In today’s InternetRetailing newsletter, we’re reporting on some of the different ways that retailers have found to use digital at a time when shops have been closed and shoppers have turned online.
Burberry has worked with games developer Mythical Games to create branded game elements, engaged with handbag shoppers via social media and used pop-up stores to promote its leather products.
Hobbycraft, meanwhile, has turned online to help share crafting methods, and is now expanding a team of in-store artisans now that its stores are open again.
Both approaches have proved useful in attracting a different and younger group of shoppers who may not have bought from those retailers before and who, in the case of Burberry, are also buying at full price. The emphasis on digital has also helped to drive ecommerce growth that is still well ahead of pre-pandemic levels.
There’s a similar story at B&Q and Screwfix owner Kingfisher Group, which says its sales – both online and offline – are still well ahead of pre-pandemic 2019 levels, but that they are now declining, in the second quarter of the year, compared to the lockdown boom it saw a year earlier.
A new RetailX research report, out today, shows that customers now increasingly go to marketplaces when they are looking for brand products – and considers how both brands and marketplaces can make the most of working together. The RetailX Brands and Marketplaces 2021 report is now available to for InternetRetailing members to download.
Today we also report as AO opens a rework facility as it looks to ensure that returned items can be reused.
Today’s guest comment comes from Danny Shields of Avetta, who considers what long-term lessons retailers should take for their supply chains from the Ever Given ship that got stuck for six days in the Suez Canal.
