Biggest Lessons Aussie Retailers Have Learned in 2020

With the unprecedented ballooning of e-commerce popularity amongst Aussie shoppers, online retailers have had to quickly adapt and adjust to rapidly changing behaviour. Online retail has increased dramatically in popularity and has become a necessity for retailers to survive in 2021 and beyond. Here are some of the biggest lessons that retailers have learned this year, and how it has impacted their strategies going forward.

 

Tony Nash, CEO of Booktopia

“E-commerce has moved from offstage to front of stage, not only for pureplay, but primarily for all traditional retailers.  Books are absolutely a mainstay of people’s lives and they’re one deviation from being an essential item.”

 

 

Shane Lenton, CIO of CUE

“I have learnt that to be successful in even the most challenging times retailers need to be more agile to adapt to the rapidly changing consumer behaviour and capitalise on the opportunities this presents.”

 

 

Daniel Agostinelli, CEO of Accent Group

“The importance of a great team who are capable and focused at all times on our customers proved to be our game changer.”

 

Julie Mathers, CEO and Founder of Flora & Fauna

“You need to be nimble and be able to make decisions quickly which could be an entire shift of part of your business, for us that spanned products, marketing and operations. Retail has never moved so fast as it has this year and all retailers had to keep up or be left behind.”

 

Matthew Iozzi, Marketing Manager at Superdry

“I believe 2020 has ultimately taught retailers the importance of pace and agility in an ever-evolving traditional retail landscape. The pace in which retailers produce content has changed, traditional seasonality is finite, the conversation between brands and consumers is not – this year if anything, taught us that content needs to be shot and delivered timely and constantly. 2020 also threw out the traditional retail calendar, stores closed to varying degrees across various states at different periods, teaching retailers to be agile in the way they deliver product, service and marketing to consumers across multiple channels.”

 

Eva Barrett, Chief Customer Officer at Kathmandu

“The acceleration of online means we have to be nimble, we heard from our community they wanted their goods much faster than traditional postal networks could provide, that’s why we teamed up with Uber to be the first Australasian apparel retailer to deliver outdoor gear in two hours. We know that customers want a seamless, omnichannel experience, and we’re constantly working on that, improving our returns process, installing a new customer service platform to enable us to respond to our customers faster.”

 

 

Sonia Nixon, Head of Retail at Openpay

“It’s no surprise to anyone that 2020 has seen trends around online shopping skyrocket, both in terms of purchase volume but also the scale of products and offers available to consumers. One of the key lessons we’ve heard via our merchants is that consumers are savvier than ever, and are aware they can make use of flexible payment plans to get what they want and smartly spread the total cost over time. Retailers that offer their customers choice and flexibility of payment terms will see the greatest returns, and benefit from a boost to brand loyalty in the long term.”

 

 

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