Radio Rentals launches online store

Home appliance and rental company Radio Rentals Australia Ltd has defied the tough times in the retail industry by launching an online portal to offer its products.

BigBrownBox.com.au will offer electrical and whitegoods products, with free delivery.

"Given the massive commitment that traditional retailers have to bricks and mortar infrastructure, we can certainly appreciate why they have fought the urge to go online," managing director John Hughes said on Thursday.

"The world has changed significantly and consumers have become very savvy with the internet and understand the value that a top site can deliver.

Source:  The Age

Comment from Rachael Milne, Business Development Manager at Simple Net ecommerce specialists:

At last, a well known Australian white goods retailer is bright enough and bold enough to reach out to the 21st Century!  Here at Simple Net we are delighted to see the underdog is carving out the path of eCommerce! We expect there might be some red faces in board rooms around the Country.

Working under the name BigBrownBox.com.au is another bold move.  Most retailers are either too frightened to associate their brand with an online store, or too scared to move away from their brand.

The website:  It's great.  It's themed around a big brown cardboard box, products are displayed and can be purchased from the home page, it's easy to search by brands / product types or names, in fact there are multiple search areas.

The products are displayed clearly and consistently.  I can see my shopping cart as I continue shopping and I can check that the products can be delivered to my post code. You are given clear warranty options and delivery is FREE! Keeping up to date with the Gen Y's, I can share the product details on Facebook and Digg.

I was asked to create an account as I go through to checkout and then the site froze, the reviews section did the same thing - but I am sure these are just teething problems.  I also noticed they haven't done much with their Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as yet and I can't pay by PayPal. If they have selected a good web development partner I am confident these may be part of phase 2 developments. 

Now the other major players have heard the starting gun, they might not see online retailing as a risk or threat to their current business models, let's see how quickly they join the race.

Thursday, 27 November 2008

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