The first IREU Top500 Performance Dimension Report is now available to read online. The report continues work first started in the IRUK Top500 series of reports, which is now extended to the European Economic Area plus Switzerland. In this series InternetRetailing’s research team aims to understand how retailers scale up activity that started in domestic markets and take it across this larger area of 32 countries and 26 official languages.
This first report focuses on brand engagement, and tackles the challenge of mapping and understanding the practical approaches that leading retailers take when they first raise awareness of their brands in important European markets, and thengo on to talk to potential and existing shoppers via a range of channels.
We look at how easy merchants make it for shoppers to ask them a question or to tell them what they think – whether it’s a complaint or praise – and at how engaging and responsive these retailers are in return. Taken together, all of this plays an important role in raising awareness of brands as they expand beyond domestic markets in order to grow sales across Europe.
It’s a theme that we explore through an interview with France-headquartered Decathlon, an Elite retailer in IREU Top500 research, through case studies focusing in retailers including French hi-tech to hobbies retailer Fnac, German homewares to fashion retailer Otto, Dutch online department store Bol.com and the UK’s own Boohoo.com. We go on to round up 12 practical approaches taken by retailers of all sizes in this market that serve to improve their standing in our ranking.
We believe that explaining how others succeed will help retailers of all sizes to adopt best practice for themselves. We’re led in this by our research findings, which are detailed in two research features that explain how researchers measured performance in brand engagement.
For more information and to read these features, visit the IREU Brand Engagement Report page here.
