Last Christmas over half the UK’s population bought online and this month’s Zarr newsletter charts the growth in online shopping and looks at how your business can benefit.

Christmas Countdown
Online shopping sales sparkled last Christmas. This is in sharp contrast with disappointing high street's results, following what the British Retail Consortium described as "the worst Christmas for retailers in the last decade.”

E-retail sales for November and December were up 20% on the previous year's exceptionally high levels, outperforming the high street by a factor of eight. High street sales grew by just 2.5%. Half of the UK population was shopping online last Christmas, spending more than £3 billion, which represented 6.8% of all UK retail sales. Stores without websites paid the price in poorer sales according to figures from the Interactive Media in Retail Group in January 2005.

A recent report from online payment service PayPal highlighted that three-quarters of small retail businesses do not sell their goods or services online. Potentially they are missing out on £69,540 worth of sales, that’s the average online income that the 25% of UK small businesses with e-commerce enabled websites experience. In PayPal’s report one quarter of respondents admitted that their web site is a more cost-effective sales channel than their high street shop.

For retailers wanting to maximise their online sales this Christmas Zarr has created a Recipe Book for Online Success which details an approach to make sure your online business is a winner. The Free Recipe Book for Online Success is available as a PDF E-Book.

Search Engine Insider: Contextual links
Search engines like hyperlinks and these links are used by search engines to index websites so it is a good opportunity to improve your search engine rankings. So rather than using the words click here, your hyperlink should contain useful keyword rich information which gives a description of what the hyperlink is linking to e.g. contact Zarr to verify your website is making the most of contextual links.

Zarr’s Latest Arrival: Kristina Johnson Kristina Johnson is Zarr’s office and business support administrator. Kristina joins Zarr straight from school on an apprenticeship. Kristina attends Henley College, on a part-time basis to develop her business skills. Meet the other members of Zarr's Team.

Top Tip: The Google Toolbar?
If you want to see how highly Google ranks certain websites download the Google toolbar to tell you how Google’s algorithms assess the importance of the page you're viewing. Google ranks sites on a wide range of factors including the number of visitors to the site, how frequently the contents change, and the size of the website.

To download the Google toolbar visit http://toolbar.google.com/ and click on download Google Toolbar on the right hand side.

Site Launch: Home and Garden Gifts Home and Garden Gifts is well positioned to enjoy a successful Christmas online. Their Zarr developed online retail solution, which launched in early June, sells a huge wealth of gifts for all occasions. They have already made a significant number of sales for items exceeding £1,000, disproving the theory that only low value items are sold online.

Coming Soon
In Zarr’s September newsletter features The Internet 2 – what it is, and what it means for you.

Contact Zarr
If you are interested in finding out how your business can benefit from the latest web technology or if you need help with your online business strategy contact Zarr Internet Services on 01788 820900.

Unsubscribe
To unsubscribe so that you no longer receive newsletters from Zarr, please click here and click on the Go button.