24 Feb 09 Offline retailers are reclaiming online market share

 

Traditional retailers are reclaiming the ground lost to ‘e-tailers’ (online only retailers) over the past few years, with over 3.5 million unique visitors searching catalogues online for in-store offers over the December shopping period.

Bricks-and-mortar retailers reclaimed market share from e-tailers over the Christmas shopping period, with more than 3.5 million unique visitors searching the catalogues of retailers published on Salmat DigitalForce’s Lasoo.com.au and Dynamic Catalogue platforms during December.

The figure is an aggregated total of unique visitors throughout the month to Lasoo.com.au and the 20-plus Dynamic Catalogues hosted within the sites of individual retailers, including major brands such as Target, BIG W, Myer and Dick Smith.

Previous Christmas retail periods indicated a trend towards consumers engaging more with e-tailers’ at the expense of the bricks and mortar retail brands. This was largely attributable to the fact that time-poor consumers were easily able to find exactly what they were looking for on the internet from the online retailers, while traditional retailers struggled to make their brands and offers discoverable online.

Since the November 2007 launch of Lasoo.com.au, which allows consumers to search catalogues and offers from various retailers; and Dynamic Catalogue, a managed catalogue hosting solution that sits within the retailer’s own site; offline retailers have had an effective way of making their catalogue offers visible to consumers online. What’s more, the technology behind Lasoo.com.au and Dynamic Catalogue allows these offers to appear towards the top of search results from search engines such as Google. Until Lasoo and Dynamic Catalogue, these search results pages were previously dominated by e-tailers.

Pre-Shopping has become a growing trend for online shoppers seeking instant gratification, as witnessed by e-tailers with conversion rates around 1% to 4%. Retailers have capitalised on the behaviour in 2008, clocking up a 24% conversion rate from online–to-offline transactions.

Lasoo analysed Hitwise data by comparing a custom category of the Top 25 Retailers (traditional bricks and mortar retailers) against a custom category of top 25 E-tailers (pure online retailers) based on market share of Australian Internet visits. As a result the year-on-year comparison of the market share of traditional retailers v e-tailers[1] during Q4 clearly demonstrates this trend, with the retailer Christmas traffic surpassing the benchmark previously set by e-tailers as they now seem to have reached a ceiling over the last 2 years.

E-Tailers vs Retailers  Q4 06

Etailer vs Retailer Q4 07

Etailer vs Retailer Q4 08

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[1] Using custom categories (see endnote)  comparing weekly visits against traffic in “All Categories”

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E-tailer traffic included:

shop.lego.com www.1-day.com.au www.abebooks.com www.allposters.com.au www.altech.com.au www.amazon.com  www.ap.dell.com www.apple.com.au/itunes  www.avon.com.au www.bargaindeals.com.au www.bigpondmusic.com www.bodybuilding.com www.booktopia.com.au www.cafepress.com www.catchoftheday.com.au www.crazysales.com.au www.dailydeals.com.au www.deals2u.com.au www.dealsdirect.com.au www.dinosaurdeals.com.au www.dstore.com.au www.ezibuy.com.au www.ezydvd.com.au www.factoryfast.com.au www.fishpond.com.au www.graysonline.com.au www.hp.com www.isubscribe.com.au www.itvsn.com.au www.latestbuy.com.au www.lenovo.com www.liteneasy.com.au www.modyourcar.com.au www.moshtix.com.au www.mwave.com.au www.oo.com.au www.ozstock.com.au www.play-asia.com www.redbubble.com.au www.shoppersadvantage.com.au www.shoppingsquare.com.au www.simplymobile.com.au www.soldsmart.com.au www.strawberrynet.com www.streetsmartshopper.com.au www.techbuy.com.au www.ticketek.com.au www.ticketmaster.com.au www.topbuy.com.au www.wickedweasel.com.au www.winemakerschoice.com.au www.zazz.com.au www.zazzle.com.au www.zodee.com.au

Retailer Traffic included:

catalogues.bigw.com.au shop.telstra.com.au store.three.com.au store.vodafone.com.au www.abcshop.com.au www.aldi.com.au www.angusrobertson.com.au www.bcf.com.au www.bigw.com.au www.bigwentertainment.com.au www.binglee.com.au www.borders.com.au www.bunnings.com.au www.coles.com.au www.crazyjohns.com.au www.davidjones.com.au www.digitalcamerawarehouse.com.au www.digitalhome.com.au www.dse.com.au www.dymocks.com.au www.ebgames.com.au www.fantasticfurniture.com.au www.flightcentre.com.au www.freedom.com.au www.game.com.au www.harveynorman.com.au www.ikea.com www.jaycar.com.au www.jbhifi.com.au www.jbhifionline.com.au www.kmart.com.au www.loadit.com.au www.mitre10.com.au www.msy.com.au www.myer.com.au www.officeworks.com.au www.petersofkensington.com.au www.rebelsport.com.au www.retravision.com.au www.rivers.com.au www.sanity.com.au www.spotlight.com.au www.supercheapauto.com.au www.supre.au.com www.target.com.au www.target.dynamiccatalogue.com.au www.teds.com.au www.thegoodguys.com.au www.toysrus.com.au www.umart.com.au www.videoezy.com.au www.westfield.com.au www.witchery.com.au www.woolworths.com.au