The company, which processes more than one in 50 of all UK non-food ecommerce transactions, also warned that businesses that do not adopt the cloud as part of their ecommerce strategy in the New Year will struggle to keep up with the fast moving retail landscape.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) recently announced that the value of UK ecommerce transactions hit a staggering £408bn in 2009, an increase of 24.9 per cent on 2008[1]. Venda believes this growth will continue. It predicts that the power of the online channel will surpass that of the high street and UK retailers, in all sectors, will wake up to the ever-increasing needs of the multichannel customer and turn to the Internet as their primary portal for interacting with consumers.

UK retailers of all sizes, including Tesco, Accessorize, Anthropologie, Paperchase, Cotton Traders, Emma Bridgewater and Republic, have turned to the cloud and chosen the Venda on-demand ecommerce platform over the past year. Venda believes the main reason for such uptake is that it offers significant flexibility, scalability, stability and security for ecommerce practices at a lower cost of ownership than other comparable high-end solutions.

Eric Abensur, CEO at Venda warned: “Businesses not adopting the on-demand, cloud based approach as part of their ecommerce strategy this year will struggle to keep up with the fast moving retail landscape. Retailers that are truly committed to their customers have to exploit the advantages that on-demand brings to supporting the demands of today’s multi-channel consumer or risk being left behind.”

Abensur continued: “2010 has been our most successful year yet with our UK customer base increasing by 30 per cent and surpassing 100. Our growth is further proof of the overwhelming power of the ecommerce market, not just through a brand’s own website, but through mobile, online marketplaces and social media. It shows the increased influence that these channels are having on all consumer purchase behaviour. It’s no longer a matter of questioning the potential of ecommerce for your business, but asking ‘how can I most effectively use its power to deliver the best multi-channel shopping experience?’”

Venda believes this trend will continue through 2011 and beyond, driven by 5 key factors:

• Multichannel – Single channel consumer behaviour is not enough.
  

The way in which consumers choose to interact with brands either through differing remote devices or channels is changing so regularly that the technology requires attention and investment that sometimes is just not feasible within a business’s own infrastructure. Retailers need the speedier and lower cost approach that on-demand solutions allow

• Mobile Commerce – After a long wait, mobile commerce is now a reality.
  

This channel has undergone tremendous growth in 2010. Analysis carried out by Venda on its own platform showed that the number of website views coming from mobile devices has risen 150% since June, fuelled by the widespread adoption of tablets and smart phones. This channel will be a must-have offering for UK retailers in 2011

• Social Commerce – The commercial power of social networks is now undeniable.
  

The ability for consumers to interact with each other during the purchasing process has never been better. Likewise retailers have never been more accessible, with the ability to have a real conversation and learn from their customers in a way most convenient to the shopper

• Internationalisation – On-demand ecommerce drastically reduces barriers to entry.
  

As well as technological advances, Venda predicts 2011 will also be the year for internationalisation with retailers across the globe waking up to the opportunities that ecommerce brings. The UK will see its retailers entering other global markets and global retailers entering the UK market. This trend has been evident in 2010 with the launch of many international retail stores on the Venda platform including www.accessorize.com in the US and www.anthropologie.eu in Europe.

• Return on Investment – The days of large set up costs and costly annual upgrades are over. The collaborative nature of on-demand infrastructure means the functional development cost is always going to be significantly lower than its on-premise competitors. As businesses large and small take a more strategic approach to IT spend, their focus has turned towards ecommerce solutions that can deliver ROI within weeks, not years
  

Abensur summarised: “The continued evolution of Venda’s cloud based common infrastructure means that, however consumer habits change, we are able to quickly and efficiently facilitate interaction across new channels and in new environments. For those businesses that want to be here in five to ten years’ time the cloud is practically a necessity, and those retailers that do not adjust their ecommerce strategy quickly will be lucky to survive beyond 2011.”

LN-CC, which markets menswear and womenswear – based around a distinctive concept of unisex styling, music and books – chose the Venda ecommerce platform as it offered a unique 60-day delivery programme. This ensured the website could be developed and launched within just two months, to the exact specifications of LN- CC.

David Hobson, the head of E-commerce for LN-CC and formerly the head of E-commerce behind the men’s fashion retailer Oki Ni, first worked with Venda when Oki Ni rolled out a new website using the Venda platform in 2007.

