Posted by Harrace, Senior Internet Marketing Coach

Greetings from Harrace and Fione in London!

We are spending our Christmas and New Year in Europe, starting with London and keeping an eye on the websites and eCommerce development here, for the purpose of gathering information for our upcoming Internet project in 2009.

In Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore, I seldom saw any websites ad on TV. However, it´s quite common for websites ads to appear on TV in London, and most of the non-website ads would also have the website addresses stated clearly.

From Christmas Eve in London

How is the financial tsunami hitting the UK? All the retails shops are offering unprecedented lowest discounts starting from Boxing Day. 50% discount is the norm, including famous brands such as Armani AX, Body Shop, Top Shop, River Island, and some even offering up to 70% off, such as Debenhams.

From Christmas Day London

Fione in front of an ad in a department store in London

From Christmas Day London

With this kind of discounts, I can see shoppers packing most of the shops and lining up in long queues in front of the cashiers.  I was one of them!

However, retails sales is still experiencing a drop this Christmas.

What about online sales? This is still experiencing growth! On Christmas day alone where most of the shops were closed, 5 million people went online and spent 104 million British pounds, up from 84 million pounds in 2007.    

Why the surge in online sales? According to survey, British consumers are more confident than ever to use their credit cards online. Faster broadband has made it easier to shop online. And they are less scared about retailers failing to deliver in time because retailers have got better in fulfilling orders.

But I think the main reason is that retailers are now more Internet savvy and use the Internet marketing to do promotions as well as do Internet retailing. For example, some high street retailers started their sales online on Christmas day while their physical stores were closed, and allow customers to collect their purchase items in the store.

Of course, those who are also savvy in doing Internet marketing will benefit most, and those who still didn’t embrace it will miss the boat and lose out to their competitors.