After receiving it as a Christmas gift, for the past couple of years or so I’ve spent an inordinate amount of money every month on skincare products from Lab Series, yes I’m not ashamed to admit it.

I reconcile this with the fact that I’ve given up lots of bad habits that I spent more money on previously.…]]> 2012-02-01T16:51:31+00:00 http://www.paullewisdesign.co.uk/practicology/index.php/blog/article-for-retail-week-27th-january-2012 http://www.paullewisdesign.co.uk/practicology/index.php/blog/article-for-retail-week-27th-january-2012#When:16:46:00Z Mary Mary quite contrary, how does the high street grow?

Mary Portas is Queen of shops, but is she queen of multi channel?

While her recent report on the challenges facing the High St. mentioned the web and mobile, not one of the 28 recommendations made referenced how they can compliment the high street. It felt like a single channel view driven by an old school retail perspective, demonstrated by the statement that “the web was one of the biggest threats to retail on our…]]> 2012-02-01T16:46:00+00:00 http://www.paullewisdesign.co.uk/practicology/index.php/blog/insights http://www.paullewisdesign.co.uk/practicology/index.php/blog/insights#When:16:42:08Z Multi-Channel:

Did you know that 69% of companies surveyed have only “just started developing” their multi-channel strategy? Of those companies which have started developing a multi-channel proposition, the lack of ownership is the biggest challenge to delivering a customer enhancing multi-channel experience; 65% of companies surveyed either, could not identify a clear owner for their multi-channel proposition, or acknowledged confused ownership of the program.…]]> 2012-02-01T16:42:08+00:00 http://www.paullewisdesign.co.uk/practicology/index.php/blog/article-for-ragtrader-in-australia http://www.paullewisdesign.co.uk/practicology/index.php/blog/article-for-ragtrader-in-australia#When:16:36:13Z Whether a retailer should go online or not is really a rhetorical question. Of course they should. The only question is what the business model should be.

In the fashion industry there are a number of routes to market, and having your own site or making a large investment in technology aren’t the only ones.

You can outsource your e-commerce operation to a supplier like Practicology. We trade the channel for a number of our clients under their brand (including Myla.com).…]]> 2012-02-01T16:36:13+00:00 http://www.paullewisdesign.co.uk/practicology/index.php/blog/the-best-strategy-to-ensure-business-survival-is-to-invest-for-growth http://www.paullewisdesign.co.uk/practicology/index.php/blog/the-best-strategy-to-ensure-business-survival-is-to-invest-for-growth#When:09:42:49Z I’m no cliché king by any manner of means, but I do think that the old football expression, ‘the best form of defence is attack’ is a very relevant strategy for the current business climate. And the retailers who are prospering are continuing to innovate and reshape their value propositions.

We all know it’s an extremely tough economic climate right now, and a whole host of household name retailers have recently gone to the wall. And according to PWC, at least 15% of…]]> 2011-07-12T09:42:49+00:00 http://www.paullewisdesign.co.uk/practicology/index.php/blog/good-usability-rich-content-a-good-brand-experience http://www.paullewisdesign.co.uk/practicology/index.php/blog/good-usability-rich-content-a-good-brand-experience#When:14:07:44Z It’s hard to be critical of the web channel of a brand that’s so financially successful as Burberry clearly is, as they continually and consistently post an ever-increasing uplift in sales and profits.

But when it comes to the web, I don’t do subjectivity. My job is to help client’s take a completely objective view of the performance of their e-commerce channel. I use analytics, I use benchmarks, and I use a tried and tested template that works through the customer journey on…]]> 2011-05-31T14:07:44+00:00 http://www.paullewisdesign.co.uk/practicology/index.php/blog/e-commerce-recruitment-and-skills-development http://www.paullewisdesign.co.uk/practicology/index.php/blog/e-commerce-recruitment-and-skills-development#When:12:53:22Z Following on from my session at the recent Drapers e-commerce summit where I discussed some of the challenges around recruitment and skills in e-commerce, I thought it would be worthwhile discussing this in a little more detail and highlighting what I see as being the key challenges and opportunities.

And to support my credentials for talking to this specific subject matter, I am working with a number of retailers to help them address these challenges. And I can also talk from…]]> 2011-04-06T12:53:22+00:00 http://www.paullewisdesign.co.uk/practicology/index.php/blog/social-media-a-tactical-tool-or-a-core-business-strategy http://www.paullewisdesign.co.uk/practicology/index.php/blog/social-media-a-tactical-tool-or-a-core-business-strategy#When:15:00:04Z By my reckoning, social media has been all the rage for the last two to three years. Yet the abiding question on everyone’s minds still is how to monetize the social space.
It seems as though every week I speak to one or two different retailers who have yet to ‘monetize’ social media, or at least, work out how they can monetize it.
And really that’s where the issue lies. They have yet to determine what role social media should play within their business. They know they…]]> 2011-03-21T15:00:04+00:00