Session launch ACNE Studios
Session is delighted to announce the launch of a new improved pan-European Magento Enterprise store for one of Europe’s true fashion innovators - ACNE Studios.
Trading this iconic Swedish trend setting fashion brand across eight European territories, ACNE turned to Session for technical support and enhancements to deliver a stable, robust and effective ecommerce platform for the brand to extend its reach across Europe.
A brand held in the highest regard by both consumers and the fashion industry alike, Session is delighted to be working with ACNE Studios. For more information, contact Berkeley PR on 0118 909 0909 or see www.acnestudios.com
Poor online/offline integration costs fashion retailers millions of pounds
According to research by Head London, poor digital/offline integration has cost fashion retailers a combined total of over £31m over the past 3 years.
Head started by rating fashion retailers on the Integrated Customer Experience Scale (ICES), taking into account in-store, website, mobile, catalogue, telephone, iTV, and social media experiences during all stages of the shopping process. It then combined this score with the retailers’ financial performance. The result is a clear correlation between a strong integrated customer experience and sales growth.
In particular, fashion retailers are missing out on simple merchandising opportunities (showing clothes as outfits on online channels), and are perceived to be less focused on their integrated customer experience (compared to many other sectors, such as grocery retailers). They also face the threat of department stores who are more likely to deliver better integrated experiences.
Download the full white paper (PDF, headlondon.com)
“Almost half of consumers prefer shopping for fashion online than offline, while 64% consult a fashion retailer’s website before making a purchase.” Econsultancy reports on interesting stats on what customers are looking for when shopping online - whether it’s social media, use of images on product pages, and effective filters for product selection.
Shop your values with GoodGuide’s Transparency Toolbar
GoodGuide have recently launched a new Transparency Toolbar, that gives customers access to ethical information that is not always readily available when shopping online. It is a quick way to “discover whether products are safe, healthy, green and socially responsible.”
The toolbar allows you to shop according to 12 ethical values, including labour and human rights, animal welfare, fair trade, organic etc. It allows you to create a personal filter based on issues that you care about, and apply that to shopping on any ecommerce site.
How it works
Once the toolbar has been installed, you can customise the options as to what you feel is critical or important, and which values you’re not too concerned about. The toolbar is simple and unobtrusive, appearing at the bottom of the web browser only when visiting ecommerce sites.
Products are given a rating according to the values that you care about. The toolbar will also show other products that compare to the one you initially selected, but that have higher ratings in the areas you’ve marked as ‘critical’. By clicking the Full Rating button, you’ll be able to see a full product analysis and ‘top alternatives’ that might better match your ethical values.
What it means for shoppers and retailers
The great thing about this toolbar is that it allows users to shop based on what they want to see and what they look for in a product, rather than what retailers want them to see.
For retailers this could be a wake-up call to make sure that products are fair trade where possible, and that products are made, transported and sold in an environmentally-friendly way. For fashion retailers, an area of high impact is likely to be labour and human rights. If it’s so easy for shoppers to see that an item of clothing has been made by a child in a sweatshop, it is likely to deter some consumers from buying - especially if ethical alternatives are on offer.
At the moment the toolbar is only supported by amazon.com in the UK - but other retailers are following soon (Target, Walmart and Google products, among others). We expect it to hit the UK very soon.
Europe vs Rest of World shopping habits….
Today’s little piece of ecommerce info - this article and infographic on ‘Online Shopping around the World’ by MyCouponCodes.com reveals, among other things, that Europeans are the least critical online audience compared to their fellow shoppers globally. See the full article here.
Impressive figures as reported by Internet Retailing: in February, UK shoppers spent an average of £79 per person on online purchases (20% increase compared to the same period last year).
