1. Dave Elston- Head of eCommerce- Europe
Overview of Clarks
Practical experience in Europe
Research from Asia
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13. Virtual Trade Team
4 VM’s, 1 data analyst + trade manager
EU MCR Retail Ops + Project Management
EU Digital Marketing team
Manager and EU Marketing ManagerVirtual Content team
FR, DE, NL, ES + Manager
2 x Webmasters
+ Dave
Team Structure
14. • Big challenge is communication
and engagement with markets
• Periods of great collaboration
and then times of disconnect
• We focus on constantly trying to
engage across the teams,
highlighting the positives
• Not only P&L benefit, which sits
in their P&L’s
– other wins such as store locator
use
– good SEO results and resulting
brand visibility
15. • Our DC is based in
Somerset! Cut off times
tricky..
• URL strategy- went local.
Positive for SEO but also
we want to be local within
our global brand
• The words are all provided
by our native content
editors (even in Somerset)
• Call centre is outsourced,
we work with Sykes and so
far been very good for us.
16. • Nothing new here- got to
be local
• NL- Ideal
• DE- don’t like credit
cards!
• We take ELV in DE
• Also working to take
Sofort and payment by
invoice
• PayPal is good across
Europe
17. • Cliches are true
• Germans are fastidious
• Shop by product type-
shoes/boots
• Shoe Technology is very important
• Planned purchases- market is
quickly into new season
• They like to use internal search
and left hand nav.
• Lots of calls to the call centre
about shoes purchased many
many years ago
18. • High. Very high returns rates.
Payment by invoice could make
this worse.
• But we have our highest
conversion rate and highest AOV
from Germany.
• Paid search is important for us but
is v competitive
• SEO is also very
competitive, especially on generic
terms
• Affiliate commission rates are very
high. It has taken a while for us to
build but now much more
positive.
19. • Cliches are true
• The French are much more
‘emotional’
• Less internal search and
navigation, much more use of links
in content/graphics etc
• Shop by end use (ie workwear).
• Fashion and inspirational features
work well and get high
engagement
• Purchase when need to purchase-
much later start to season
20. • Lower conversion rates and
AOV than DE, but also much
lower returns.
• Price driven market online
• Strong affiliate results
• Sales are very different! Dates
are legal..
• A lot more online retailers
holding more promo events,
esp private sales
• Good SEO results for generic
terms
21. • NL is a tough market
• Much lower conversion rates as
people tend to shop around
• Higher returns rates than FR
• React very well to promos
– We’ve seen much higher response rates
to 20% promo’s vs sale
• As per DE move quickly into new
season
• NL is our highest direct load market,
but also reflects on local marketing
team who are more active than
other markets.
22. • In Spain we’ve seen low conversion
rates
– compounded as we see a lot of traffic
from the americas though we don’t ship
there
• Lots of window shopping and research
• V low returns rates
• Excellent, quick generic SEO results
• Device usage is behind UK, NL the most
advanced.
• Partnerships/working with 3rd parties
has been very positive in extending our
reach
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24. Top Level Learns
• No license to print money or substantial amount of sales to be made
in year 1 of any business plan and break even at margin level would
be an incredible performance.
• Online sales growing across Asia Pac, with Clarks shoes present for
sale across many sites
• The market for full price Clarks new season shoes is quite limited
online
• The cost bases of operating Asian online businesses will be very
different to the UK and EU (Comparatively cheap marketing and
fulfilment)
25. Top Level Learns
• The brand is at risk in all territories from a combination of
grey (parallel) imports, last seasons markdowns or fake
and needs protection.
• Sales of Clarks shoes online are mostly at a substantial
discount of the local retail prices
• Market places (online shopping malls) are the dominant
form of consumer shopping
• The brand needs to establish a strong online presence
now to exploit the opportunity when it comes. The
opportunity in the next 5 years is huge as e-commerce
grows. Get a foothold in the market now before the
market matures and set up is more difficult.
