New Scribbler website set to drive foot fall to high street stores
UK greetings card and gifts retailer Scribbler has launched a new look
website this week, giving its customers the opportunity to design their
own products.
Customers have three ways to personalise a greeting card, either by
uploading a photo, changing names or captions and writing a personal
message inside. The product is then printed the same day and delivered
straight to the recipient.
The new Scribbler website is designed to compliment the chain’s 23-strong retail stores and not to replicate them.
The Mary Portas report commissioned by the Government and released this week gave a stark message about the state of Britain’s town centres and painted a picture of retail in crisis. While the report made recommendations on improving conditions to enable bricks and mortar retailers to thrive, very little was given in the way of demonstrating how online retail can benefit offline.
Edward Armitage, at Scribbler, said: “The old Scribbler site was essentially an off-the-shelf catalogue, but the difference with the new site is that every card is printed to order and no stock is held in storage – whether personalised or not.
“The site will drive traffic into our stores. We see the relationship between our site and our shops very much as a two-way destination. The idea with the new personalised website is that if offers added value and something that you cant get in-store. Customers don’t research online to buy an ordinary card, instead they will go into a store and choose one.”
On the advantages of a dual approach combining online and offline retail, Edward added: “Retail stores are limited by foot flow, but the website increases virtual foot flow and it’s not limited by location. “With the new site we can see where customers come from. Knowing where they live can inform the offline location of our stores, so this analysis can support our shops.
“Similarly if we have retail stores that need more custom we can use the website to drive traffic to them. Using segmentation we can design promotions an offer discounts to local people to encourage them to visit the store.”
“Our new website is not part of traditional multi-channel retail offer because we are using the site to offer different, added-value products to customers.”
The launch follows similar personalisation sites by Clintons, Moonpig.com and Funky Pigeon, the point of difference being that it caters for a premium, design-led market. Edward added: “The success of other websites has shown that personalisation adds another dimension to greeting cards, and that customers are willing to pay a premium for cards to be sent on their behalf.
John Procter, CEO of Scribbler, commented: “Our design-led approach has meant that high street shoppers come back to our stores time and time again – there is just so much bland product out there on the high street.
“There is currently no personalised offering for the premium end of the online market, and that is precisely the position we intend to fill.”
www.scribbler.co.uk
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