He said: “As a new brand we want to grow aggressively and fast. Having worked with Venda in the past it was an easy decision to work with them again. I had the confidence that the flexibility of the Venda platform would allow us to scale quickly and easily on a shared infrastructure.

“Venda has developed this unique SaaS solution for the past 10 years. It not only gave us good scalability, but also allowed us to bring together all the components that we needed to create a strong brand and a good, interactive customer experience.”

The website, in functional format, was delivered to LN-CC’s Venda certified team on day one of the 60-day delivery programme. The website contained all of the best practice end-to-end functionalities and workflows required for a high-quality customer experience. Venda also provided design and build consultation to the LN-CC team as it customised its offering, and ensured the entire site adhered to the highest security standard – PCI Tier 1 Compliance – recognised by the payment industry.

David added: ”We received a fully-functional site on day one from Venda, which gave us the freedom to customise our site to fit our brand identity and the flexibility to tailor it to suit our customers needs.”

Eric Abensur, Group CEO at Venda added: “This is a key milestone in Venda’s maturation as a technology provider. We realise the benefits of giving more flexibility, control and independence to certified clients like LN-CC, and other third parties, to design, build, implement and support world-class ecommerce sites without sacrificing quality. We can deliver the ‘Venda Showcase’ site to potential build partners, which allows them to follow a project timeline that is comfortable for them. This allows Venda to focus on bolstering the features, infrastructure and services that we continually enhance as part of our promise to our clients.

“We are delighted that the LN-CC team was able to launch its multi-lingual, multi-currency proposition on Venda in less than two months using our technology, and we look forward to working with them in the future, in the ecommerce channel as well as in the other channels they plan to launch.”

Emma Bridgewater initially selected the Venda ecommerce platform in November 2009 to enable the growth of its online business. Venda’s platform is used for all aspects of the Emma Bridgewater site from cross-site merchandising to the ability to offer new options to customers including split delivery, gift wrapping and personalisation. Since its implementation, the Emma Bridgewater online store has seen its conversion rate – the number of browsers that turn into buyers – more than double.

As a result of this success and access to a more sophisticated rules-based promotion engine, Emma Bridgewater was able to extend its promotional strategy and introduce a number of time-based, customer specific promotions in celebration of its 25^th anniversary. The company recognised that Venda’s cloud on-demand model offered the stability and flexibility needed for running limited timeframe promotions that generate high volumes of traffic and transactions for the first time, with no impact on its end-customer experience. In addition to the core technology, Venda also delivered the incremental service and support network needed for this size of campaign.

Following the online store’s initial launch in May 2007, the brand expanded rapidly using the Venda enterprise platform, resulting in 40 per cent year-on-year growth in Q4 2009. Republic has since been bought by TPG (Texas Pacific Group) for £300m in June 2010, and to satisfy further customer demands has re-launched its online offering. This success has led to a contract extension to continue the close working relationship with Venda into the future.

Venda offers a flexible and scalable ecommerce solution, as well as training to allow customers to manage significant changes and updates to their websites easily within a timeframe that suits their needs.

Venda, the world’s largest on-demand ecommerce provider, has been selected by leading health and wellbeing footwear company, Fitflop, to support the launch of its first website.

Fitflop footwear, which makes sandals, shoes and boots for men and women to give you a workout while you walk, chose the Venda ecommerce platform, after a rigorous selection process. The choice was based on Venda’s experience in delivering world-class secure and scalable websites for many iconic global brands, and the ability to access the expertise of Venda’s Community of Interest, the largest ecommerce community in the world.

Fitflop footwear uses Venda Flash Merchandising to deliver interactive and engaging merchandising across the site, as well as other feature-sets available to all Venda customers including ‘recently viewed items’, quick view on product list pages and automated bestsellers to deliver a rich customer experience. The new website also links to social networks such as Facebook, allowing shoppers to discuss products and purchases for further engagement with the brand.

Enterprise-wide PCI Tier 1 Compliance, the top security standard recognised by the payment industry, gave Fitflop the confidence to outsource its ecommerce technology to a third party. In its first few days Fitflop has already seen fast return on investment with the sales generated through the website.

