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End of Financial Year Performance – Digital style

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

There has definitely been staggering growth in the Australian digital space during the 1st 6 months of the year. With a new financial year upon us I have no doubt that companies in Australia will continue to shift funding from offline to online. Thus I felt it timely to release a compilation of general digital statistics from the first half of 2010 to assist marketers and agencies alike to build their business case for online marketing initiatives. Enjoy!

eCommerce & General Internet Usage

1. Online Internet Usage in Oz - According to Nielsen, Australians spend an average of 17.6 hours a week online, making up 33 per cent of their total media time.
2. Online retail spend in Australia - eBay-owned payment company PayPal predicts online retail spending to reach $33.8 billion in Australia by 2012 – a significant increase on the $24 billion generated during 2009.
3. Loss of online sales to international providers - 40% of Australians online spend is going to overseas stores. Compare this to the US who are losing 10% to overseas counterparts and this crystalises the impact of delayed online investment by Australian retailers.
4. Average consumer online spend Australia - According to Frerk-Malte Feller, Managing Director, PayPal - in the last six months alone the average consumer spent $1,223 online, an increase of $130 from the second half of 2009.”
5. Retailer online investment in 2010 - According to a Forrester report released in July “online retailing in Australia 2010: Marketing, merchandising and customer service”, 69% of retailers are planning to invest in improved site content and 66 per cent will spend more time on online marketing to drive sales & growth.
6. Online purchasing frequency - According to the ACRS’ latest report: “Value and Optimisation in Multi-Channel Retailing”, approx 36% of Australians are making purchases online at least once a month and 6% are buying online once every week.
7. Online / Offline Channel Effect - According to the ACRS by 2012, nearly half of all retail transactions are expected to be executed by consumers crossing channels - making multi-channel retailing essential.

Social Media
8. Social Network & Forum Usage - According to Hitwise Australia social networking and forum usage increased 36.1% in the past year and overtook search engines as the most visited industry by Australian Internet users in March 2010.
9. The power of online WOM - According to a survey conducted by RightNow 16% of Australian consumers said they had stopped doing business with a company because of a social media discussion they had seen about how the company treats customers. Another 16% stated they had also seen a positive consumer discussion about a company and had gone on to make a purchase.
10. Influence of Online Reviews - A study by RightNow found more than half of respondents (58 per cent) deemed customer reviews and feedback online to be the most important source to influence decision making, of least importance was advertising in any shape or form.
11. Online Community Usage – Australians look to communities of interest such as parenting or sports sites as a key channel for social media discussion – 62 percent of Australian Internet users visited a message board or forum in 2009.
12. Online Video Usage - Australians have a huge interest in online videos and this continues to grow. In January 2010 alone, Australians consumed 33 million videos online daily.
13. LinkedIn Members - LinkedIn has seen one of the fastest growth trends amongst social media sites in Australia, with unique audience numbers increasing by 99 percent from July 2009 to May 2010.
14. Twitter Users - According to Tribalytic Twitter subscribers in Australia are estimated to stand at 2.5 million.
15. FourSquare Members - According to socialmedianews.com.au Sydney FourSquare users have reached the 60,000 mark.

Mobile Statistics
16. Australian Mobile Internet Usage - Australians’ ownership of internet enabled phones now sits at 43 per cent, with 29 per cent regularly using it to search, email, find maps and share their lives on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.
17. Mobile Internet Behaviour - Internet searches are the most popular online activity on the phones. Some 73 per cent of mobile internet users users conduct online searches by mobile now, compared with 30 per cent a year ago.
18. Mobile Device Share - Nokia has 35% share of handsets in Australia vs Apple’s at 28%. Apples share is expected to reach 61 per cent this year, according to MediaSmart.

Search
19. Search Engine Market Share - According to Hitwise for the week ending the 10th of July 2010, Google’s market share in Australia equated to 92.52%, Bing was 3.44% and Yahoo was 2.39%.
20. Political Term Search Growth – Given the upcoming election this last one is a timely. Political related search terms are on the rise - Yahoo recorded a 6829.44% rise on the search term ‘Julia Gillard,’ a huge 8164.49% increase on the term ‘Julia Gillard biography’ and a 2600% increase on ‘Julia Gillard pics,’ from Wednesday 23 June until Friday 25 June. Additional search terms on the rise at Yahoo! included, ‘Australian Labor Party’ (2597.72%), ‘Tony Abbott’ (3107.65%), ‘Kevin Rudd’ (3106.67%), ‘Kevin Rudd biography’ (2042.72%) and ‘Julia Gillard MP’ (1334.60%).

