There’s an inexorable movement towards online that’s now affecting all of retail, or so the stories in today’s Internet Retailing newsletter would seem to suggest. It’s there in the news from the latest BRC-KPMG Retail Sales Monitor that online sales were the only reason some categories of retailer turned in growth last month, it’s in the evolution of the high street in the light of online detected by a new study carried out by the Local Data Company together with the Oxford Institute of Retail Management, and it’s even in the news that ecommerce-resister Primark is selling its products online for the first time,, and the report that New Look is looking for and finding growth online.
It’s just this part of the retail industry that is centrestage at our upcoming Internet Retailing Awards, to be held on June 26. Today it’s your turn to take part in the judging for the event, by voting for the retailer that you consider the most outstanding of the year. And in today’s newsletter we also report on Swarovski’s newly-installed social media Wish List.
Tickets for the Internet Retailing Awards (more info here) are now available to book. The shortlist of award winners has just been published. Do take a look.
And a reminder too that it’s catch-up time for anyone who missed that vital briefing at Internet Retailing Expo (2013). Presentations and panels from the across the six conferences of the event, the workshops and Innovation TV Studio are now available to view online at InternetRetailingExpo.com.
Webinars
We have an upcoming webinar to let you know about today. On June 18, Gary Lombardo, solutions market lead at Demandware will be joining us, along with Nick Rawlings, marketing director at Lands End, to tell the story of how the US retailer has grown from a catalogue business into a digital commerce business with global operations in North America, Europe and Asia. The event, Global Brand, Local Commerce: Evolution of Lands’ End into a Digital Commerce Powerhouse, will be held at 4pm on June 18 and free to attend. For more information and to register for the event, visit the Demandware webinar page here. More information about our webinar programme is available here.
Jumpstart events
Internet Retailing’s signature JumpStart events offer a chance for retailers to get quickly up to speed on the latest developments in a given area, hearing directly from expert suppliers and identifying and presenting the key questions retailers need to ask when procuring their own systems. Each full-morning event is held in Tower 42, 25 Old Broad Street, London and retailers can register to attend for free here.
Cross-channel is the subject for tomorrow’s JumpStart event (June 5), where the focus will be on the customer, how they use as many touch points and channels as we’re willing and able to offer and how we combine behavioural data with service values, technology, people and process to deliver for them. Delegates will take away ideas, examples and case studies to extend selling activities beyond the web interface. Find out more and register to attend here.
The customer experience is in focus for the event of June 19, when we’ll be looking at how to provide an enhanced customer experience, not only optimising each channel but also considering how to bridge the experience over time and across channels. Topics will include interaction design, service planning, testing and customer service, delivery and logistics, and extend to how best practice analytics and behavioural tracking can help us towards that elusive ‘single view of the customer’ in order to sell more effectively. Find out more and register to attend here.
