February 14, 2006 | Tuesday
Billions in revenue as UK online sales skyrocket
By Jackie Danicki - Blogger in Company News |Latitude People |Marketing |News |Online Sales |Search Engines
Further to many previous posts here about the value of UK online sales (start with this online Christmas sales figures update and follow the links back in time), the latest figures from Verdict Research make for compelling reading:
More Britons logging in to do their shopping led to a 28.9 percent increase in Internet spending in 2005 as online sales neared the totals for department stores, a retail analyst group said Monday.
Consumers bought 8.2 billion pounds ($14.31 billion) worth of goods online, nearing the 9.4 billion pounds ($16.40 billion) spent in department stores, Verdict Research said. Overall retail spending grew by just 1.5 percent. Online shopping accounted for half the growth in retail sales this past year. Shoppers spent 3.9 billion pounds ($6.81 billion) more in 2005 than the previous year, and 1.8 billion pounds ($3.14 billion) of that was spent on the Internet.
But read closely, because the message that is emerging from this is one that Latitude has been banging on about for quite some time now.
“E-retail is redefining how people select retailers, enabling them to choose products that precisely meet their requirements,” said Nick Gladding, senior retail analyst for Verdict, part of the Datamonitor Group. “This makes online retailers far more formidable competitors to high street retailers than their current sales figures suggest.”
That’s right: It’s all about personal relevancy. (This might be a good time for those who haven’t to read Latitude CSMO Paul Doleman’s New Media Age opinion piece from earlier this month.) To quote a previous Latitude post on relevant marketing:
‘[J]ust in time’ marketing means reaching those potential customers who may already be looking to make a purchase. That is the essence of why SEM works. At its most effective, search puts potential customers who are as far down the buying cycle as possible in touch with those companies who can give them something of value. The ‘just in case’ methods of carpetbombing people with your message and flashing your logo in front of as many eyeballs as possible ignore niche and do not consider relevancy.
How well do you do relevancy? If you’re not sure, the answer can probably be found in the return on your marketing spend. And, let’s face it, if the return is poor, you’re spending rather than investing.
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