bubugao.

    In the other corner is Alibaba, which has invested even more heavily in Suning.com>, Intime Retail, Sanjiang Shopping Club, Lianhua Supermarket, Wanda Film and IKEA-like home
    improvement store Easyhome.

    Key to the battle is China’s nearly $13 trillion mobile payment market, where Alibaba and Tencent are going head-to-head. Alibaba took a 33 percent stake in its payment affiliate Ant Financial this month ahead of an expected mega IPO.

    Ant operates China’s top mobile payment platform, Alipay, while Tencent’s payment system on its hugely popular Weixin chat app is catching up fast. Both firms are also making a big push in cloud computing and data.

    “I think for payment (the retail push) is a very critical part because it’s almost a gateway,” said Yu. Brick-and-mortar stores in China account for about 85 percent of retail sales, creating a huge lure for tech giants.

    “That’s the pot that Alibaba, JD.com and even Tencent want a slice of,” Yu added. “That’s the majority of the business where they can actually look for future growth.”

    In return, the physical stores get access to payment systems, logistics networks and other services – not to mention the reams of data on consumers that the tech firms control.

    Alibaba invested $486 million this month in a retail-focused big data firm, saying the deal meant it could better “help brick-and-mortar retailers succeed in the digital age.”

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  • Newcomer Logistics Firm Iruna eLogistics Seeks to Empower E-Commerce

    Newcomer Logistics Firm Iruna eLogistics Seeks to Empower E-Commerce

    Iruna eLogistics, a logistics startup company, plans to open two new fulfillment centers in Surabaya and Medan by the end of this year as part of its rapid expansion to provide back-end logistics services to Indonesia’s small and medium-sized enterprises.

    Indonesia’s small and medium-sized businesses have embraced e-commerce and digital marketing platforms to boost sales in the last two years. However, they often find high warehousing and transportation costs expensive and experience complications in tracking inventory, which in turn hinder growth.

    Iruna, which was founded by logistic veteran Yan Hendry Jauwena last December, tries to address the problem by offering integrated logistics solutions which manage the storage, packaging, handling and delivery of items for small business.

    “We wanted to improve the ecosystem by taking care of the back-end issues involved in online commerce. That way the small and medium-sized businesses can focus only on the production and marketing of their products,” Maria Bebasari, Iruna’s vice president for marketing and communication, said on Tuesday.

    Currently, Iruna handles delivery of more than 1,000 types of items a day, ranging from tiny soaps to bulky furniture from its 5,000-square-meter space in Sunter, North Jakarta. The facility is equipped with freezers and coolers to handle food and beverage delivery as well as secured storage for items worth more than Rp 5 million ($374), Maria said.

    Still, the company is not yet able to transport gold — which requires a separate license — or living plants or animals, she said.

    Iruna plans to open similar facilities in Surabaya next month and in Medan by the end of the year, occupying an area of 2,000 to 3,000 square meters each, Maria said.

    Maria said e-commerce consumers are concentrated in big cities despite vendors being spread out across the archipelago, making it costly for individual item delivery.

    “It’s more economical for both the producers and consumers if the delivery is done from our warehouse,” Maria said, adding that their storage and handling facilities differentiate the company from existing logistics firms like state-owned Pos Indonesia, Tiki or JNE.

    Maria said that Iruna targets to deliver 1 million different types of items and add six more fulfillment centers across the archipelago over the next three years, fully confident in the country’s e-commerce prospects.

    Indonesia e-commerce market is projected to reach $130 billion in sales by 2020, according to an estimate from the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.

  • Alibaba buys US$866 million stake in Chinese furniture retailer Easyhome

    Alibaba buys US$866 million stake in Chinese furniture retailer Easyhome

    Alibaba Group Holding will pay about 5.45 billion yuan (US$866 million) for a 15 per cent stake in Beijing Easyhome Furnishing Chain Store, the operator of China’s second largest home improvement supplies and furniture chain.

    It is the latest move in the e-commerce titan’s online-to-offline strategy, following its US$2.9 billion investment in Sun Art Retail, which runs one of China’s largest hypermarket chains, in November.

    Alibaba said on Sunday it will support the digital transformation of Easyhome’s 223 stores in 29 Chinese provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, through its cloud and enterprise systems, and logistics platform. It will also be able to provide “consumer insights”.

    “From home design to refurbishment projects, the two parties will provide customers with end-to-end home improvement solutions,” it added.

    Beijing Easyhome said in a separate statement it has received a combined 13 billion yuan from a group of investors, including Alibaba, Chinese insurer Taikang Group, Yunfeng Capital – which is backed by Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma – and Beijing Harvest Capital.

    The retailer said it plans to fully integrate its online and offline operations by 2022. By then it aims to have over 600 stores nationwide and gross merchandise volume – total sales through its platforms – of more than 100 billion yuan.

