Over the last year we have noticed several prevailing trends across the online retail landscape. First there was the trend towards social as people found new ways of easily connecting to each other online. While connecting with friends was one element, many retailers used this opportunity to successfully create more personalized relationships with their customers through various social networks.

Second we noticed a shift towards local, most famously embedded in the rise of coupon giant and recent stock floater Groupon and the multitude of daily deal sites that followed. The point here is that customers are looking for information and products that are not only relevant to their interests but also to their location - I want it and I want it here and now...

Lastly, we observed a technological shift that one may argue is more fundamental and fuels the trends in social and local. We are talking about the shift from desktop and laptop Internet use to mobile platforms such as smart phones and tablets. An Ofcom report from August 2011 shows that over a quarter (27%) of UK adults are now smartphone users and that 59% of those users purchased their new device within the last two months[1]. This not only enabled them to be more social and to make use of the device's GPS for finding great deals, but it also encouraged them to browse, search, compare and purchase on the web.

We have tracked this development over previous years and have seen search queries from mobile devices surging, particularly in 2011. Looking back on last year, Christmas is the day that mobile queries experience their annual peak. The most likely reason for this is that consumers are visiting their family and friends and are using their mobile devices to compensate for not having access to their computer. In addition, with phones and tablets being great Christmas presents there are many new mobile devices tested for the first time during the same period, which further amplifies their usage during the festive season.

As seen above, mobile Internet usage in the UK became more dominant during the past two months with weekly peaks on weekends. While mobile queries accounted for 14% of total retail queries this summer, the share increased continuously to reach a record breaking 26% on Christmas Day. Within this overall retail category apparel queries reached 27%, while consumer electronics and home & garden queries had a mobile share of 24% and 26% respectively.

What does this mean? It certainly indicates that mobile has been huge this Christmas and retailers capable of offering a good mobile experience will certainly have benefited. Moreover, it means that we may have reached a tipping point in which mobile has achieved enough momentum to really make a difference. Pleasing the customer across all devices and providing a seamless experience is one of the main challenges for 2012 and we are excited to see how UK retailers will deal with this challenge.

[1]Ofcom, The Communications Market Report, United Kingdom

Posted by Ivan Pintar, UK Retail Team

The UK and Dublin Retail teams have created two new newsletters for e-retailers. The UK Retail Newsletter provides an overview of some of the latest product updates and industry insights. Meanwhile, the Xmas Newsletter focuses on how you can improve your AdWords account level basics ahead of this year's peak shopping period.

Posted by Dave Byrne, UK Retail Team

OC&C Strategy Consultants recently produced these videos of Peter Fitzgerald in conversation. Each offers a snap-shot on innovation, future trends and some of the success stories from the world of online retail.

The importance of getting the digital basics right:

Why retailers should focus on putting the customer first:

The success of grocery retailers online:

Amazon's innovation in the online space:

Posted by Brendan Patterson, UK Retail Team

(Cross-posted from the Google Commerce Blog)

Last year, we announced a Nearby Stores feature to help online shoppers in the U.S. and U.K. find products offline. When a merchant stocks an item in their online store, we make an educated guess that they might also stock it offline - and recommend you “call for availability” to see if they have it in their store nearest you. This week, we will be launching this feature for online shoppers in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, and Australia.

We’re also launching a beta version of our Local Availability feature in Japan, the U.K., France and Germany, together with some top retailers in those countries, including Yodobashi Camera, Argos, Debenhams, HMV, Boulanger, and Hornbach. With Local Availability, we work directly with the retailer to tell you what they have available in their stores, and at what price. Whether you’re shopping for a last-minute gift or simply don’t want to deal with shipping, you can quickly and easily find what you’re looking for.

So head to Google to start shopping locally - and if you're a retailer with store locations in our launched countries, follow the instructions in our Help Center to make sure you’re included in our Nearby Stores feature. Local Availability is currently in limited beta in the U.K., Japan, France and Germany, but we hope to make it more widely available in the future.

