Partnerize Sales Director Will Wilson has had an article published in B&T. In it, he discusses several paths to retail growth in Australia – with the economy in flux – including offline tactics you can use to drive online sales

Here is an excerpt from Will’s article:

There is no shortage of opinion when it comes to the current state of the Australian economy. House prices have experienced a significant decline, wage growth has become stagnant, and interest rates are at historically low levels. In turn, this has contributed to a “negative wealth effect” — a theory that suggests people spend less when they perceive their assets to be worth less. Put simply, people are feeling less wealthy, which means they’re spending less.

Retail is one of the first victims when consumer spending is curbed, and this is somewhat apparent in today’s Australian retail landscape. We’ve seen established local brands like Big W close multiple stores and global brands like Esprit pulling out of the Australian offline retail landscape altogether.

Yet in the midst of this, it’s exciting to see one area of retail continue to exceed expectations: online. Online retail currently accounts for 8.9 percent of total retail spend, which represents only the beginning of what is broadly referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. It’s imperative that retailers continue to understand ways to capitalise on this growth.

It’s All About Perceived Value

With the negative wealth effect in play, it takes more convincing to get customers to part with their dollars. The best way to achieve this is to create a higher perceived value, and there are multiple strategies you can use:

• Incentivise for a Higher Spend: One of the benefits of targeting online consumers is that you can tailor your discounting approach to influence their basket changes. For example, presenting voucher codes that encourage your customer to hit a certain spend (e.g., $20 off if you spend $150) means the customer’s perceived value is higher, and they’re more likely to increase their basket to get that deal. Another simple, yet effective approach is to introduce free shipping if customers attain a certain basket size.
• Make It Count: Throughout the year, we now have core shopping days where customers are ready and waiting to spend their money. Black Friday and Cyber Monday now represent the biggest week for e-commerce purchases in Australia. So be there front and center to capitalise on the purchases your customers are likely to be making, with or without you.
• Incentivise Online Exclusively: One of the biggest challenges in online retail is basket abandonment. It’s far too easy to add items in and then simply close the browser. So be one step ahead. Incentivise your customers with exclusive online offers that they can’t get elsewhere, and increase their perceived value when they shop with you online.

Incentivise Online Through Offline Tactics

Offline tactics can also help you drive online sales. Here are two key activities that have been proven to work well:

• Customer Loyalty: When a customer shops in-store, it’s often difficult to know how much of their total purchases you are capturing. However, signing up a customer to your loyalty program gives you both visibility on future purchases as well as the opportunity to further promote and encourage sales. By signing up a customer in-store, you can continue to target that customer after they leave your walls with personalised offers based on their purchases and exclusive discounts that drive them to continuously purchase with you — back in-store or on your website.

Read the rest of the article in B&T.