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 At butterCloudHQ, we pride ourselves on offering a unique, total, holistic approach to your online information needs. We really do go where no website design company has gone before!

Look around! With major retailers (Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s – the list is endless) now betting on the internet as the way forward, you can be confident that building an online presence is also right for you.

No two businesses are alike. You have your own unique ideas and aims! That’s why we take an empathetic approach, formulating a brand new online strategy tailored specifically to your business. Not only do we provide the ideas that will make you shine – we may just as likely guide you away from any strategic elements which, in our experience, are unlikely to work for you!

Here is our 5-point plan for putting together a fabulous showcase for your business.

1 LISTEN: First, we listen. We sit down with you to learn about your business, and assess your needs.

2 EXPERIENCE: Second, we use our experience to identify what will work best for your business and you.

3 DELIVER REAL BENEFIT: In this, we focus on what will get your message over, what will deliver real benefit to your company and to your bottom line.

4 AN EFFECTIVE PLAN: Only then do we propose a coherent and effective plan including concept, design, and professionally-written content, again with a constant focus on what is suited to you.

5 MORE THAN JUST ONLINE: And by working with our sister businesses PrintItForMe.com and our creative design company Pencilcase, we can, if desired, extend your marketing strategy beyond the internet, and into print as well!

from butterCloudHQ

Are you interested in using the internet to grow your business? We are the experts on website design and marketing via social media. Why not call us for a friendly chat on 028 71365300

Further proof this month of the growing importance of an online presence, as Tesco confirms that building its Tesco.com online service will be more important than opening new stores in 2012/13.

The company has now allocated £150m for this initiative to develop its online channels. Tesco’s Chief Information Officer, Mike McNamara, has indicated that much of this will go into Tesco’s website, and also to a new section entitled Marketplace.

On Marketplace, consumers can buy from third parties via the Tesco website, in the same way that they can buy a contract with a mobile phone company instore. Tesco now plans to build the number of products available on Marketplace to 200,000. McNamara also indicated that an eBay-style section could be added in the future, so that customers could sell as well as buy, through the Tesco website.

With the success of Tesco.com, the online shopping and home delivery service (with the snappy motto ‘You Shop, We Drop’), Tesco is now introducing a new concept called ‘Click and Collect’.

‘Click and Collect’ is what it says: you shop from your PC, laptop or mobile phone in the comfort of your living room (or in the office when the boss isn’t looking), and call to your local store a few hours later, to find your goods all bagged and ready for you.

With the unbounded scope of the internet, the development of Tesco online dovetails well with the company’s strong drive for international expansion.

from butterCloudHQ

Are you interested in using the internet to grow your business? We are the experts on website design and marketing via social media. Why not call us for a friendly chat on 028 7136 5300.

Are you an ostrich, burying your head in the sand? Is your business still weak or invisible on the internet? As one of the last surviving dinosaurs, are you simply hoping that the e-commerce revolution will go away?

Well, with a nod to the great Fred Flintstone: ‘lemme tellya buddy, it ain’t likely’.

Regular readers of this blog already know that, for many retail majors, the centre of gravity is shifting (or being dragged, kicking and screaming) away from the high street and into the online world.

The list of biggies now betting on e-commerce as the way forward reads like a who’s who of the shopping mall: Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Dixons, Mothercare, Next, and all of the big banks.

In the UK we spent an estimated £5.75bn online in April alone, compared with £5.23bn in April last year. Thanks to this surge in online spending, the UK is now the European leader in e-commerce. And this gradual transfer towards online shopping and information-gathering is gaining momentum.

Ireland, although a relatively small market compared to the UK, is not that far behind its neighbour: 43% of Irish citizens made an online purchase last year, making e-retail worth €3.5 billion to the Irish economy.

The way we shop online is evolving too. We no longer think of internet shopping as a deskbound thing. We are more mobile as we shop. UK sales via mobile phones and tablets have more than trebled (up 353%!!) in the last year. Time on the train and time over coffee has now become time to browse and time to buy.

Some retail executives have noted that, while they used to view their online store as an extension of in-store, it has now moved centre stage, and is part of core sales. And you need only read this week’s news story about Tesco to see that, in terms of investment plans, they really are putting their money where their mouth is on this.

Online shopping is the modern-day Tyrannosaurus Rex, a predator stalking the high street and carrying off many who still dare to venture downtown.

If you are an ostrich, with your head in the sand and your butt in the air, you should be considerably worried.

from butterCloudHQ

Are you interested in using the internet to grow your business? We are the experts on website design and marketing via social media. Why not call us for a friendly chat on 028 71365300.

 Comrades, the online revolution continues!

Another major retailer is moving ‘from brick to click’ by recognising that the future of business growth lies less in the high street store, and more in the website, and internet sales.

This time it’s the Mothercare group, who will now follow Dixons, TK Maxx and Dublin’s Arnotts group, by ramping up investment in e-retail. The strategy reflects the relatively wide reach and low overheads of e-retail, compared to the crippling rents payable on high street stores, especially in an environment of international expansion.

Mothercare closed 62 of its UK stores last year, and is now planning to close a further 111 over the next 12 months. This will leave the maternity and toy retailer with 95 out-of-town stores and 105 high street shops. The majority of closures will be Early Learning Centre stores, which the retailer believes will result in a £13m profits boost by 2015.

The closures form part of a three-year turnaround strategy for Mothercare.  In order to facilitate this growth strategy it is an e-retail expert, not a ‘bricks and mortar’ specialist, who is now joining the team.

Simon Calver, the former boss of online movie rental giant LoveFilm, will now join Mothercare as chief executive. He will drive forward the launch of new combined online and in-store customer services, a new UK website, as well as 30 international websites.

Mothercare’s UK like-for-likes plunged 6.2% in the year to 31st March. This included a particularly disappointing 8.2% fall in the fourth quarter, which the group said was due to clearing excess Christmas stock. There was good news too, however, as international sales soared 16% during the year, pushing total group sales up 0.7%.

Proof yet again that, not only is the word mightier than the sword – but the website can be mightier than the store!

from butterCloudHQ

Are you interested in using the internet to grow your business? We are the experts on website design and marketing via social media. Why not call us for a friendly chat on 028 7136 5300.

A new milestone in the growth of social media has been reached this month, with the latest figures on doing business and marketing on Twitter.

There are now 140 British businesses paying to actively promote their products on Twitter.

However, their potential audience is huge: Twitter broke the 100m users barrier in September 2011, and has rocketed  in the 8 months since to an incredible 140m users today.

This massive audience, combined with the still relatively modest business community fully utilising Twitter, underlines the vast unused potential of Twitter and other social media for internet marketing.

Twitter has been used for business networking since it became available in the UK 6 years ago, and some concrete numbers are now emerging to measure its potential for winning business.

Brighton entrepreneur Jonathan Markwell became Britain’s first Twitter user in 2006, using the medium to follow new business setups, and offer consultancy services to them. He now claims he can attribute £50,000 of work directly to contacts made on Twitter, and says it now plays a part in most of his business relationships.

from butterCloudHQ

Are you interested in using the internet to grow your business? We are the experts on website design and marketing via social media. Why not call us for a friendly chat on 028 7136 5300.