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27. China
• The market is huge, potential of 500m consumers but the market is
currently very small for full price Clarks shoes!
• C2C, and marketplaces, completely dominates and will continue to
do so for some years.
• Chinese B2C AOV is v low and there are not many consumers able
to purchase high priced products yet
• Taobao is the dominant internet sales platform across China
(accounting for some 80% of the total retail market), and is mostly
used by consumers for C2C. Products and prices are cheap. Grey
goods and fakes are prevalent.
• Tmall is Taobao’s B2C platform and both sites are interlinked via
search. To have any ecommerce success in China you must have a
presence there.
28. China
• Most payment is taken by COD or via Alipay, part of the
TaoBao family.
• For Brand Protection, an official brand presence on
Tmall would be v useful. Currently the commercial
benefit is less.
• Our nearest market competitors in China currently make
circa £50k in sales a month from a presence on Tmall
combined with a stand alone site.
• For Brand ‘sites’ within Tmall, sales equate to about 3
large physical stores in sales. Most of their trade is at a
large discount.
29. China
• There is increasing traffic looking for Clarks online.
• We could expect potentially sub 100k visitors a week but
with a low conversion rate around 0.2% (typical for a premium
western brand.)
• Search Engines are lot more disparate than in the UK and
different techniques are used to acquire traffic.
– ie on Baidu you can buy page 1 of search results for your
brand for a quarterly fee and add video’s, image etc
– TaoBao/Tmall is the largest used search engine for
ecommerce as they do not list in Baidu
• A typical sales split would be Full price 10% of mix , reduced
price 90% of mix. Returns will be around 10%
30. China
• A Web site set up could take 3-4 months with a local
service provider. These can provide a full service offer
(contact centre, website build, fulfilment & marketing).
Set up fees + % sales agreement (ideally highly variable
based at launch dependent on volume which is likely to
be low)
• There is high availability of domestic logistics providers,
but local platform providers are less prevalent.
• China requires a more localised solution to the rest of
Asia as market so different
• Substantial opportunities exist in Hong Kong, Taiwan &
South Korea with right business relationship
31. Japan
• The opportunity in Japan is as big as China for the first 2 years
• 80% of the population have access to the internet, with 70% of
internet users having purchased, predominately through
marketplaces.
• Although younger consumers in Japan have led adoption of
ecommerce over 30’s are now showing increase spend online, esp
around mid-premium goods
• Marketplaces are very important in Japan as in China .
– Rakuten is by far the biggest, and has lots of grey imports and
last season reductions. General Brand presence on Rakuten is
low
32. Japan
• Distribution needs to be reviewed to manage grey imports etc plus
presence on Rakutan should enable better brand protection.
• Zozotown is a brand key marketplace and represents a good brand
fit.
• One service provider for platform, customer care and fulfilment
across SE Asia and Japan could fulfil requirements.
• In Japan, service providers who can provide all ecom capabilities
seem to be much less than China so a solution would probably
require a number of partners.
Editor's Notes
Who, what are clarks
Primarlily we’re shoemakers. Been doing it a long time and we’re based in the SW.
But we sell shoes around the world. In the UK we’re more well known as a retailer- abroad generally as a brand/wholesaler.
UK ecommerce site, launched 20085 european ecommerce sites, first one launched 2011Us ecommerce site, originally run by zappatos then by clarks in 2011Indian ecom site live last yearAustralia ecom went live 2 weeks ago,A further 25 clarks marketing site worldwide1 clarks originals marketing site
I work in europe region. Predominantly wholesale business, we run 3 different operating modelsFor each market- subsid, agent or distributor.A lot of my experiences will be through that lens but not all- other learns and tips are same for all.
Trading team, inc Visual merchandiser per siteMarketing team, inccontnet editor per siteOps team inc PMFR and DE based in UK with usFirst sites we launched key to control themNL and ES teams based in countryEngaging with the local teamsBalance between Global consistency and localisation