Posted by Jens Münch, Strategic Partner Developer, Google Shopping

108 days until Christmas and UK retailers are predicting a bleak midwinter for the festive shopping period. Government cutbacks, reduced household budgets and weakened consumer confidence are all factors in the industry’s low-key outlook for 2011.

Extra cost conscious shoppers and industry-wide apprehension are likely to make deep discounting and early festive promotions familiar hallmarks of Christmas 2011's trading activity. Within e-commerce, however, retailers can expect to see more users spend more time online as they hunt for the best deals, discounts and vouchers[1].

In greater contrast to some of the pessimism felt on the high street, analysis from Verdict, predicts that overall e-commerce will grow 16% y/y in Q4[2]. The era when online shopping was limited to only small entertainment items like CDs or books or to relieve the burden of shopping in store is over. Online is a sales channel as significant as it’s bricks and mortar equivalent, with potentially greater advantages this Christmas through its 24/7 availability.

There are 3 main themes which we recommend e-retailers consider in their Christmas campaign strategies:

1) Prepare early and be aware of the days most likely to generate the highest levels of interest in online shopping.

Readiness to quickly deploy keywords, campaigns and creative is as important as ever, if not more so with price sensitive shoppers this year. Forward planning should also extend to the type of messaging you choose to communicate to your target audience. Seeking to incentivise them with deals or emphasising particular offers should be effective techniques.

As part of the planning stage, knowing which days will generate the most interest for online shopping is crucial. In his post for the IMRG, Robin Goad identifies Cyber Sunday and Cyber Monday falling on the 4th and 5th of December this year, earlier than 2010 which should lead to new, record breaking traffic figures[3].

2) Reassurance of order fulfillment.

Last Christmas John Lewis demonstrated the strength of their multichannel offering during heavy December snowfall. A factor in their success was the Partnership’s reputation for reliability, a value which other e-Retailers and store groups can follow their lead in this holiday season. Stating delivery dates in your creative messaging, and covering bad weather queries in your keyword portfolio can help provide much needed reassurance to customers as the 25th approaches.

3) Mobile and Tablet

With greater innovation in mobile over the past 12 months, e-retailers have a better opportunity than ever to connect with customers and encourage sales. “Connected” customers use mobile devices to assist purchases while shopping in-store[4] while over a third will perform their complete Christmas shop on mobile[5]. Start to captialise on its potential by splitting out your mobile campaigns and serve targeted point of sale offers in your creative.

Tablet commerce will also be a major online trend for this festive period. Tablet users spend 50% more than PC web users on a device that delivers either equal or higher conversion rates[6]. As with mobile, retailers can drive increased performance through this channel by ensuring that their campaigns are separate from desktop and serve seasonal, tablet specific messaging.

[1]Google internal data
[2]Verdict Retail Futures, Quarterly Update H1 2011, May 2011
[3]Experian Hitwise August 23, 2011
[4]Mobile Commerce Daily, March 14, 2011
[5]Internet Retailing, August 24, 2011
[6]eBay Executive, Shopatron iPad Research, December 2010

Posted by Brendan Patterson,UK Retail Team

Father’s Day falls on Sunday June 19th and it is becoming increasingly important to gain early exposure to ensure your brand is displaying online at least up to 3 weeks before. The early advertisers are giving people enough time to really engage with their product and their brand. Searches for Father’s day can be seen up to 10 weeks before. As we are approaching on 3 weeks before Father’s day this year, it is important to start your Campaigns on or just after the 23rd of May. We have some tips to get your Campaigns started and ready to reach your loving Father’s Day customers.

Keywords & Ads

Use ‘Father’s Day Gifts’, ‘Father’s Day Cards’ in the Headline of your ad creative or a reference to Fathers day depending on your product.

