Is John Lewis the one to watch? The winners and losers in online retail
In this new illustrated column, James Hammersley looks behind the business headlines of the past few weeks by comparing the ecommerce performance of the companies mentioned in the articles against their key competitors and benchmarks them to separate out the real winners and losers.
As reported in the financial press, the UK high street, both physical and virtual, is one of the most competitive in the world. Whilst commentators and analysts focused on the relative success of the multi channel retailers they stuck with the obvious story: the success of John Lewis.
An analysis of the ecommerce performance of the leading multi-channel brands vs Amazon in July suggests, however, that the opportunity to make the most significant impact lies with the less glamorous catalogue store retailer Argos.The question is whether it will be able to transform the opportunity it has into reality.
Benchmarking ecommerce performance
Ecommerce comparisons give an incisive snapshot and can provide insight to explain the headlines. By comparing traffic and the efficacy of paid advertising you can make some well-founded assumptions as to which competitor is best at converting interest into sales.
By looking at landing pages you can assess who is thinking more about customer needs and by looking at the tools they use to understand their customers you can see who has got the intention to create deep insight against which they can drive sales growth.
Winners are those whose outcomes consistently beat their competitors in every area. Losers are those who, whilst they may have every tool at their disposal, are not using them effectively to drive growth.
James Hammersley is a founding partner of Good Growth. He is also the co-author of ‘Leading Digital Strategy’, a guide to ecommerce strategy