Bruce Fair, Managing Director, Kelkoo UK http://www.kelkoo.co.uk/

How online retailers can maximize grow in the face of a high street slowdown

With a tough Christmas, growing economic unease and low consumer confidence there is tangible sense of unease amongst high street retailers. Their online counterparts however have never had it so good. Day on day sales records in the build up to Christmas, huge investment from major high street names and consumers snapping up bargains from their desktops.

Over recent months, increasing numbers of retailers, including the likes of John Lewis have been sugaring the pill of poor high street sales with huge online growth. This is more than masking bad news but the mark of a sea-change as online sales change from being a handsome bonus to the lynchpin of retailers revenues and strategies.

Growing sales during a downturn however, isn't necessarily straightforward. Online shopping is coming of age and e-tailers need to understand and exploit such a dynamic and changing market.

This Christmas, a tide of discounting saw the high street undercut the web prices and pull itself through what many thought would be a glum festive season. Online meanwhile, sales remain buoyant and in many instances, such as with the Nintendo Wii, prices rose as demand grew. The message for consumers was quite clear: if all you want is a bargain, you need to be patient, not online. The lesson for retailers is that web sales are no longer just based on price and can offer returns where the high street suffers.

So, if driving online sales isn't about competing on savings then how do retailers grow margins? What we see here at Kelkoo http://www.kelkoo.co.uk/ , is that service, is increasingly the key deciding factor for online shoppers. Consumers want trusted brands, reliable services, security, peace of mind and good delivery, and not just a few pounds off the latest electrical appliance.

Are you being served?

One of the biggest opportunities for online retailers to improve their service levels is delivery and if there is one area where cost is undermined in the purchasing decision process, this is it. The consumer's dichotomy is whether the price of a purchase out weighs the inconvenience caused awaiting delivery. For instance, are the savings that can be had on books, CDs or video games worthwhile when a trip to the collections office is required? Or is a £10 saving on a vacuum cleaner undercut by the cost of taking a day off work waiting for home delivery? I for one, would be interested to see how many days holiday we take every year awaiting deliveries and whatever it is, I'm sure we'd all rather use that time enjoying ourselves.

The reality is simple; retailers with the best delivery services sell more goods and have the most loyal customers. We always recommend that our merchants look to the IMRG and their new IDIS (Internet Delivery is Safe) scheme, which provides clear standards and a universal charter for best practices. IDIS states that deliveries within agreed time frames and retailers have clear and simple charges for this. It also ensures that all returns policies are understood prior to purchase and that the right provisions are in place in case of non-delivery. We can't understand why meeting the IDIS standard would be out of reach for an e-tailer of any size and can see, on a day to day basis just how well received these standards are with consumers.

As safe as houses

Trust and peace of mind are some of the most important factors for online shoppers and companies that offer these successfully usually achieve the best return custom.

Security is a key element of peace of mind and it is easy to see why - APACS, the UK payments association recently have revealed that card transactions have risen 25% in the last year with a total value of £535.25m. Add to this the constant media coverage of identity fraud and you can get the impression that we are being targeted from all angles. So when selling online, we should be doing all we can to allay such fears.

The security of data and transactional processes is only one side of the coin as peace of mind is not just about being secure, but feeling secure and being reassured of this. It is easy to point to the padlock, in the corner of a web browser, but retailers should invest as much in showcasing their security credentials as they do backing them up.

One project that I really admire is the ISIS (Internet Shopping is Safe) initiative, run by the IMRG which sets higher standards of security and compliance for retailers to meet, with retailers who meet these standards being able to display an ISIS plaque on their Shopping pages.

In addition, the ISIS logo will appear next to the retailer's product feeds on their listings on leading search and shopping engines giving them a salient advantage over competitors. In fact we are seeing products that feature the ISIS certificate consistently attracting greater volumes of traffic and sales than those that don't.

At Kelkoo http://www.kelkoo.co.uk/ , we're putting our full weight behind IDIS and ISIS and are the only shopping comparison site to include ISIS qualification in our search results. We also plan to become the first shopping engine to include the IDIS badge on our results. This is not just because they help our merchants, but also because when consumers see that Kelkoo http://www.kelkoo.co.uk/ highlights merchants who meet these standards, they put greater confidence in us as a shopping destination.

Would Sir like that Gift Wrapped?

Peace of mind isn't just about payment security, but is a grander feeling derived from every point of contact between a brand and a customer. We like to see these interactions as the 'gift wrapping' of online shopping - digital version of quality high street shopping experiences that we all enjoy. It is about emulating the well-mannered shop assistant, the comfortable shop surroundings and even the suitable background music.

On the high street the luxury sector has remained solid as consumers are happy to spend with trusted, high-end brands they can depend on for quality and service. What we are proposing is that online retailers heed this trend and look at how the service they deliver can emulate this. Whilst I do think more luxury and fashion brands will grow their online presences in the next 12 months, emulating them may sound a little much for some, but if consumers don't feel 100% happy with their online shopping experience, they will go elsewhere. If someone has a bad experience with a small purchase, then they certainly won't come back when they are making more sizeable investments. The truth is, offering good service is just as important whether you are selling a £5 digital memory chip or a Prada handbag for the best part of £1,000.

There are a number of ways that e-tailers can deliver on this. The basics such as web design, reliable hosting and page loading speeds are important at making first impressions whilst clear product descriptions, images and pricing all help in converting browsers into buyers. One step up from this, offering a range of trusted payment options, a smooth checkout process and good delivery options can prove vital in converting sales.

On top of these foundations, consumers are demanding clear, quality channels for communication with sellers and that the tone of these interactions are personal, polite and have a human feel. Customers need to know that they are loved and valued and there are few things better at doing this than another human. This may sound like dated advice, but the amount of shopping sites that lack the human touch is a little worrying.

Checkout

To sum up our current situation, the pressure on Internet sales is set to grow exponentially in reaction to high street trends, however retailers need to be alert and savvy to the changes on online shopping. Premium customers are no longer shopping on price, but on a wider range of factors that should be at the heart of any successful retail strategy. Retailers should both invest in new industry standards as well as invest in marketing the fact that they meet these standards. Why? Because they drive sales when they are under the most pressure.

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