On Tuesday it was announced that we here in Australia are going to be blessed with our own form of the US online retail discounting event, 'Cyber Monday'. Next Tuesday from 7pm will see up to 150 retailers slash their online prices - by between 15 and 90 per cent - for 24 hours for Click Frenzy. Dubbed by marketers as “the sale that stops a nation” (ah Spring Racing Carnival references), they’re predicting “Click Frenzy will be the most spectacular event in Australia’s online retail history.”
There are some big names signed on,
including Myer, Westfield, Target, Dick Smith, Jeanswest, Dan Murphy’s, Saba,
Priceline and Adairs to name but a few. This level of participation indicates
that there has finally been a shift in the mindset of mainstream retailers to
embrace e-commerce rather than bemoan both local and international online
competitors eating into their sales. Harvey Norman’s absence from the list
perhaps suggests though, that not quite all doubters have jumped onboard for
the digital ride to the future!
These bricks and mortar retailers will
truly be going head to head with their online competitors, as pure e-tailers
such as Kogan, The Iconic, StyleTread and Booktopia will also be involved in
Click Frenzy. Now we’ll be able to assess who’s really offering us the best
deals.
Click Frenzy is going
to expose just how geared up these retailers are for trading in a store that
fits into your iPad – or even more challenging, into your mobile. Has there
been the same attention to detail paid to the UX (user experience) of their
site as there is to the layout and merchandising of their physical stores? Have
they invested in round the clock technical support for the site like they
invest in staff training? Have they increased their bandwidth to cope with “the
enormous concurrent traffic volumes” projected next week?
There’s been enough talk about the move
to online – now’s the time for action. Cyber Monday was introduced in the US
back in 2005… a whopping 7 years ago! In that time the rest of the world’s
managed to catch on; UK, Germany, Portugal, Canada, even Chile and our
neighbours New Zealand.
And if the digital clouds do fall down
next Tuesday it will still be a win for e-commerce in this country. The intense
focus on the event will drive home to retailers that they need to pay just as
much focus to this sales channel as they do to traditional stores. It can only
mean a better offering for us consumers at the end of the day.
