According to published reports, online retail sales (excluding travel) reached over $136 billion in 2007, an increase of 19% over 2006. For every $1 spent online last year, another $8 was spent offline as a result of research conducted on the web. Almost three-quarters (73%) of Store Shoppers prefer to research their purchases online. Shoppers in the 35 to 44 age group were 24% more likely to shop for or purchase items in the store that they had previously seen on a retailer's Web site. No one is better positioned to take advantage of this phenomenon than are store-based retailers.

Your competition is not your fellow merchants in Bermuda. Your competition is the thousands of online merchants. The US (source of most of our visitors) has an internet penetration of 67%. In Bermuda, it is estimated that 71% of the population (your customers) use the Internet. The number shopping online has doubled in the last year. You can access these people with a simple or complicated web site. The problem is that it needs constant oversight and upkeep. As a busy retailer, who is given this responsibility?

The advertising agency?

Fabulous for design concept, but how much will they charge for every little change?

Your IT provider or in-house IT team?

Great techies, but what do they know about merchandising?

The buyers?

How do they keep a consistency in the product placement? What happens when they travel?

Employ somebody to do the job full time for you?

As you know, there is a serious shortage of merchandising talent currently available on the Island. Bringing in an overseas "expert" is far too expensive.

Your solution is to outsource your site to proven merchandising experts with ecommerce experience. Our team has a keen appreciation of the unique challenges facing retailers and comes armed with many years of experience of retail buying and merchandising for department stores and small businesses. Many years of retailing in Bermuda have given us an insight into the needs of local and overseas customers.

Bespoke Solutions can help you by:

• arranging for cost effective hosting of your site
• producing an effective ecommerce site with full shopping cart capabilities
• administering your site on a timely basis
• sending targeted mail (using our Concierge Service) to your chosen audience from your Company email lists (93% of Internet users use email)
• developing and maintaining these lists to keep them current
• maintaining product on the site so that it is always fresh and current
• developing your merchandising concept in conjunction with Company merchandising team
• promoting your site in conjunction with Company visual merchandising team and advertising agency
• designing/redesigning your site in conjunction with local internet design specialists

Bottom Line. What will it cost? A monthly retainer gives you all of the above. A package of value added benefits can be designed to offer many of the necessary methodologies to suit your business. For an idea of the costs involved, use our calculator.