Online Retail News In Brief (23 August 2017)

By IMRG

In case you missed them, we’ve pulled together a few online retail news highlights from around the web this week.

Here are some of the latest stories in online retail.

ID fraud ‘epidemic’

Cifas found 89,000 cases of identity fraud in the first six months of 2017. That represents a 5% year-on-year increase and ‘a new record high’.

According to Cifas:

people in their thirties are the most likely targets
4 in 5 instances were committed online
Instances of fraud targeting 21-30 year-olds showed the greatest increase

New stores boost online traffic

Multichannel retailers who open a new store can enjoy a boost in web traffic by up to 52%, according to Connexity Hitwise. Those with 30 stores or fewer see an 84% average increase in digital footfall upon opening new premises.

Lie before you buy

John Lewis will introduce ‘The Residence’, a series of furnished apartments that allow shoppers to spend a night sleeping on a mattress before they decide to purchase it.

Gin back in CPI

Gin is back in favour with British drinkers, so much so that it has returned to the Consumer Price Index after 13 years.

The Wine and Spirit Trade Association suggested that consumption in 2016 was equivalent to 1.12bn gin and tonics.

Gin Lane by Willian Hogarth

Contactless payments go from strength to strength

Worldpay has reported a £370m rise in contactless spend during the first half of 2017. The payment processor is attributing the 336% year-on-year growth in part to the fact that some supermarkets and petrol stations are accepting Apple Pay payments of over £30.

Worldpay figures suggest that of non-cash payments in the UK, 38% are contactless.

Two-thirds of luxury fashion visits on mobile

Affluent millennials are ‘reshaping the luxury brand offering’ according to a report commissioned by ContentSquare. Two thirds of site visits are on mobile, and 37% of visits last under a minute.

Wealthy shoppers from the digitally native generation are forcing sites to change their offering to accommodate their expectations, which are markedly different to the traditional luxury fashion audience, the report suggests.

They’ve figured it out

A dotmailer survey has suggested that consumers abandon their online retail baskets ‘to secure bigger discounts’.

39% sign up to mailing lists for better deals
6% admit to signing up to the mailing list with different email addresses in order to take advantage of an offer more than once
7% create an account and cancel after making a discounted purchase

There may be little in the way of surprise there, but given that 52% of respondents felt that brand emails ‘rarely target their situation’, it does confirm that there’s a lot of room for improvement in brand engagement.

Irony of the week

A farmer has thanked the firemen who rescued her pigs from dying in a fire, by killing the pigs and putting them in a fire.

She brought sausages, made with the meat from the sows and piglets, to the fire station as a gift to the crew who rescued the animals. The firemen gratefully barbequed the sausages and reported that they were ‘high recommended’.