Tag: retail

Businesses make this mistake time and time again: their customers buy from them but they never get their details. Then they just sit around and hope and pray that they will remember them...that somehow the "exceptional" service they have offered will keep them coming back for more.

Phil Staub is the Executive Chairman of General Pants, one of Australia's largest fashion brands. As a successful entrepreneur, he explains why good customer service controls the retail game.

In this podcast, Adrian Christie of PayPal Australia talks to Leon and Garry about the exponential rise of online shopping in Australia. With growth rates as high as 400% in the past year, Christie presents his analysis of how thousands of businesses, large and small, are adjusting their retail operations to meet this growing trend.

Gabby Leibovich has established himself at the forefront of the online deals industry in Australia with two very popular sites, CatchOfTheDay and Scoopon. In this podcast, Leibovich explains the business model that he believes has allowed him to weather the GFC and pinpoints the challenges that traditional, physical department stores must now face.

Aussie photography company Eastmon Online is no stranger to innovation. Since launching in a backyard shed in 1961, the business has gone from black and white to colour; from film to digital; and, in recent months, from e-tail to f-tail.

Australia's top biking retail website, BikeExchange.com.au has rolled out some impressive numbers: 535,000 visitors every month, 85,000 database users and over 50,000 bicycles and cycling accessories sold since the site's inception in 2007. In this podcast, Leon and Garry have a chat with Bike Exchange CEO Jason Wyatt about his company's accomplishments and aspirations.

Australian consumers are changing their buying behaviour and are increasingly adopting multichannel as their favoured way of engaging with brands and products. The research indicates that multichannel shoppers will spend between three and six times more that store only shoppers.

Online shopping is an easy whipping boy for frustrated bricks and mortar retailers experiencing a slump in demand. But why does there need to be this demarcation between online and traditional retailers? Surely bricks and mortar retailers have an online presence too, right? Sorry, wrong!

Harvey Norman profits are down by 17%, David Jones sales are down 2.7% and retail brands like Colorado are closing their doors – the future of traditional retail is uncertain while the growth of online shopping (growing 9.3% annually) is taking over. Here's five ways retail can fight back.

According to the BSI, retail registered the biggest fall of all the industry sectors in April with a loss of 1.4%. The BSI, which tracks spending in the Australian market, indicated that sales fell in April across all sectors by 0.2%. Curiously, if one doesn’t take retail sales account, the BSI found that sales have risen by 0.3%, which is the highest rise since November 2009.

Talking Business is a podcast review of the Australian economy, presented by seasoned business journalists Leon Gettler and Garry Barker, produced in association with the RMIT College of Business. In this podcast, RMIT economist Jonathan Boymal breaks down the latest ABS figures on retail spending, building approvals and job vacancies.

According to Michael Blythe, Commonwealth Bank Chief Economist, “The divergence between retail and non-retail spending trends, where women and men’s spending dominate respectively, correlates with the divide in gender sentiment. Department store sales, for example, where women are responsible for 59% of spending, is soft. And this softness is linked to the less positive sentiment of female consumers.”

Talking Business is a podcast review of the Australian economy, presented by seasoned business journalists Leon Gettler and Garry Barker, produced in association with the RMIT College of Business. In this podcast, RMIT economist Sinclair Davidson talks about what’s been described as Australia’s “bipolar economy” with the mining sector booming but other sectors like retail and manufacturing struggling.

Most retailers are going to be better off focusing on a mobile website first instead of a Smartphone application. A mobile website is well-suited for mobile shopping, is typically less expensive to develop, and can reach more end users with one site than multiple applications. Gartner estimates that over 85% of handsets shipped globally in 2011 will include a mobile browser. With mobile web traffic having grown 500% in the last two years, having a mobile site is now a necessity.

Appalogues (see what they did there?), created by Brisbane company Min-i-Mags, is a smartphone application that combines old-school catalogues with new mobile technology to create a product it hopes will replace shopping catalogues -- Australia’s third largest consumer-directed advertising medium (after newspapers and TV).

Retail upstart Kogan is determined to lure Australian shoppers online with discounts on products that are but a twinkle in the manufacturer’s eye. Kogan’s latest innovation, LivePrice, allows consumers to purchase pre-production goods at "up to 50% off the retail price". The further along the retail chain the product is, the smaller the discount.

Top-ranked digital marketing agency, Resource Interactive, predicts mobile devices will rewrite the retail rulebook. And fast. Plus, 68% of B2C companies in North America claiming to have acquired customers via Facebook.

Dun & Bradstreet's survey of business expectations says Australia's economy is leaning heavily on business-to-business trade and to commerce with the emerging Asian markets to shore up the domestic market, which still is waiting for consumers to start spending again.

Talking Business is a podcast review of the Australian economy, presented by seasoned business journalists Leon Gettler and Garry Barker, produced in association with the RMIT College of Business. In this podcast, RMIT economist Sinclair Davidson talks about retail and current account figures and explains why shopping figures are down for the Christmas season. He also gives his forecast on the resolution of Europe's economic mess following the bailout of Ireland.

Australians love pies. We consume more than 300 million a year, yet, by 2003, the category had become... stale. Pie Face was launched to change all that, adopting a cheeky and fun attitude to the sale of a traditional market, coupled with the franchise model. Each flavor comes with a signature face baked into the crust. No humble pie, these. Pie Face is this year’s Big Kahuna Award winner in the Anthill Cool Company Awards.