Australian Furniture & Homeware Retailers eCommerce lags behind the best in the world by 1000%
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Williams Sonoma’s eCommerce sales hit 53% of Total Sales of US$5.3 Billion
Australia Furniture & Homeware Retailers should be red faced and their shareholders upset at the state of their ecommerce results in this country. With 2 of our largest Publicly Listed Furniture Retailers not reporting their annual ecommerce sales and not selling furniture on their site without contacting a store or call centre for a quote – hardly ecommerce, I would be amazed if any bricks & mortar furniture retailer in Australia is achieving more than 5% of total sales online, hence the 1000% lag on Williams Sonoma.
Our Direct 2 Consumer Furniture Retailers (D2C) pictured are being given a free run by their slow adopting traditional competitors. While we recognise that the Australian Market is different to say the USA market, that is changing fast and millennials are now the prime target age to purchase their first or second home or apartment.
William Sonoma has defined what’s possible. It’s time Australian Furniture & Homeware Retailers got on board with eCommerce and New Retail Processes, Systems and Capability or get left behind. Of course, that would mean accelerated and continuous transformation which may prove difficult for some of our largest retailers.
Ten years ago William Sonoma were generating 30% of sales via eCommerce and are now at 53%. The only positive for Australian Furniture Retailers is that 10 years ago we were at 0% eCommerce sales and now we are near 5%.
As Mark Twain said “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
6one5 Retail Consulting is a retail & consume strategy and management consultancy company guiding their customers through transformation and change generated by the digital economy.
Our passion is to create awareness of the implications of “New Retail” through our research and insights and then facilitate change with senior retail & consumer management teams through strategy development & implementation. We then train retail executives & staff to deliver a consistent & astonishing customer experience.
Author: Bill Rooney, CEO of 6one5 Retail Consulting Group, a retail strategy consultancy & digital training business.
Email: bill.rooney@6one5.com | Mobile: +61 417 362 073
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