Create a new campaign so it will be easy to switch on and switch off. You can add in additional fathers day related keywords. You can generate these from the keyword tool and here are some top searches on Google for Fathers day: fathers day 2011 uk fathers day fathers day gifts

Bids

CPCs increase by 2.15 in the build up to Father’s Day. Therefore, it is vital to bid competitively to gain maximum visibility. Look at the first page bids and ensure you are above the first page bid at least. Check your average positioning and if you are falling below position 4, you are decreasing the chance of a potential customer being exposed to your ad.

Mobile

The mobile you have in your hand has more computing power than all of NASA in 1969, the year they put a man on the moon. With mobile internet users in the UK growing from 4.1 million in 2010 to a forecasted 15.9 million in 2011[1] it is clear mobile is a major medium of communication to be utilised through advertising.

To get started, create a mobile campaign similar to your search campaign but only targeting mobile devices. You can target to a particular device, for instance iPhones and iPads.

To ensure you are getting the most out of your advertising spend, mobile optimised sites are easier to use which is more likely to convert. For this reason, it is highly recommended to create a mobile site.

Remarketing

Get your Campaigns live now for Father’s day to build up your Remarketing lists. You can build up a user list within the next four weeks and re-target ads to all of the interested users. Watch this video to familiarise yourself with Remarketing and how it can improve your business.

[1]salon.com, March 2011 & eMarketer, April 2011

Posted by Trish McGinty, Dublin Retail Team

While figures from January and February’s Capgemini IMRG reports paint multichannel retailers as the biggest winners of 2011 so far, with impressive annual growth of 30%, compared to only 8% for their pureplay and catalogue counterparts, the pureplayers still continue to dominate the online landscape[1]. In a recent poll of the UK’s top online brands[2], Amazon and eBay were the only retailers to feature in the top 10, suggesting that pureplayers are still recognized as the heavyweights of online retail despite the growth of multichannel.

With the UK’s internet economy valued at £100 billion, of which 60% is driven by consumption[3], light and agile pureplayers are well-equipped to respond swiftly and innovatively to ever-evolving consumer expectations. One heavily discussed area is m-commerce. With what we estimate is 18% of all UK searches conducted on mobile, it is not surprising that retailers must follow the example set by online sites such as eBay which is currently leading the way in design and functionality. Fashion e-tailers such as ASOS are benefitting from the receptiveness of younger audiences to new technologies by making their transactional mobile sites easy to navigate and replete with interactive images.

But is slick design enough to lure the loyal bricks and mortar consumer who has, until now, resisted the convenience, choice and cost-effectiveness of shopping online, in favour of a real-life consumer experience? The application of new technologies such as augmented reality into the online consumer experience is one of the responses offered by the pureplayers. Integrated into both their transactional and advertising operations, augmented reality has paved the way for the virtual shopping experience, simulating the very look and feel of actual products. An online rendering of the familiar ‘try before you buy’. eBay’s use of this technology is a further step ahead, allowing smartphone users in the US to discover deals and local listings by simply scanning the area around them.

Earlier this year, luxury fashion retailer Net-a-Porter adopted T-commerce by launching a TV channel on its website. By streaming latest trends and products directly from the catwalks with exciting reports from fashion designers running alongside, the luxury retailer enabled shoppers to purchase coveted runaway items in one click. T-commerce is therefore poised to be more immediate and interactive than most consumer experiences. Currently available on smartphone and tablet devices, Net-a-Porter TV will also be available on Google-TV enabled Sony televisions.

With new technologies such as augmented reality and T-commerce, and the levels of interactivity they bring, the online consumer is more active than ever, engaged in each step through to purchase. This could explain why pureplay retailers still have the best online conversion rates, with an average of 4.8% in February, compared to 3% for the multichannel group[4]. By ‘living’ the retail experience through new technologies, pureplay customers are arguably led on a more interesting and seamless path to conversion.

[1] IMRG January 2011 report, Feb 2011
[2] ‘Offline hits back in online chart’, BBC, 22 Feb 2011
[3] The Connected Kingdom Report
[4]IMRG February 2011 report, published March 2011

Posted by Farhana Bhula, UK Retail Team