There are many retailers that are still not online. Many claim they are not ready. Some are dabbling—but even the dabblers are unsure of how to truly leverage the success that can be attained. A few weeks ago I attended a launch at a major retailer. They have done a 360 degree turn in their brand offering and are certainly looking to expand their old reputation for a new contemporary one in order to attract a broader more modern customer. At the launch, they had some laptops sitting out with the idea that people could go and tweet from the event at the computer stations. Great intentions but from my perspective here are some ideas about how they could have kicked it out of the park.

Firstly, they had models there that were wearing the clothes, who were mingling with guests and dancing to the cool dj beats. Those models could have had smartphones or PDA’s and circulated through the crowd—taking photos with the guests and uploading those photos with tweets from their phones. No one was standing next to the laptops to explain (to those that may have been unsure) how Twitter works or to ask people to come over and tweet. They could have engaged their twitter followers to come to the event and created a “tweet up” for those that came to the event via the tweet invite. They could have had a contest, with the entry being a mention and hash tag of the event for those that were attending, and selected the winner via their tweet profile name. Simple and easy ways to get started, engage and connect with your customers online and integrate the great offline and in-store milestones—using a simple but 21st digital strategy—to begin to build the community you want to engage, as these customers are online shoppers. Both for research as well as purchasing.

I came across and article today where a diagram is worth a million words. It comes from Fast Company and is written by Maccabee Montandon. It says that online sales continue to soar—and those that are looking to refresh, rebuild or expand their brand should be aiming their efforts to this eager and willing customer base that is looking to their favorite retailers to be engaging them to shop online!

Quoted from the article and most eye opening is the following: “Perhaps the most eye-opening figure of all is the average amount that an Internet shopper spent last year: $1,006.50. Sure buys a lot of Lady Gaga downloads.” Wowza! That’s worth getting in the game!

Best Nicole

Click, Buy, Repeat: Consumers Flocking to Virtual Shopping More Than Ever

BY Maccabee MontandonThu Mar 11, 2010

It’s been the retailing story for years–and new research says it still is! Yes, online sales continue to soar, recession be damned. We were all probably at least vaguely aware of this phenomenon but to see it in such stark numbers astounds anew. Perhaps the most eye-opening figure of all is the average amount that an Internet shopper spent last year: $1,006.50. Sure buys a lot of Lady Gaga downloads. Or these.

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