Retail power channels revealed: new study
A new study has revealed the digital power channels that are influencing sales for over 400 online retail brands across the fashion, luxury and beauty sectors in the UK.
The research by Rakuten Marketing, which tracked trends across the company’s network of over 200,000 UK publishers, highlights differences in buyer behaviour across shopping audiences; from the rise of beauty bargain hunters to the influence of shoppable content for luxury browsers.
Rakuten Marketing managing director Mark Haviland said: “Brand managers today have the unenviable task of attributing budget across an ever expanding number of marketing channels. As a result, shopper insight data is becoming essential to simplify the process and allow more informed decisions to drive measurable return on investment.”
Looking at the beauty industry, the data reveals that UK shoppers remain highly motivated by a timely deal, with 40% of beauty sales through the network incentivised by vouchers or special offers. The second biggest driver of beauty purchases was loyalty and cash back schemes such as Nectar and Quidco which accounted for 33% of sales through the site.
In addition, beauty brands were most likely to convert buyers through a tablet while beauty shoppers were found to be more likely to make a mobile purchase than luxury or fashion shoppers.
Meanwhile luxury shoppers were revealed as being more content and advice focused when making a purchase. The data shows that 66% of luxury sales were motivated by shoppable style guides such as Fashion Beans and SheerLuxe, as well as shopping curation sites like Polyvore and ASOS Fashion Finder. A further 8% of purchases were driven by lifestyle and fashion blogs.
In addition, luxury shoppers were found to be more likely to buy through a tablet than PC although they were the least likely shoppers to buy through a mobile.
The study shows that fashion shoppers are “highly likely” to be tempted by special offers and vouchers, with deal sites dominating 32% of sales through the network. Loyalty and cash back sites came in a close second accounting for 29% of sales volume for fashion hunters. However, content sites were also found to play a significant role with style comparison sites such as ShopStyle accounting for around 13% of sales and shopping guides a further 5% of trade.
