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Zara’s plan to bring ‘online in-store’ in London has interesting impact on traffic, analysis suggests

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Having transformed its flagship store in London’s Westfield to bring online into the store, Zara has seen online and mobile traffic change dramatically – although, it has bucked the mobile trend.

Back in March started work on a revamp of its store, promising to offer a “radical new store concept with technology at its heart”, that is “designed to transform the customer shopping experience”.

The store features stock, but also allows shoppers to buy online in store as well as arming staff with mobile devices to help customers who can order for same or next-day delivery or collection. Store features include a product recommendation system based on information screens embedded in mirrors. When customers scan an item they are interesting in using RFID technology, the system brings up other items that would go with the item they have, in order to create an outfit.

And analysis of Zara’s traffic while the process has been underway paints and interesting picture. According to SimilarWeb, which monitors web traffic, between May 2017 and April 2018, zara.com received 52.1 million visits in the UK, a 15.1% decrease from the previous year. Additionally, 47.0% of zara.com’s traffic was from desktop – considerably above the clothing industry average of 35.1%. As the new initiative utilizes smartphones and tablets, familiarizing customers with the mobile web experience will be vital.

Across the same period, in the UK, the average mobile visitor was on zara.com for 6:53 minutes, visited 7.48 pages. Comparatively, during this same time period in the UK, a desktop visitor was on-site for 7:32 minutes, and visited and average of 10.86 pages.

This indicated that zara.com has higher engagement across desktop, yet the industry favors mobile as 64.9% of the clothing industry traffic is from mobile web. In the UK, the clothing category sees the average mobile web visitor on-site for an average of 06:01 minutes, and visiting and average of 12 pages.

Gitit Greenberg, Direct of Digital Insights, SimilarWeb comments: “Zara’s move to leverage their offline strength to drive online value is very sophisticated and mirrors moves by other retail giants like Lowes in the US. Beyond the direct benefits of increasing the sophistication of their eCommerce capabilities, they are also making moves to adapt more effectively to UK online usage patterns. Over the last 12 months, 47.0% of zara.com’s UK traffic was from desktop, considerably above the UK clothing industry average of 35.1%. Offline eCommerce pushes indicate a push to make mobile a centrepiece of their strategy, and this could help Zara drive new online opportunities.”

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