FitFlop plans to make use of Venda’s international experience to help expand into the German, Italian, Dutch and Belgian markets early next year.

The decision to invest in its online sales offering is part of the company’s strategic shift from being perceived as purely a catalogue business, to one which better serves the multi-channel consumer of today across store catalogue and web.

Recognising the potential of an ecommerce offering, Cotton Traders chose the Venda Enterprise eCommerce platform as it offered an easy-to-integrate and flexible solution with transparent, predictable pricing. It also has features that can be tailored specifically to the company’s catalogue-driven and promotion-led ecommerce needs. These include complex rules around promotional codes, stacked price discounts and catalogue specific pricing.

Fran Cotton, founder of Cotton Traders and former England prop forward, said: “Cotton Traders has traditionally been seen as a catalogue-led company but we are keen to maximise the tremendous sales opportunities an online channel offers. Buyer behaviour is changing – many of our traditional catalogue buyers have migrated to the Internet, so we wanted to provide a site that met their needs and recognised their loyalty, as well as attracting new customers.”

“Venda offered a secure and scalable solution that fully supports our catalogue-driven and promotion-led ecommerce needs. Venda is Enterprise Wide PCI Tier 1 Compliant which was a key factor in our choice of partners, and will help to further build trust and confidence with our customers. Our recent sale period was significantly up on the previous year and we believe the Venda eCommerce eCosystem will enable us to create a more customer-friendly shopping experience, and certainly keep Cotton Traders at the forefront of online shopping.”

Eric Abensur, Group CEO at Venda, added: “Cotton Traders has seen exceptional growth in the catalogue market and truly understands the potential that ecommerce can have on its bottom line. In this day and age, any retailer needs to have an effective ecommerce presence if it’s going to tap into the spending habits of the UK public. Over the past decade we’ve seen UK shoppers spend over £250 billion online. Retailers that don’t evolve and embrace the ecommerce revolution could find themselves struggling to compete.”

Venda will handle all the maintenance, hosting, upgrades and system integration for the Cotton Traders site.

Cotton Traders was founded in 1987 by former England rugby players Fran Cotton and Steve Smith, who subsequently launched its online division in 2001.

With online year-on- year growth almost double in 2009, parent-company Monsoon decided to establish an independent online site for its fashion accessory brand Accessorize, mirroring its positioning on the high street. Having successfully utilised the Venda platform for www.monsoon.co.uk, Monsoon selected Venda again. The Accessorize site will make use of the latest technology from Venda’s ecommerce solution to create a customer-friendly shopping experience including social elements, dynamic navigation, flash and behavioural merchandising, all supported by Venda’s global community of interest that includes technical and business support.

Venda’s SaaS eCommerce platform will provide Accessorize with an easy-to-integrate solution, with features that make managing and updating the system simple and efficient. Venda will handle all the maintenance, hosting, upgrades and system integrations that keep the site current and provide for a modern eCommerce shopping experience.

Steve Back, CCO of Monsoon and Accessorize commented: “We were pleased by
Venda’s approach to successfully hosting Monsoon’s eCommerce offering and supporting us through the growth we have seen over the last 3 years and their reliability and availability is very strong. By creating an online experience similar to walking into an Accessorize store, the return on investment from the online opportunity is sizeable.”

“Venda clearly understood how to translate high street retail into online and helped create a tailored solution to our specific requirements. The company’s familiarity with the complex US tax and payment system all brought peace of mind and will allow us to successfully expand into a tough and competitive market.”

Eric Abensur, Group CEO at Venda, added: “Successful retailers such as Monsoon and Accessorize realise the importance of the evolving ecommerce channel for maximising its commercial benefits. We are excited to be involved in the next stage of growth for the company as it expands its international customer focus and look forward to delivering them further incremental revenues through their online channel.”

As part of the expansion, the online store will be available in four different languages across Europe, namely English, German, French and Danish.

Anthropologie is one of the most successful high-end women’s apparel, accessories and home furnishing retailers in the US. Anthropologie’s launch into Europe consists of two flagship stores in central London, complemented by the new ecommerce site.

Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie’s sister company, started using Venda to maximise profits five years ago. Wanting to repeat the year-on-year growth in online revenue experienced through Urban Outfitters in Europe, Anthropologie came to Venda to establish its presence in the UK and European markets. Expansion into other European languages is part of the future plans.