References

http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=C9356544-1A64-67EA-E489E8D76F64ADA4
http://www.smh.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/aussie-advertisers-yet-to-take-bite-of-apple-20100708-102ej.html
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/australians-take-to-mobile-internet-20100429-tszn.html
http://www.socialmedianews.com.au/foursquare-has-60000-users-in-sydney-business-urvey/
http://www.digitallabblogasia.com/?p=408&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
http://www.insideretailing.com.au/Latest/tabid/53/ID/8517/Australia-reaches-customer-experience-impasse.aspx
http://www.dynamicbusiness.com.au/articles/articles-news/online-retail-grow-40-percent-by-2012-1785.html
http://blog.tribalytic.com/2010/05/13/how-many-australian-twitter-users-are-there-and-where-are-they-from/
http://www.hitwise.com/au/datacentre/main/dashboard-1706.html
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/351204/search_engines_running_hot_gillard_krudd/
http://www.buzznumbershq.com/2010/australian-social-networks-and-forums-usage-increased-36-1-in-the-past-year/
http://www.marketingmag.com.au/news/view/consumers-go-multi-channel-for-retail-2238

Written By: Teresa Sperti

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Posted in Digital Trends, SEO, Social Media, eCommerce | 3 Comments »

SEO Roundtable / Conversation Cafe in Melbourne

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

If you currently working in an SEO role or in the digital space and are interested in joining a discussion about the state of the search market in Australia then this event could be for you. As one of the facilitators at the SEO roundtable in Melbourne being held by Internet Retailing, it would be great to see a range of client side and agency SEO / marketing professionals at the event!

Running for a 2 hour period (from 6 - 8pm), this event aims to bring people together to discuss the latest techniques being used to improve organic search results. If you are interested in coming along please visit the URL below.

Hope to see you there.

http://www.internetretailing.com.au/learn-about-seo.html

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Posted in Digital News, eCommerce | Comments Off

Coles vs Woolworths - Round 1 On The Digital Court

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

The 2 biggest supermarket chains in Australia have been battling it out for years. Over the past few years we have definitely seen Woolworths / Safeway go from strength to strength but digital may change this. Over the past year or so the supermarket chains have shown interest and investment in the channel, but just who is winning the digital war. This article puts the 2 head to head on the digital court to see who is winning the online grocery war.

Search Marketing
Whilst Woolworths seem to rank for some important terms in number 1 position, Coles seems to rank for a larger range of broad volume terms. In addition it seems that Coles is actively combining its organic search strategy with paid search activity to provide them with greater share of voice in the SERPs.

Coles 15 / Woolworths love

Onsite Experience
My user experience on Woolworths was unpleasant from the get go. I tried to locate my suburb, by typing in my postcode but the suburb drop down remained empty. When I was finally able to find my suburb I landed on the online shopping home page. Amongst other elements, the page had a banner stating “Our Great Weekly Specials”, so I tried to click on it to check them out however the page didn’t go anywhere. Locating items was also not an easy task, with sub menu’s a little invisible initially. Overall a disappointing site, one that does not match Woolworth’s in-store experience.

The Coles online store proved far more enjoyable. The express shop is a great tool allowing consumers to type in what they are looking for and then the system returns relevant matches. This combined with the product navigation menu’s provide consumers with different ways to shop. The site’s navigation make it easy to locate products in various categories however my only gripe is that the specials sit at the bottom of the search results rather than at the top of the page. Grocery chains spend a lot of money trying to promote specials – why would they not want to promote them online to increase impulse purchases?

Coles 30 / Woolworths love

Mobile Marketing
Coles Online have delivered a great iPhone application to provide shoppers with the ability to create shopping lists to reference in-store, search for recipes on the move, and identify local in-store specials. What I like about the application is that Coles has not just replicated its site, but rather considered what shoppers need on the move. Coles still seem to be however serving up their regular site to my blackberry so there is still some work to do on this front (as their site didn’t work well on my handset) but at least the mobile strategy elements that they have delivered are to be commended.

