Posts Tagged ‘online’
Thursday, August 15th, 2013
The Winning Group’s online sales have notched $150 million in annual sales, meaning its combined sales is a record $350 million for the company, Australia’s leading kitchen and laundry appliance specialist.
The 25 per cent jump in sales was propelled by a massive 35 per cent year-on-year growth in the firm’s Appliances Online and Big Brown Box internet offerings, and 17 per cent rise in Winning Appliances’ bricks-and-mortar sales.
“The retail stores were just over $100 million probably five years ago and now it’s $150m. The websites this year reached just over $150m,” group chief executive John Winning told The Courier-Mail.
“The debate between online versus offline is over – Australian retailers must perfect their business formula across all platforms to earn the trust and repeat business from savvy shoppers,” Winning said.
“We think that if the market turns, our growth could increase significantly, even more than 25 per cent. We’ve ridden out a couple of pretty tough years very successfully and now we’re looking forward to the many customers that we have talking positively about their experience with us.”
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, online, The Winning Group
Posted in Australia, business, internet usage, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores, selling online | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 13th, 2013
United Kingdom online betting giant William Hill has agreed to purchase Australian online betting firm Tom Waterhouse for at least A$34 million.
The online betting site has agreed to pay A$34 million up front and assume A$6 million in debt for tomwaterhouse.com.
It will pay up to A$70 million more on a sliding scale based on tomwaterhouse.com achieving earnings growth between A$10 million and A$30 million in 2015.
Tomwaterhouse.com was established in 2010 and is one of Australia’s fastest growing online racing and sports betting businesses.
It is a privately held company owned by managing director Tom Waterhouse and others and has around 80 employees based in Sydney, Melbourne and Darwin.
“We are pleased to have secured this acquisition,” Ralph Topping, CEO of William Hill. “International expansion is a key part of our growth strategy and making Australia our second home is a priority. Acquiring tomwaterhouse.com gives us a rapidly growing business that appeals to a complementary customer base.”
Australia has the world’s biggest gambling habit per capita.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, betting, Britain, business, Darwin, gambling, Melbourne, New South Wales, Northern Australia, online, online gambling, Sydney, tomwaterhouse.com, United Kingdom, Victoria, William Hill
Posted in Australia, business, Expansion to Australia, online business | No Comments »
Monday, August 12th, 2013
Established in 2013 by Leah Bridge and stationed in Central Coast, New South Wales, Navy Crockett is an online boutique to buy gifts for the hard-to-buy-for man in your life.
Navy Crockett is actually the second business for the busy Bridge. She also has a design studio that she operates. Thankfully she embraces the chaos and variety of running the two very different businesses.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, Central Coast, Navy Crockett, New South Wales, online
Posted in Australia, business, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores, selling online, Success story | No Comments »
Tuesday, August 6th, 2013
Technology Spectator columnist Tim Reed has called for more innovation from Australian small businesses.
Reed said the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) report on ‘Innovation in Australian Business’ found the proportion of innovation to active small to medium businesses (SMEs) increased by 13% in the year ending 30 June 2012 across four areas of innovation: good or services, operational processes, organisational/managerial processes, and marketing methods.
As small business represents 96% of businesses in Australia, Reed said, what happens in this sector has the potential to drive improvement in the domestic economy.
One way for small businesses to adopt innovation is through the use of online technologies, he said. Most consumers are now searching online first when shopping for a new product or service and yet 2/3 of SMEs don’t have a website, meaning a significant proportion of businesses are missing out on sales and marketing opportunities simply by not having an online presence.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, Australia Bureau of Statistics, business, innovation, online
Posted in Australia, business, E-mail & the internet, innovation, internet usage, online business, technology | No Comments »
Monday, August 5th, 2013
Set That has impressed some big players enough to land some lucrative online partnerships.
International retailers like Bloomingdale’s, Marks & Spencer, StrawberryNET and John Lewis, and Australian brands, including Styletread, zanui, Surfstitch and The Iconic have hopped on the Set That bandwagon.
Set That lets consumers explore “sets” of products that have been compiled and curated by other site users to find a suitable product to buy. The user’s profile and shopping preferences are drawn upon to create a customised shopping experience.
The most unique aspect of the website is the financial rewards offered for building and marketing sets through online social media. Set creators are able to earn up to 2% commission, either banked into their PayPal account or donated to charity, for an item that generated a sale as a result of their set.
More than 100 stores have already committed to the site and co-creators, Aussie mums Kim Westwood and Liz Tehan, are in early talks with investors in Australia and abroad.
Projections for Set That are to have 300 registered stores by the end of 2013 with that number increasing to more than 3000 by 2015. The stores are anticipated to showcase 1.5 million products to 200,000 users this year and 15 million products to 2.5 million users by 2015.
