Shopping giant Westfield has unveiled the next step in its digital journey.
As Amazon sets up shop in Australia, Westfield is launching a fully searchable online mall as it strives to bridge the gap between online and offline retail. It's the first phase of what could be a global rollout.
The shopping centre is working with more than 100 of Australia’s biggest retailers including David Jones and the Country Road Group, to make their product ranges available to search via the online Westfield platform.
Shoppers can identify goods and locate them in their local shopping centre or opt to buy them directly from retailers' own e-commerce sites.
The launch goes live today at westfield.com.au. Westfield sees it as a switch from a transactional e-commerce site to what it calls an “online destination” that operates as an affiliate network.
John Batistich, Westfield marketing director, led the project. He told sister publication AdNews the online platform started from the insight that online has a growing influence on pre-purchase research and in-store sales.
Users that searched via Westfield’s existing site were found to be more likely to visit the physical mall and go on to spend more, according to its own survey of nearly 7,000 Australians.
It is intended to mirror the role played by its physical malls by offering shoppers the ability to search for products that are available in their local centre, as well as information on local offers, events, and cinema times.
Westfield has focussed the initiative on fashion and beauty and will offer more than 100,000 products, with more coming online each week.
The digital mall was a created jointly by the shopping centre and its Westfield Lab innovation team based in Silicon Valley. The innovation division, which launched last year, is working on a number of projects that use technology to enhance the shopping experience. This is the biggest yet.
The project has been under development since May and represents a multimillion dollar investment by Westfield.
Westfield previously offered an online shopping scheme that aimed to aggregate the delivery process of purchases from multiple retailers, but based on feedback from its partner retailers has opted to operate its online platforms as an affiliate network.
Westfield earns a commission for every sale directed back to retailer sites from the digital mall, and allows the retailers to own the traffic and the sales directly.
It also previously offered a partnership with Virgin’s Velocity programme, rewarding purchases made on its platform with frequent flyer points. This partnership ended in October.
Batistich believes that no other shopping centre network is doing anything similar, adding that it will make Westfield one of the biggest retail sites in the country. Westfield currently counts more than 30 million online visits annual and is expecting the new site to return double digit growth in traffic.
Its launch is timed to coincide with the Christmas shipping season when Westfield sees a marked increase in traffic both online and in its malls.
Marketing for the new site launch is focussed on search and retargeting. While unwilling to provide a hard figure, Batistich said and Westfield is increasing its investment in that area six-fold. It will also promote the online site within its shopping malls.
The scheme could go on to roll out to Westfield’s malls in New Zealand, the UK and US.
[This story first appeared on our sister website adnews.com.au.]
The news follows confirmation by the Westfield Group last week that it is on track to meet its income growth forecasts, according to its third quarter trading update for the nine months to September 30, 2013.
Despite no improvement in local retail conditions, the group's global portfolio at September 30, 2013 was 97.9 per cent leased, up 20 basis points compared to the same period last year.
In the United States the portfolio was 93.7 per cent leased, up 60 basis points on a comparable centre basis with the Australian / New Zealand and United Kingdom portfolios at over 99.5 per cent and 99.1 per cent leased respectively.
For the 12 months to September, comparable specialty retail sales were up 4.5 per cent in the United States and remained steady in Australia and New Zealand.
In Australia, while retail conditions remain consistent with prior periods the productivity of the portfolio remains high at over $9,800 per square metre, with continuing demand for space from both domestic and international retailers.
Average specialty rent for the Australian/New Zealand portfolio grew by 1.9 per cent from September 2012 with average rent in Australia now at $1,532 per square metre and New Zealand at NZ$1,129 per square metre.
In Australia, for the nine months almost 1,700 leasing deals were also completed, according to the company.
Excluding projects, this represented 11.5 pe cent of specialty area, which were completed at rental spreads consistent with the half year, at six per cent lower than expiring rents.
Westfield Group co-CEO Steven Lowy said the group remains on track to achieve its full year comparable net operating income forecast across all regions, in the range of:
- Four per cent-five per cent in both the United States and United Kingdom portfolios; and
- 1.5 per cent-two per cent in the Australian & New Zealand portfolios.
The Westfield Group has interests in and operates one of the world’s largest shopping centre portfolios with investment interests in 91 shopping centres across Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand, encompassing over 20,500 retail outlets and total assets under management of A$65.8 billion.