High Street Retailers Beat Online Stores At Their Own Game
Boarded up shop fronts have become an increasingly common sight in traditional High Streets around the United Kingdom. While American-style shopping malls spring up on the periphery of major towns and cities, the previously thriving shopping areas have fallen into decline. The nation's love affair with the ubiquitous internal combustion engine, allied with local authorities' zealous pursuit of revenue from on-street parking, has driven retail developments out of town.
The emergence of online retailers such as Amazon and ASOS provides a further challenge to the survival of well known High Street brands; a challenge that the major traditional retailers are rising to, according to a recently released report from leading online competitive intelligence analyst, Hitwise. In its August 2008 report, entitled "Can Retailers Have a Happy Christmas during the Credit Crunch?", Hitwise concludes that retailers with a strong offline brand are enjoying higher internet sales than the purely online traders.
Hitwise found that the 100 largest online High Street retailers in the UK, such as Argos, Next, and Marks and Spencer, received 19.3% more UK Internet visits during July 2008 than the 100 largest online only retailers, such as Amazon, Play.com and ASOS. Robin Goad, Research Director for Hitwise UK, revealed that since last Christmas, the High Street brands have led the solely online sites in every month except February 2008. Fashion retailers, in particular, seem to have weathered the credit crunch, having enjoyed an annual growth rate of over 34%. Seven of the top ten fashion websites are strong High Street brands. Fashion sites account for one visit in ten to all online shopping websites.
One top High Street retailer is further researching the correlation between the online habits of its customers and shop floor sales. Argos, in conjunction with marketing agency, Summit Media, is working with Google to find out how an effective search...
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