{"id":38705,"date":"2013-05-28T14:46:31","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T12:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=38705"},"modified":"2013-05-29T09:17:37","modified_gmt":"2013-05-29T07:17:37","slug":"edcon-continues-e-commerce-push","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/38705\/edcon-continues-e-commerce-push\/","title":{"rendered":"Edcon continues online push"},"content":{"rendered":"

Retail group Edcon<\/a> has launched its Red Square brand online, the latest of its stores to head into the realm of e-commerce.<\/p>\n

The move follows the launch of CNA’s move to online retail in June 2012, and according to Edcon’s head of e-commerce, David Gibbons<\/a>, the group is actively looking at which brands to launch next.<\/p>\n

Despite the move online, however, Gibbons said that the group’s main focus is primarily on its brick-and-mortar operations.<\/p>\n

“It’s still day one in terms of our e-commerce stores,” Gibbons said. “At this stage online is strategically and not financially important to the Group.”<\/p>\n

“It’s also worth mentioning that research has shown that for every order online you can generate 15 in store. Our online sites therefore act as a virtual window to our stores, so we expect the biggest gain to still be in the physical stores.”<\/p>\n

“Online shopping is growing in South Africa. Despite it being a small share of the market, we\u2019ve decided to make our broad range of cosmetics available online because the increased sales are attractive to us,” Gibbons said.<\/p>\n

\"David<\/a>

David Gibbons<\/p><\/div>\n

Red Square online<\/h3>\n

Edcon’s Red Square stores offer over 3,000 brands relating to beauty, fragrance and cosmetics.<\/p>\n

“Cosmetics is a great category for e-commerce. It\u2019s easy to ship and lends itself to online shopping.<\/p>\n

“Customers often know exactly what they\u2019re looking for and a website can provide them with easy browsing of a huge range, good product information, customer reviews and insight about new products, for a rich shopping experience.”<\/p>\n

The new online store is an obvious push to draw in the growing market of tech-savvy females which, according to a Nielsen study, feel they are the most appropriate decision maker for health and beauty purchases, Edcon said.<\/p>\n

“Also it\u2019s important to bear in mind that 92% of these women will share information with friends and family about deals and positive experiences. This is word-of-mouth advertising that cannot be ignored.”<\/p>\n

A unique feature of the site is the free sampling programme which allows customers to select three samples from the range of brands – which will be included with every online order.<\/p>\n

The store will offer free delivery on purchases over R350; otherwise a R45 delivery fee will apply.<\/p>\n

More on Edcon and e-commerce<\/h3>\n

Edcon hampered by IT costs<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Online retail business explained<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

CNA makes e-commerce play<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Edcon has introduced another brand to the e-commerce fold, but says that it’s more of a strategic move than a way to boost finances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":38706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[3315,2065,3312,26,5930],"class_list":["post-38705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-david-gibbons","tag-e-commerce","tag-edcon","tag-headline","tag-red-square"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38705"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38816,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38705\/revisions\/38816"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}