How many times have you sat by your computer and admired products in webshops? Or bought something?

If you are Finnish and you have bought something in the webshops, you are one of those 1.3 million Finnish people who have bought physical or immaterial products in the Internet. If you have only browsed products but not bought, you are one of those 2.6 million, who have considered buying but haven’t yet found courage to buy from a virtual shop.

Majority of tickets and hotel reservations are bought or done in the web – and although many complain about the lack of availability of fitting clothes and shoes in webshops, those two products groups have gained a second place in the list of most bought products in the Internet in Finland.

According to Electronic Commerce Finland, the value of webshopping made by the Finns has rose from 0.4 billion euros to 3.9 billion euros in the past seven years. Shopping has been made in webshops all over the world. It’s relatively easy to proportion the value of webshopping to the sales of Stockmann, the largest department store in Finland – total annual sales of Stockmann rose up to 1.1 billion euros in 2006.

Hard competition

The amount of both Finnish and foreign webshops has grown almost dramatically during this decade.

Kaupat.com, an index of Finnish webshops, lists 122 Finnish webshops selling clothes, shoes and accessories. There are webshops selling very inexpensive, trendy clothes to boutiques selling clothes and accessories for several special groups, shops selling fan products and companies selling different kinds of t-shirts. The index covers altogether 1.800 Finnish webshops.

International, big competitors are often a problem to Finnish webshops, because they also tend to get Finnish customers. Foreign webshops have often been superior comparing to the Finnish ones due to bigger resources to develop their functions. These shops have also invested a lot in service and appearance.

A webshop is based on technology, but the base of the service is the people behind the shop. Combining these two requires knowledge, innovative thinking and willingness to serve a customer. A webshop can develop its service by investing in reacting the customers’ question and feedback as soon as possible, for example. Reacting might even happen in real time by a chat service.

The competition for customers is hard and development in the Internet is so fast that it easily makes both the customers and webshop keepers feel dizzy. It’s said that one calendar year is equivalent to seven years in the Internet. No wonder that keeping up with the development isn’t easy.

Future brings new services

Webshops will be able to offer new services and software which make shopping in the web easier and nicer in the future.

One of these services is My Virtual Model, a Canadian service that some of the webshops already use. The service enables the customer to create a virtual person of his/her size, hair and skintone. This all makes fitting clothes and colours in a virtual environment much easier – and fun.

This service requires updating a collection or a selection of a webshop to a 3D form. The service is currently used by companies such as H&M, Sears, Speedo, Adidas, Levi Strauss Signature and Glamour Magazine. These companies or players use the service to present their latest collection or current trends. The service can also be an incentive to loose weight, because it allows the person to see how much loosing weight would affect his or her appearance or fitting of jeans, for example.

The aim of My Virtual Model is to commercialise body scanning – put the system in a car and drive from a retailer to retailer. For now, this technique is very expensive and it’s only possible use it locally. This makes it difficult to use the service efficiently.

Webshops can also offer a possibility to revise clothing a customer is going to buy; the customer can tailor a garment or shoes to fit him/herself with given tools or possibilities. Some webshops already offer these services. These include sportswear company Puma and IC3D (Interactive Custom Clothes Company), which is selling trousers. The customer is able to get the details he or she wants and the product will be made to fit the customer’s measurements. This kind of a service requires plenty of resources, and, for example, IC3D is not able to take new orders at the moment.

Although there are some diamonds among Finnish webshops, there is a lot to do to manage in the competition with foreign ones – especially concerning that large group of Finnish webshops that are selling cheap and short-lived, trendy clothing and accessories, which require large sales volumes to keep the business running.

Sources:
Kaupat.com
Peltola, Kirsi: Vaatetusalan verkkokaupparatkaisut laadukkaan asiakaspalvelun keinoin (Clothing Web Store Solutions with High Quality Customer Service), 2007. Final work, Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia.