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E-commerce

Myer Launches HK based site

1 March 2011-Myer launches offshore based online store to mixed comments myfind

Myer has announced the launch of their offshore online store myfind.com. At first glance the site does not have many products for sale, and what is most concerting is lack of known brands and prices are still high. Considering goods are supposed to be sourced in Asia, it seems the ridiculous margins are still evident even on this site.

Hal Pritchard from Everten Online, a kitchenware online retailer today quoted in Smartcompany that the myfind.com store doesn’t seem to be posing a credible threat to online retailers anytime soon. “At the moment, I think it’s laughable. It might be competition to department stores like DealsDirect, but it’s certainly not anything that’s going to worry me”.

Renegade online retailer Ruslan Kogan was skeptical that Bernie Brooks would be able to launch the site in three months, and has placed a link to the Myer owned site on his blog as he acknowledges he has to eat humble pie on the launch of the myfind website.

 

So, what is the purpose and strategy of this  website? For any site to be successful, it needs some kind of unique selling proposition, and it’s not clear what Myfind is attempting to do or be, and is once again representative of the sometimes immature nature of the online retailing space in Australia and once again the misunderstanding of traditional retailers of the world wide web.

 

To understand how it’s done properly, the daily deal site, Australia’s number 1 department store (as ranked by Hitwise)catchoftheday.com.au for example offers one type of deal every day mid day. With it’s sister site Scoopon.com.au it has a database of nearly 900,000 subscribers and it has a call to action, screaming “Buy now at bargain prices or risk losing out on the greatest deal of the day.” This is it’s unique selling proposition, and as demonstrated by its growing database, and increased turnover its customers love Catchoftheday.com.au and Scoopon.com.au.  The catch of the day ecommerce group understand the ecommerce model better than most in Australia and  are aggressively moving into branded clothing and Grocery’s as demonstrated recently by their succesful Grocery run and Brandstreet event last weekend.

So it seems for the immediate future its probably safe to say that the leaders in Australian ecommerce have a good and safe headstart on the bricks and mortar retailers who are suddenly trying so hard to develop effective ecommerce presences.

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