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, online, Set That
Posted in Australia, business, Facebook, innovation, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores, selling online, social media, social networking, Success story, Twitter | No Comments »
Friday, August 2nd, 2013
Toby Hartnoll-White came out on top in a recent online poll to identify the Best Online Home Business Team Leader in Australia.
Hartnoll-White likely won the poll due to his work helping people set up an online business and making money from home using simple step by step strategies and advertising tactics.
In an attempt to maintain the survey fair to all participants, the competition was implemented via the internet and the winner was chosen by internet marketing peers independently.
To read more about this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, online
Posted in Australia, business, internet usage, online business | No Comments »
Thursday, August 1st, 2013
Founded in 2010 by Catherine Prosser and based in Canberra, StageBitz is a web-based system designed to simplify prop management for production professionals, allowing them to manage the lifecycle of prop sourcing, maintenance and tracking.
“Each year millions of props, scenery and costume items are created at a cost of billions of dollars,” Prosser says. “Many of these items are used only once, resulting in a massive waste of time, effort, resources and money for the industry. This is a common and constant problem faced by the entertainment industry in Australia, USA, the UK and the world over.
“StageBitz solves this problem by providing a collaboration platform in the cloud for directors, designers, makers, buyers and managers to capture the design, technical and usage information they need to get their projects up and running. It also provides an automatic company inventory feature which will allow companies to manage their assets as well as hire or sell unwanted items online.”
To read more about this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, Catherine Prosser, online, production, props, StageBitz, theatre
Posted in Australia, business, innovation, internet usage, online business, social networking, Success story | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 31st, 2013
The CEO of one of Australia’s biggest online real estate advertising companies says businesses in the country need to adapt to the digital future in a hurry or risk being shut out by international competitors who are further ahead.
Greg Ellis, CEO of REA Group, said companies in all sectors in Australia are struggling to adapt to the digital economy and will lose market share to international rivals if they did not change their management strategies.
“On a bigger scale Australia needs a damn big wake-up call,” he told a Melbourne Press Club luncheon last week. “We’ve got some material competitors coming who could take a significant percentage of market share and jobs away through the strength of their digital offering.”
He said managers needed to better tap into the talent in their organisations, saying the best workers found in companies such as his were 30-year-olds familiar with the digital economy.
“There is a significant shortfall of skills to transform Australian business in the digital economy,” Ellis said. “At REA when we bring people in we have to effectively de-program from the historical techniques they have used to manage people. It’s the preparedness to push the responsibility of the decision-making down to the people below you who have the expertise.”
To read more on this story, click here.
Tags: adaptation, Australia, business, competition, digital, economy, online
Posted in Australia, business, E-mail & the internet, internet usage, media, online business, technology | No Comments »
Tuesday, July 30th, 2013
The Fetch, an online community for professionals to share and discover what’s happening in their city, has been going strong since Kate Kendall started it in Melbourne in 2011.
It has now expanded to include 10 cities from around the world.
“I still classify it as a start-up in beta mode, so I guess it’s been fairly flexible and it’s grown quickly,” says Kendall of The Fetch.
Kendall now runs the business alternating between Melbourne and Silicon Valley in the USA.
To read more about this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, Melbourne, online, The Fetch
Posted in Australia, business, innovation, online business, social media, social networking, Success story | No Comments »
Friday, July 26th, 2013
Online retailers with extensive experience have proclaimed that it is the delivery system and not the fanciest new technology or the flashiest website that will lure Australian customers to shop at Australian online businesses.
Paul Greenberg, a pioneer in Australia’s online retail sector as co-founder of the DealsDirect Group in 2004, has said that customers want their orders delivered in a timely manner and if Australian businesses can that, they will likely prosper.
“The battleground has shifted to the supply chain,” he says.
This seems to be the philosophy of online fashion retail giant The Iconic, which placed a tremendous amount of importance on getting people their orders as quickly as possible, regardless of the cost. The Iconic has recently been in the spotlight for having to jettison a number of jobs and also for taking big losses in its first two years of operations. But all that is now said to have been a planned growth strategy. Investors ploughed a further $28 million into the business late last week.
As it becomes increasingly more difficult to keep fickle online shoppers happy, fast and reliable delivery is where many online retailers are hoping to set their businesses apart. However, Greenburg notes, that is not easily done, as a distribution network that hums like a well-oiled machine also tends to drive up costs and online retailers will have to make sure that they generate enough revenue to cover those costs.
To read more about this story, click here.
Tags: Australia, business, delivery, online, supply chain
Posted in Australia, business, internet usage, online business, Online Sales, online shopping, online stores, selling online | No Comments »
