Web wonder

It's not only A-list type celebrities who employ the services of a personal shopper and stylist. Today hundreds of women across Australia are enlisting their own through the World Wide Web, as Ragtrader discovered.

The use of the internet as a research tool is taking over from hitting the pavement or letting your fingers do the walking.
Enabling shoppers to research where to get the hottest dress or latest shoes, online retail reference sites are showing consumers what's available in-store inside the comfort of their own home. 

Offering styling tips, virtual change rooms and alerting customers to where they can buy the said items from and for how much, retail reference sites are giving the selling power back to retail stores. Not to mention helping to reduce the estimated eight billion catalogues distributed yearly to mailboxes across Australia.

Stylehunter.com is one such site.

Launched four months ago, stylehunter.com enables the user to view complete ranges from big brand collections.
Focusing on a page at a time using magazine flip technology, Stylehunter brand manager Kate Vandermeer says the online retail reference site also has a directory offering "the most comprehensive list of the best Australian brands, designers and online boutiques".

"We aim to become a fashion 'Google', where we can offer consumers a link to all that is going on in fashion as well as showcasing the most amazing collections. We have had significant results from our clients (whether online stores, retailers or wholesalers). Increased sales, online/retail traffic and brand exposure have become key performance indicators for our retailers wanting to increase their online presence."

Completing over six months' market research with consumers and retailers, stylehunter.com discovered fashion can induce both excitement and depression in women depending on how they feel about the latest looks.
"We believe that offering relevant style tips on how to wear the latest fashions is important in addressing these concerns", says Vandermeer.

"As a result, we have formed an alliance with Ask Bronny - an online styling service to offer our consumers monthly styling advice about the topics that affect them."

Choosing not to offer a virtual change room, Stylehunter believes the physical experience of trying an outfit on to see how it suits your body shape cannot be replicated.

Offering Stylehunter.com clients the opportunity to showcase their entire range exclusively within their own window for $1 per downloaded collection per consumer, Vandermeer feels compared to the published magazines, their online service is quite inexpensive.

"Where many published magazines and online sites are only able to show one or two brand product images, we are able to showcase the entire brand's collection and therefore the customer engages with the brand exclusively on our site without interference or competition."

Also providing an environmental alternative to printed catalogues, Vandermeer says this is a big plus in luring brands to join online retail reference sites.

"All brands are beginning to understand their environmental impact and are therefore happy to find an alternative to printed catalogues. We can offer the exact same physical experience, complete with a high quality zoom and magazine like flip. Plus add some features that the printed experience can't offer like sharing your favourite catalogue pages with your friends and links to that brands own website for more information."

Multi-national shopping centre chain Westfield has also been quick to jump on the trend, launching its own online styling site dubbed What's What.

While previous studies have shown that up to 25 per cent of women utilise the internet for fashion tips, trends and ideas, Westfield Group general manager of marketing John Batistich says the company's own research also suggests this number is growing steadily.

Batistich says on average each visitor to Westfield's site whatswhat.com.au views over 20 pages per visit and spends an average of five to eight minutes per visit.

"We know What's What consumers are highly engaged. When consumers click on garments, the retailer locations in Westfield come up, directly driving traffic to the appropriate centres. Our retailers have told us that many of the items featured on What's What sell out within a few days of being featured."

Providing advice via 'What's In' and 'Ask a Stylist', the 'Virtual Fitting Room' is one of the most popular areas on the site, according to Batistich.

Also offering an online wardrobe, TGV (Sydney CBD shopping centre The Galleries Victoria's site) lets shoppers choose their model and put together an outfit before printing a shopping list or saving the look into a personal gallery.
Informing the customer of the item detail, brand and price, TGV's online fashions are suggested by its tenants, bringing the latest available in-store styles direct to the customer.

Pacific Brands likes to do things differently however.

Helping to speed up its customers purchase process, the wholesale group launched retail reference site Findmyshoes.com.au to help promote items from the company's large portfolio of footwear brands.

Kate Brownell, Pac Brands' footwear online manager, says market research commissioned by her company suggests that just over a third of men and women in Australia frequently or occasionally use the internet to research shoes to buy.
"Findmyshoes.com.au is a very effective tool for driving offline sales as we can be closer to consumer insights that give us a detailed view of behaviour and how to influence it with an integrated marketing approach."

Offering trend reports and facts & info, Brownell says these sections are available to add value to the user's visit, to drive additional traffic and show that the ranges are in tune with the latest trends.

"Additions and enhancements to these sections have increased the length of time our visitors spend on the site. In the second half of 2007, users spent an average of 10 minutes on Findmyshoes."

With plans in place to facilitate a more dynamic site, where product and stockist information can be updated on an ongoing basis, it's great news for the brands retailers featured on the site for free.

By Samantha Docherty