PESA Professional eBay and eCommerce Sellers Association InternetConference - Gold Coast June 2012
and...
Some notes and statistics over the last few months on eCommerce and Online Retailing in Australia
How
time flies. I recently noticed that its over three months since my last
update, so here one is. Once again my thoughts, learnings and experiences over
the last few months.
I
have formed an opinion that the Online Retailing landscape continues to evolve
rapidly (duh who doesn’t) and changers every three months. Factors that appear to affect this are:
A natural increase in online shoppers
The
rapid evolution of cloud solutions and drop in costs and barriers to entry in
entering the online space are dropping (Shopify, Big Commerce, Volusion, Neto,
Epages come to mind amongst others).
More
sellers are creating online offerings therefore more competition than ever from
local and international online retailers. International
competition continues to increase as more retailers abroad vie for Australian
dollars from local consumers. The
uncertain economic landscape in Australia
more.....
I
recently attended the PESA Internet Conference at the Gold Coast. (Click HERE to see photos) This is the first
time I have attended a PESA conference, and I have to say I was pleasantly
surprised, and a big thank you to Phil Leahy (The organsier and founder) for
inviting me to attend. PESA (Professional eBay sellers association) has morphed
into the Professional eBay and eCommerce sellers association. (SEE VIDEOS OF PRESENTATIONS HERE)
The event was held over two and a half days and included a wonderful charity Gala dinner (funds were raised for the Reach Foundation). There were many networking opportunities as well as many familiar faces and friends. I managed to chat with many eBay sellers attending the conference, most have migrated to some form of Magento, the ecommerce CMS platform that was recently acquired by eBay, and unsurprisingly allows users to integrate their stock via a data feed into the eBay marketplace as well. Magento is apparently used by 25% of the top 500 Internet Retailers in theUS
The event was held over two and a half days and included a wonderful charity Gala dinner (funds were raised for the Reach Foundation). There were many networking opportunities as well as many familiar faces and friends. I managed to chat with many eBay sellers attending the conference, most have migrated to some form of Magento, the ecommerce CMS platform that was recently acquired by eBay, and unsurprisingly allows users to integrate their stock via a data feed into the eBay marketplace as well. Magento is apparently used by 25% of the top 500 Internet Retailers in the
Magento
is a hotly debated topic. Some developers complain that it is a cumbersome
beast to set up, and it requires powerful servers as it is resource intensive.
There are arguments to develop from the ground up (reinvent the wheel) or look
at alternatives such as Interspire (Big Commerce's hosted version of their
cloud based )software
Some
highlights form the conference were as follows:
Deb
Sharkey from eBay gave a wonderful overview of changes coming up at eBay. eBay
has been a little slow at listening to users, however I believe the ongoing
threat of Amazon as a serious alternative marketplace, especially since Amazon
is looking at sites to set up distribution in Australia Australia
eBay
has been working on an algorithm of relevance for example vendors who have a
combination of price, service, delivery
times, ranking etc will rank higher up in the sales listing .This
encourages all eBay sellers to go out of their way to offer an excellent all
round offering to customers otherwise risk their products being ranked lower in
natural search listings on eBay.
Sharkey
went on to say that its All just commerce now and the distinction between ecommerce
and traditional retail are starting to blur (we knew that).
Some other interesting stats;
o
The UK , and Australia
o
Every 5 minutes
on eBay Aust, a pair of ladies shoes and a hand bag are bought via mobile
o
The most
expensive item bought on eBay mobile was an 18ct gold watch for $21,500
Australia
Post's Ahmed Fahrour also spoke at the conference, Australia Post under his
leadership is certainly embracing the future to ensure it stays up to speed
with the rapid changes in the logistics and fulfilment space. I summarised some of his key points :
- 70% of parcel transactions within Australia Post now have some ecommerce relationship
- Competition is coming from overseas eRetail mainly US UK China and NZ, 67% of international parcels come from
- these markets
- There is 60% higher conversion if postage is built into price (thats what eBay says)
- Australia Post says 30% increase in sales from sellers who include freight in sales i.e. free shipping ( wonder how
- they gather this statistic)
- Australia Post is losing $70 million in delivering items below 2kg upu rules
- Prices are linked to mail prices domestically. this is linked to a stamp price not a parcel price
- 70% of online purchases in
- Australia Post is working hard to encourage sales to overseas markets
- Recently launched Pack and Track international for
- this. This service will soon be available into
- Convenience and choice is now a reality today in Australia Post. The first 24/7 smart parcel lockers have been
- rolled out to cater for workers with less flexible hours. Customers using this service will get a text with a pin code,
- which will allow them to receive parcels at designated locations . AP is planning to role this service out to over
- 200 sites initially.
- eParcel and Click and Send users will soon be able to nominate a delivery timeframe called MY DELIVERIES
- See the video Here
Latest data on mCommerce in Australia
o
Highest
smartphone adoption worldwide 52% (Ourmobileplanet.com / IPSOS Apr 2012)
o
Second highest
iPhone penetration 48% (IPSOS June 2011)
o
2 out of 3 phones
sold are smartphones (OFK July 2011)
o
500,000 unique
visitors to mobile web/day 86% YoY growth (Nielsen Jan 2012)
o
Mobile shopping
searches increased 22% YoY (Google Jan 2012)
More about me
I quipped in my last rant that I hadn't had time to build a website promoting my ecommerce
consulting services. Anyway, I managed to find some spare time one weekend and created a page on the
InternetRetailing.com.au website. It ranked on page one of Google under the
search term ecommerce consulting within three days, proving that relevant
content is recognized by Google’s search algorithm (being an article on the IR website
would have also helped) . Anyhow ecommerce consulting sounds pretty boring doesn’t
it, so I thought about putting some oomph into some serious rebranding.
Geurilla Branding! Read on.
Ruslan
Kogan was really impressive when he gave his Keynote at the Internet Conference
I mentioned before. I have written a separate article on his presentation.
Ruslan's recent 6.8% tax on users that use Internet Explorer 7 is a fantastic
example of outside the square thinking and and impressive Guerilla Tactic.
Speaking of Guerilla Tactics, I soft launched a separate brand called….
Guerilla Tactics. The motivation for this is that too many people are falling
into the trap of either doing nothing or just copying whatever everyone else
does. This is a sure way to fail unless you market yourself differently, in
cheap, free or very cost effective but smart way, and this is where Guerilla
Tactics comes into play. Know anyone looking to do things differently, send them
to Guerilla Tactics (or to me) . I’m giving bananas (and other nice things) for referred
work, so think of me and my team
And here is Jim Stewart's take on the conference in June at the Gold Coast:
http://internetretailingau.blogspot.com/2012/07/howtime-flies.html
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