News, Analysis and Handy Resources
Another interesting piece in The Age Online featuring 5 lessons in creativity for retailers, drawn from the recent Fast Company 100 most creative people in business list: 1. Bradford Shellhammer – Cofounder & Chief Creative Officer, Fab.com. His lesson in creativity: envelope every product in a story that enables people to form an emotional attachment with the product and an …
Interesting piece in today’s Age Online by Malcolm Maiden showing that the Australian dollar has dropped to $1.01 vs the USD, and is on track towards parity – nearly a 7% drop since the start of March. While this is bad news for customers shopping online, it’s good news for exporters, and it’s really good news for local retailers competing …
In a busy day for retail news, here are some of the stories making the headlines: Metcash slashes 478 jobs: http://finance.ninemsn.com.au/newsbusiness/aap/8445783/grocery-business-metcash-to-cut-478-jobs Federal Court finds Google guilty of deception: http://www.insideretailing.com.au/IR/IRnews/Google-guilty-of-deception-4603.aspx Zimmermann takes New York, opens latest retail outpost in SoHo: http://grazia.ninemsn.com.au/blog.aspx?blogentryid=998114&showcomments=true Dollar slightly higher: http://www.insideretailing.com.au/IR/IRNews/Dollar-slightly-higher-4595.aspx RBA leaves interest rates steady: http://www.theage.com.au/business/rba-leaves-interest-rates-steady-20120403-1wa4n.html Opposition says no to Boxing Day changes: http://www.retailbiz.com.au/2012/04/03/article/Opposition-says-no-to-Boxing-Day-changes/EQCRHOITVR Melbourne shoe …
In the midst of a spate of horrendous results for retailers, Mark McInnes appears to be crafting and delivering an effective growth strategy for Just Group – in both it’s online presence and physical store network, as reported by Stephen Bartholomeusz. While other notable retailers are floundering in this area – Harvey Norman recently announced a dramatic downward revision in …
Discounting has become the dominant factor in driving online business in Australia, as reported by Chris Zappone. Research by technology analysis group Telsyte has confirmed the cost crunch faced by Australian retailers struggling with the worst retail sales figures in decades. Telsyte identified five new online business models based on this trend, including: group buying schemes such as Groupon and …
Miranda Kerr at David Jones yesterday. Photo: Danielle Smith Shoppers opt for clicks over bricks The following article is highlighted as it gives a very clear indication of the state of Australian Online Retail, as of mid 2011, drawn from the Commonwealth Bank’s analysis of it’s internal credit and debit card data. It shows that nearly half of the money …
We often hear platitudes about the value of new media tools like Social Media – Facebook, Twitter etc, and other online community applications in building our businesses, but concrete, verifiable case studies aren’t that easy to actually come by. Especially with lessons we can actually relate back to ourselves. So, it’s great to see this example drawn from Google’s blog …
Brown Sugar, the womenswear group, is the latest retailer to hit the wall this year because of changing trading conditions that have rocked the retail sector and pushed brands including Colorado, Borders and Bettina Liano into administration. The 40-strong chain, established in 1975, is to continue trading under Sal Algeri of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, who was appointed as administrator by …
We often hear that Australian retailers do it tough – suffering from a combination of the highest rents in the world, the highest labour costs, and the highest cost of wholesale goods. We’ll explore labour and wholesale costs another time, but today we have confirmation that our rents are indeed amongst the highest in the world. According to research by …
