Letter: Web to account for 40% of all UK retail sales by 2020

Is your strategy up to the challenge?

uSwitch announced last week that the internet will account for 40% of all UK retail sales by 2020. This is a huge prediction, but if it is what the public is really saying you have to pay at least some attention. Logan Tod & Co also conducted online research in January this year to monitor online Christmas shopping trends for 2006 and found the online spend for Christmas 2007 in the UK is set to rise to £10 billion. 

So it appears that both the short term and long term trends are currently aligned – the public is saying it loves ecommerce and wants to do more, much more, online shopping. So turn your thoughts to how you can profit more from this behaviour.
To start with, you need to think about the growing influence of social PR. Our research revealed it is word of mouth, both offline through personal recommendations and online via user review sites and blog posts that are driving visits to retail websites – not only SEO and PPC. It is time to pay more attention to this as the savviest online users seem to be moving away from search.
Our research revealed the top five features users value most in a website, with a good site search function topping the list at 64%. This was followed by well written copy and high quality images of products (52%), clear and convenient delivery options (46%), easy navigation (42%) and clearly visible availability of products (36%).  With more advanced features such as product comparison tools (8%), company recommendations (2%) and gift finders (3%) scoring very low at this stage.

It is a tough thing to do, but without really sorting out the online basics you are wasting time and effort in developing features consumers don’t value. It may not be a popular message, but to succeed right now you must keep it simple to keep your visitors converting.

Matthew Tod
CEO, Logan Tod & Co.