Competition in retail has never been harder – and the pace of change is ever accelerating. Just as traditional bricks and mortar shops have evolved to have a web presence, they are now faced with the challenge of integrating other new channels, such as social commerce and mobile into their strategies.While social commerce is still in its infancy, customers are increasingly looking to interac...
Online retail is becoming ever more competitive, meaning that for retailers the experience and service they provide for their customers is crucial to winning and retaining business.So new research from Experian should act as a wake-up call to ecommerce companies. It found that an estimated £1.02bn of online shopping transactions were abandoned by UK consumers in 2011, with 20% giving up on t...
The current recession is claiming more victims amongst hard-pressed retailers, with Game the latest company to file for administration. And new figures show that it is not just bricks and mortar retailers that are suffering, as UK ecommerce growth is also slowing. While UK shoppers spent £5.4 billion online in February 2012, this was the weakest growth since January 2010, with sales only cli...
The Christmas shopping season was bruising for some retailers, with high street names such as Hawkins’ Bazaar, La Senza and Black’s Leisure all plunging into bankruptcy. Overall sales were up by just 2.2% on December 2010 according to the British Retail Consortium, while e-commerce continued its rise, with online sales up by 30% compared to the previous year.One of the key trends highl...
With the UK in the grips of recession, this will be a make or break Christmas for many struggling retailers. There’s just a month to go until Christmas and while predictions are that consumers will still be spending, they are going to leave it much later and shop around searching for bargains. Customer service as well as price will be a key factor in where they decide to spend their hard-ear...
A new mystery shopper study from eDigital Research points to increasing levels of customer satisfaction with online shopping. The research, conducted in August, compared the customer journey on 51 UK retail websites, ranking them on a number of criteria. Overall the results showed that customers were happier than they have ever been, due to investment in website improvements (particularly search) ...
The continuing bad news from the UK retail sector, with sales growth slowing and more than one in ten high street shops vacant means retailers need to focus clearly on customer service if they are to successfully compete in a challenging market.Nowhere is this competition more intense than in the fashion sector, with sales of clothing and footwear actually declining in July. However one brig...
The Institute of Customer Service (ICS) has just published its latest UK Customer Satisfaction Index (UKCSI). Every six months the ICS surveys 26,000 UK adults and asks them questions about their experiences with UK organisations across all channels.Given Eptica recently completed its own research into online customer service it is fascinating to compare the two surveys. Here are the finding...
Following a slump in March, UK retail sales rebounded in April, helped by sunny weather and glut of bank holidays. According to figures from the British Retail Consortium not only did overall retail sales jump by 5.2 per cent, but internet sales increased by 14 per cent.Obviously this is good news for the sector, but as always there are winners and losers. Most companies selling Easter eggs did we...
The next two weeks see an unprecedented number of bank holidays across the UK. Easter, the Royal Wedding and May Day mean that many physical shops will be shut, driving potential customers onto the internet.While this is good news for ecommerce sites, ensuring they have the right level of customer service support to match demand is tricky. Estimating how many contact centre agents are needed on pa...