The soul of online retailing in Australia - internetretailing.com.au. Get serious about selling online!

Yahoo!7 acquires Spreets -

leading Australian and New Zealand online Group Buying company

SYDNEY, Australia, 20 January, 2011 – Online media company Yahoo!7 today announced it has acquired leading Australian online Group Buying site, Spreets Pty Ltd, including its New Zealand operations.

Spreets (spreets.com.au and spreets.co.nz) was the first Group Buying site in ANZ having been in operation for almost a year with 500,000 members and more than 274,000 vouchers purchased since inception.

The Yahoo!7 business delivers a new audience to the Spreets site through distribution on the Yahoo!7 Network as well as access to the benefits provided in Australia and New Zealand through its joint venture partners Yahoo! Inc. and the Seven Media Group, including marketing and promotions.

JAG and Colorado embrace ecommerce with launch of new web stores

JAG and Colorado, part of the Colorado Group, have recently launched ecommerce based web stores, which allowed shoppers to purchase online in time for Christmas. Developed by the BlueArc Group, the web stores feature a clean and user-friendly interface that provides a secure and seamless shopping experience for customers.
The Colorado Group appointed BlueArc to redevelop brand websites including Colorado, Mathers, Williams and Diana Ferrari, based on a new ecommerce platform. The JAG and Colorado web stores, mark the first phase in delivering ecommerce capabilities across the portfolio of brands.

Online Retailing Is Coming Of Age

Mark Freidin 9 January 2010

This week past is probably the most historic week for the online retailing industry in Australia.  For years now there has been a plethora of “expert” commentary providing reasons why online retailing has failed, both from traditional retailers and from those in the industry or fringe to the industry. The infamous comment by Gerry Harvey that Online Retailing is a waste of time, followed by so called expert opinions that the country is too big, delivery logistics are too hard (anyone heard of Australia Post’s eParcel service, an amazing service that will get a parcel to any address in Australia??), the population is too small and so on, I could bore you with hundreds of pages of commentary from both sides, some true most just hypothesis. At this time in the background a few entrepreneurs were growing their email databases while offering incredible deals on their online stores. Some of the early adopter companies such as  dailydeals.com.au, catchoftheday.com.au  and Kogan.com.au understood online and the web, its democratisation and liberation for shoppers  These companies pursued this segment vigorously to become some of the nations top online retailers.

Online Retail Awards 2011 open for entries

Now in their third year, the Online Retail Awards (Editors Note: Not to be confused with the Australian ORIA's, the Online Retail Industry Awards-Australia)  have opened for entries for the 2011 Awards. These international awards are a unique, non-partisan celebration of the best examples of excellent website experiences and effectiveness, coupled with great design, best practice and customer service. Winners are applauded publicly - online, in print and through PR.

The ORAs comprise 22 retail sector category awards, 6 overall achievement awards and a single top accolade, named the Prix d'OR. New for 2011 are the separate category for Jewellery & watches and a category for Mobile sites. Other category descriptions have been refined or rewritten, based on feedback received from the industry.

The Online Retail Awards^¨ are open to any online retailer, their agency or e-commerce company, irrespective of size of operation, provided the website and online activity presented took place between January 1 and December 31, 2010. The entry fee has been reduced by 25%, reflecting the dramatic growth in the number of entries, year on year for these awards. Full details of entry criteria and fees are on the Awards' website: www.OnlineRetailAwards.com. Entrants are asked to provide evidence of their claims in the form of distilled data that allows the judges to understand the aims of the site and customers' responses. Feefo evaluations can be helpful, as can accreditation by sites such as Very Good Service.

Judges, grouped according to retail expertise, vote independently and in secret for the websites and online retail experiences they deem the best. The judging panel will be selected from retailing, retail media, advertising, marketing services, education, and from web designers, developers and online commerce experts from around the world. Information on the judging panel and the judges' decisions will remain confidential, as in previous years.

Entries close at the end of April 2011 and all entries are submitted online through the ORA website. Past winners and commendations can be viewed at the ORA website.

Support for the Awards comes from leading search engines, e-commerce companies, online payment and fulfilment services, ISPs, supply chain companies, optimization and web marketing organizations. Welcome support is received from Retail in Asia and InternetRetailing, Australia. PlanetRetail the global information and research resource also has links to and from the ORA website.