21/01/2011

By Scott Thompson

Retailers are ignoring the benefits of mobile and social shopping, according to research conducted by e-commerce outfit, One iota. The study analysed the online sales channels of the UK’s top 100 retailers and found that only one in five have a mobile optimised version of their website.

It also showed that social shopping experiences were being virtually ignored. Whilst 65 per cent of retailers have a Facebook ‘fan’ page, only four per cent have an integrated shopping function within their fan pages. In addition, none of the top 100 retailers enable potential shoppers to make purchases within the Facebook environment.

The research did, however, highlight reasonably buoyant engagement for those retailers that have invested in a Facebook presence. In total, there are nearly seven million consumers currently engaged on fan pages of the top 100 retailers. Topshop currently leads the pack with over 1.2 million fans - almost 20 per cent of the total number of users engaged by the top 100 retailers in the UK.

Damian Hanson, co founder and CEO at One iota, says: “Following the recent announcement that ASOS intends to launch an integrated social and commerce Facebook store, it’s clear that retailers need to keep up in terms of innovative consumer shopping experiences. However, many of the country’s biggest brands are still lagging behind in terms of full transactional engagement across both mobile and social channels.”

“This will be the year when retailers need to implement shopping functions across multiple channels in a fully integrated way so that shoppers can buy from the brands they love, when and wherever they want. Failure to do so will result in a loss of business through poor conversion and engagement. Facebook is set to become the next destination for online shopping and retailers must engage shoppers where they spend the majority of their time online,” he adds.