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| British retailers swallow E |
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| Talk,
Graham Bower,
10 January 1999 | |
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British retailers have been having a tough time of late. Marks & Spencer, Somerfield and Sainsburys have all suffered from a drop in profits and sagging share prices. Whilst on a low ebb, they all seem to have contracted a rather nasty case of dotcomitus. The symptoms include poorly executed transactional web sites; numerous contradictory press releases; spuriously long web addresses and crashing web browsers.
The funny thing is, British people have not been keeping away from the high streets. Far from it. The Brits have actually become more adventurous in their shopping tastes.
There was a time when almost everyone in this country wore Marks and Spencer underwear, and Brits everywhere would repeat the inexplicable mantra "you can't beat M&S underwear". What's been happening in Britain over the past couple of years is that we've finally realised we were wrong.
Today's high street shopper is looking for better marketed, more exciting, younger brands. M&S's loss has been The Gap's gain. British retailers have been neglecting their brands for years. These companies were such icons of British culture that their owners apparently felt there was no need to promote or market their brand and products. As a result, global branded companies, typically American like The Gap and Wallmart have started muscling in.
Perhaps it's not suprising that ailing retailers like M&S, Somerfields and Saisburys are turing to the web for salvation. Some dotcom gloss may kid enough city traders into boosting their flagging share prices. But British retailers who expect to make a killing on the web, when they still haven't resolved the underlying problems in their core business resulting from a loss of confidence in their brand, should think again. The web can be an anonymous place, and a carefully nurtured brand can stand out like a beacon, driving traffic and creating value. Powerful brands can turn into compelling e-businesses, but ailing brands risk disappearing without a trace. If customers walk past your high street presence, they are never going to type your web address into their browser - especially if it's bizzarely long, like www.marks-and-spencer-gifts.co.uk.
M&S, Somerfields and Sainsburys should take a closer look at the way in which online businesses are investing in off-line brand advertising. Companies like Amazon and Yahoo! take their brand very seriously, and it's about time that the British retail dinosaurs did the same.
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