Woolworths don’t have an app that I could find but I was able to access their mobile site. At first glance I was pleased to see a mobile site – until I clicked on local specials at which point it served up specials in NSW, as my location was set to the Town Hall in Sydney. After resetting my location the site served up more relevant information. Overall I still think Coles have a very slight advantage in this area (you could almost say the ball was on the line and the call could have gone either way.)

Coles 40 / Woolworths love

Social Media

If all of the above wasn’t enough, it also seems ColesOnline is providing customer service help and responding to general feedback via Twitter (positive and negative) and promoting their latest competitions. At present they have over 1000 followers and the discussion seems to be thriving so they are obviously seem making an impact.

Game Coles

With a fresh new brand and pleasant in-store experience, Woolworths have some work to catch up online. Although recent statistics suggest online sales for Woolworths have grown 40%+ I think their onsite experience is probably hindering higher volumes of sales. I anticipate that Woolworths is probably working on its site and digital strategy so it will be interesting to see if there are any interesting developments in this space.

One thing however is for sure the match is not over – there is still a lot of game time. As a Woolworths shopper I do hope to see them move quickly in the space to compete on a level playing field with Coles.

Got any thoughts on Coles vs Woolworths online? Share them below.

Written By: Teresa Sperti

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Posted in Digital Strategy, eCommerce | 4 Comments »

4 Brands To Applaud In The Oz Digital Space

Tuesday, January 12th, 2010

Whilst there is much talk of the lack of retailers embracing the digital phenomenon in Australia, there are a few that are definitely leading the way in the digital space which should be commended. This article focuses on the big Australian brands that whilst may not have perfected all in the digital environment, have demonstrated that digital is firmly on the agenda.

Clive Peeter’s – eCommerce Engine
Releasing their new site in Q3 of 2009, Clive Peeters has shown many electrical retailers just how to build a quality eCommerce engine. The site combines some of the key ingredients to deliver an effective eComerce site which are;
- Robust search capability
- A well structured, easy to navigate shopping cart
- Tailored online pricing strategy to differentiate from in-store pricing.
It seems the next phase of their strategy is to ramp up their SEO efforts as they engaged a search agency late last year so they will be an interesting one to watch as they power ahead in this space.

Sportsgirl – Social Tactics
In 2009, Sportsgirl launched their new online forum to enable its consumers to
- Discuss the latest fashion trends
- Ask Sportsgirl questions about their latest range and
- Interact with likeminded people on other lifestyle topics such as travel, fitness and parties. Sportsgirl are doing a great job at moderating the forums and take up since launch has been strong. As a next step it will be interesting to see if Sportsgirl will take this concept further and crowdsource some of their next seasons fashions through their avid consumer base.

Blackmore’s – Content Strategy
Over the past few years Blackmores have built a very strong content strategy to provide advice and tools on a range of health related issues. Whilst Blackmores immediate product offering centres around vitamins, they have extended the relevance of their brand to help consumers by providing content/tools for popular health & wellbeing categories such as weight loss, pregnancy and general health. To augment their online user experience Blackmores are also offering free naturopathy advice, ovulation calendars and meal planners to name a few – all of which combined with content are driving user subscriptions and repeat visitors to their site.

Coles Supermarkets – Mobile iPhone Application
Coles has leveraged the iPhone to aid shoppers to complete their weekly shop. Rather than redevelop their online site into an app (which seems to be a popular strategy), Coles have defined what shoppers need whilst they are on the move – ensuring that their mobile strategy is fit for purpose. The Coles iPhone app allows consumers to;
- Build a virtual shopping list and then cross off items as a user shops in-store
- Search for specials in-store at their local supermarket or even
- Search for recipes whilst you are on the move (in case you haven’t planned this weeks shop).
I think the only thing missing is the link between a users web experience and the mobile phone. By providing a user with the ability to build their shopping list on site then log in and access it via their mobile, Coles will be able to further increase take up rates. All in all however I think Coles have combined clever with functional to provide an app that extends well beyond – find a store!

Got an example of an Australian retailer that should be applauded for their digital strategy – please share them below

Written By: Teresa Sperti

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Posted in Digital Strategy, Mobile Marketing, Social Media, eCommerce | 2 Comments »

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