Hello and welcome to August: In Review
We’ve nearly arrived at the end of August, which means it’s time for our monthly roundup of the hottest retail and ecommerce stories to hit the web. Take a look at our five top picks of the month including new research into the serial returners crisis, a video recap of the Luxury Redefined event, a spotlight on one of our customers and advice on how to improve your Facebook Page engagement.
1. News: Closing the Gender Pay Gap – Businesses Must Drive Change
The topic of gender pay gaps has been widely discussed across the past couple of years. But new research from the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee is calling for fundamental change.
Even though this report has been put forward to UK Government only, it could call for change across the globe.
Rachel Reeves MP, Chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee has said:
“Transparency on gender pay can only be the first step. The gender pay gap must be closed, not only in the interests of fairness and promoting diversity at the highest levels of our business community, but also to improve the country’s economic performance and end a monstrous injustice.”
The committee is urging Governments to consider making it mandatory for businesses with over 50 employees to publish gender pay gap data. Currently, it only asks businesses with over 250 employees to make this data public.
This is one story that’s worth keeping an eye on as it could call for SMEs to publish gender pay gap data in the future. Read the full report here.
2. Research: Brightpearl Highlights Serial Returners Timebomb
Speaking of new research, we’ve also been sharing some interesting findings lately, following on from the news that Amazon is starting to ban ‘serial returners’ from using their service.
Through a study of the UK market, we’ve identified which regions are seeing the worst of the serial returners culture. Here are a couple of highlights:
- The ‘serial returners’ trend is costing retailers £7 billion per year
- 36% of all shoppers in the North East admit to buying multiple items with the intention of returning some
- This is closely followed by the number of shoppers in Wales (35%) and the South East (33%) doing the same
You can read the full story here. We’ll be sharing more of this research with you shortly on the blog, so watch out for that.
Are you affected by serial returners in your business? What’s your strategy for managing them? Let’s start a discussion in the comments section below…
3. Retail Success: A Spotlight on Holland Cooper in the Press
We’ve always been big fans of highlighting the successes that our customers achieve, so this month, we’re particularly delighted to shine a spotlight on the media attention that Holland Cooper has been seeing recently.
Holland Cooper was established in 2008 by Jade Holland Cooper and specializes in luxury British-made tweed clothing.
The last few weeks has seen them grace the front cover (and be featured inside) the Daily Telegraph, a highly reputable national newspaper, as well as having an article published on Internet Retailer.
We’re looking forward to sharing more from Holland Cooper as well as our other customers. Stay tuned!
4. Video: Luxury Redefined Event Snapshot
Recognizing there is a shortage of forums for the luxury market, we hosted an evening event earlier this year titled ‘Luxury Redefined’, for brands to meet and discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the sector.
In case you missed the event, there are a couple of ways you can catch up on what was discussed:
5. Social Media: Facebook Page Engagement Has Dropped 50%, According to New Data
The social media management platform, Buffer, released its findings from an analysis of 43 million Facebook Pages earlier this month.
They found:
- Over the past 18 months, Page engagement has dropped by more than 50%
- Images, not video, get the highest engagement
- Posting 5x per day seems to encourage optimal engagement
- Pages for retail brands have seen the lowest drop in engagement (49.5%) compared with artist pages that have had the highest drop in engagement (70.6%)
You can discover all of their key findings here.
Have you noticed a drop in engagement on your Facebook Page? And have you changed your strategy to help counteract this? Feel free to drop your top tips and stories in the comments section below…
And that’s all we have for August. Don’t forget to subscribe to the blog to get September’s news straight to your inbox!