    Alibaba has prioritised its efforts to expand into physical retail in recent years, investing billions in grocery chains and shopping malls. Part of the “New Retail” strategy is to attract customers to its online platform by bringing enhanced digital capabilities to the brick-and-mortar stores.

    The transformation echoes that of US e-commerce behemoth Amazon.com, which in June surprised shoppers with its US$13.7 billion acquisition of high-end American grocery store Whole Foods.

    “We want to redefine the physical retail experience and transform from physical to digital, ” said Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang after last year’s Sun Art Retail acquisition.

    In January 2017, the company led a US$2.5 billion bid to buy out Chinese department store chain Intime Retail.

    In 2015, it bought a 20 per cent stake in Chinese electronics retailer Sunning Commerce Group for US$4.6 billion.

     

  • Vietnam leads in phone e-commerce growth

    Vietnam leads in phone e-commerce growth

    Vietnam is the fastest-growing market in South East Asia in terms of mobile e-commerce growth, says the latest report on Southeast Asia’s 2017 e-commerce status by iPrice.

    In the past 12 months, mobile phone usage in Việt Nam has grown on an average of 19 per cent, accounting for 72 per cent of the overall e-commerce Web traffic. In comparison to other Southeast Asian countries, Việt Nam enjoyed the steepest growth at 26 per cent.

    However, in absolute terms, Indonesia is leading mobile e-commerce, with 87 per cent of the traffic coming from mobile phones. Meanwhile, traffic via personal computers is less than 30 per cent in all countries in the region.

    Việt Nam is also the leader in website conversion rate, which measures the percentage of website visitors that turn into customers, with a conversion rate of up to 65 per cent, closely followed by Singapore and Indonesia.

    Meanwhile, with the low use of credit cards (except in Singapore), e-commerce merchants are offering more payment options to reach out to shoppers.

    In Việt Nam, 86 per cent of merchants offer online payment, while cash on delivery is offered by more than 80 per cent of the players. Besides this, in both Việt Nam and Thailand, almost 50 per cent of the merchants offer offline point of sales.

    This is due to the popularity of online to offline e-commerce models, such as Thế giới di động (Vietnam Mobile World), FPT Shop and Nguyễn Kim, the report said.

    However, due to lower gross domestic product per capita (US$6,880) compared to other countries in the region, Việt Nam has the lowest basket size, with an average order value of just $23.

    iPrice’s data was collected from over 1,000 e-commerce players operating in the six largest Southeast Asian markets, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Việt Nam.

     

  • More than half of millennials prefer online retailer info to in-store assistance

    More than half of millennials prefer online retailer info to in-store assistance

    More than half of millennial customers would rather look for retail information online than talk to a shop assistant, according to research.

    A survey of online marketplace OnBuy.com’s customers found that 53% of young people aged between 25 and 34 prefer to seek out details online rather than talk to store staff when they are in a shop.

    The younger generation also prefer to avoid shops when they need information, with 61% of the millennial age group saying they find it easier to chat to a retailer via digital communication channels such as text, online chat or messaging applications as opposed to visiting a physical location.

    Cas Paton, MD of Onbuy.com, said consumers increasingly want to see more retail technology in stores as well as an online offering.

    “As technology is evolving so rapidly, it is important that companies incorporate new technologies into their business to help keep up with the times,” said Paton.

    More than half of shoppers believe that in the near future they will increasingly be using mobile devices to make more of the in-store experience.

    The purpose of stores has been slowly shifting since the arrival of e-commerce – stores are increasingly becoming showrooms for consumers to try out products before buying them online, with many physical locations becoming experience centres instead of just places to buy goods.

    Younger consumers often demand more from the shopping experience because of their use of technology, and as well as using mobile devices for information in store, want to be able to buy products through social media. Also, more and more consumers want to be able to collect loyalty points through their smartphones.

    This change in customer behaviour over the past 50 years as technology proliferation has increased also makes it more difficult to retain customers – but, surprisingly, the older generation are more likely to change between brands than the more tech-savvy millennials, perhaps because there is less social pressure for them to be affiliated with particular brands.

    Onbuy.com found that just under half of customers between the ages of 18 and 40 could be persuaded to buy from a particular brand or retailer if its stores were more different or interesting. This was true of 65% of the millennials in the group, who would be more likely to be enticed by a more exciting store experience.

    Almost three-quarters of consumers said retailers will have to keep up with changes in the technology landscape if they hope to improve the consumer experience and keep customers loyal.

    Some retailers have been trying to address this shift to omni-channel by offering services such as voice-ordering through internet-connected home devices or click and collect.

    But some larger retailers struggle to implement these new technologies because of legacy technology, and some have begun to turn to startups to help them test and implement new technologies.

     

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