I know I keep harping on about the great advantages of trading online and increasing your visitors through PPC or SEO, and I know that many of you reading this will already have rolled your eyeballs into the back of your sculls and will be considering selling your laptop/tablet/PC/Mac; but hold on a second, In this age of fast moving tech and armchair shopping, what on earth have Morrisons been up to?
Sales Down
According to the BBC, Like-for-like sales at Morrisons have fallen 5.6%, in the six weeks to 5 January, sending shares tumbling by 7%.
In a statement, the supermarket said: “The difficult market conditions were intensified for Morrisons by the accelerating importance of the online and convenience channels, where Morrisons is currently under-represented”. Basically, as their competitors forge ahead and gain an advantage by customers ordering their products online and having them delivered, Morrisons have concentrated in other areas.
Will it be Different?
In fact, this online service won’t be rolling out it’s first online grocery delivery until January 10th 2014, and even then the service won’t be nationwide. One has to wonder how they anticipate they are going to poach customers from their competitors. Whatever it is, It’s going to have to be something different and something significant.
Losing Business
This shows again, how you can lose business by not having a presence on the Internet. In this particular case it is very surprising that this wasn’t rectified earlier especially given searches for “Morrisons Home Delivery” started in 2007 and rose steadily from 2009 as the graph from Google trends shows:
Google Trends Morrisons
No doubt, the chain will win custom initially from customers who will try the service, but considering how long the competition have been offering the service; will it be enough to permanently win them over?
The Future of your Business
If the big boys get it wrong it’s no wonder that SME’s get it wrong. In their case though it’s more a case of mistrust of the Internet, website developer or online marketers that prevent them committing funds to secure their business for the future. This is very understandable and you do have to do your research before entrusting anyone with what could be, the future of your business.
Get it Right! Go Expert!
Don’t let that put you off, online marketing, if carried out correctly, can have a massive positive effect on your trading. Don’t fall into the trap of either leaving it too late, not committing enough budget or the usual one, doing the online stuff yourself. Marketing takes a time investment as well as a monitory one, so do what you do best, which is running your business and leave the online marketing to the experts.
Update
Since writing the above, the British Retail Consortium has reported that a “record” amount of online shopping was done in December 2013. To put that into perspective, it actually equates to a19.2% growth in internet purchases which is the fastest increase for three years with one in five non-food products bought online. This further highlights the necessity of trading online regardless of the size of your business. Don’t leave it too late!