Venda’s platform offers a pioneering ecommerce solution and delivery model enabling a more cost effective solution for merchants without sacrificing flexibility, quality, or the integrity of the brand.

Michael Robinson, previously in charge of Anthropologie’s US website and now Head of Ecommerce at Anthropologie Europe, commented: “Based on the experience of our sister company, Urban Outfitters, which has seen impressive growth for the last four years, it was a no-brainer to use Venda’s offering. The solution was easy to roll out, with a quick turnaround time of six months. We are now able to begin our journey of replicating Urban Outfitter’s ecommerce success in as short a time as possible.

“The hallmarks of innovation, artfulness and good design, which Anthropologie customers have come to love and expect from their shopping experience, have been wonderfully translated to our European online site on the Venda platform.”

Eric Abensur, Group CEO of Venda, added: “Anthropologie is leading the way amongst retailers seeking to optimise the online channel. Recognising the potential of ecommerce in maximising profits should be a key focus for companies wishing to stay competitive and current in today’s market.”

Venda A.M.P., powered by the Digby Mobile Commerce suite, is a feature-rich mobile portfolio that is integrated with the Venda Enterprise eCommerce platform. This seamless solution, supported by Venda’s global customer support organisation, provides brands and retailers with a unified platform. This allows them to connect with their audience and customers, delivering unique and personalised shopping experiences anywhere, anytime.

Social media and mobile applications are fundamentally changing the way consumers interact and shop. According to a recent survey of 1,052 consumers, conducted by Deloitte LLP, 21 per cent of consumer shoppers use a web-enabled mobile phone to assist them in shopping. The survey also reported that 36 per cent of those surveyed have used their phone to go to a website to shop for products or services.

Brands and retailers must harness the opportunity mobile applications present in a comprehensive and scalable manner in order to match customer expectations. Most current mobile commerce offerings deliver generic first-generation mobile sites that are hard-coded to websites. Venda A.M.P. allows brands to fully deliver a cross-platform personalised commerce experience to any customer at any location. Like all Venda offerings, Venda A.M.P. uses an underlying SaaS model that ensures clients receive future-proofed, enterprise-scale technology supported by a global development and client care network, giving them the autonomy to more effectively manage their front-end user experience.

“Digby and Venda are collaborating on all things mobile, enhancing the retail shopping experience regardless of time or location,” said Dave Sikora, Founder and CEO of Digby. “Venda understands the need to deliver scalable and powerful solutions that grow and extend a brand’s customer engagement. Leveraging the Digby Mobile Commerce Suite, we look forward to answering the call for true, multi-channel mobile commerce through our work with Venda.”

Digby’s singular focus on retail aligns with Venda’s legacy of enabling a deeper and richer approach to commerce for brands. Integrating seamlessly with inventory, catalogue and historical order information housed in the Venda platform, Venda A.M.P. will drive brand efforts to identify, customise and incentivise a customer while they are in-store, at home or on-the-go for dramatic improvements in the customer experience. With Venda A.M.P. merchants can:

• Enable top mobile devices including iPhone, iTouch, iPad, Blackberry and Android while easily scaling with the constant innovation cycle of new mobile devices, operating systems and screen sizes/resolutions
• Run geo- and time-specific marketing and eCommerce programs with location targeting capabilities
• Deliver highly-personalised and sophisticated “Rich Mobile Web” experiences
• Enable fully-transactional mobile (search, shop, buy, pay, service) with an expanding universe of “must have” capabilities like
o In-store check-ins with timely and personalised offers pushed directly to a user’s device;
o Bar-code scanning for pricing and comparison information via mobile phone cameras to share with friends via Facebook;
o Wish-list and registry management, product reviews, order status and stock availability.

“Our vision for hosted eCommerce is to free our clients to engage with their customers in a more meaningful, direct and cost-effective way, making Digby’s mobile technology a perfect strategic fit in terms of features, operations, support and cost,” said Eric Abensur, Group CEO of Venda. “Brands that thrive in the future will embrace mobile as a unifying customer experience, and with Venda A.M.P. they will be able to focus on delighting customers with the comfort that our platform will continue to scale and mature alongside their business.”