David Geraghty – Michmutters
Categories
Business

How David Jones is targeting 582m Chinese customers via WeChat

Upmarket legacy retailer David Jones is arguably better known for its old-fashioned shops and traditional customer service than its online innovation.

But the department store appears to be one of the only Australian retailers tapping into the gigantic Chinese market on a social media platform that boasts 582 million active users a month.

The retailer’s chief marketing officer James Holloman has described the platform Weibo or WeChat as “world leading” combining the elements from other social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram and WhatsApp, as well as the ability to pay bills and buy everything from fashion to beauty products .

With more than 40,000 followers and three years on WeChat, Mr Holloman said David Jones’ Chinese clients were “incredibly important” to the retailer, which has signaled unrivaled “commercial success” on the social media platform.

“WeChat is a full ecosystem for mainland China … and it’s almost a one-stop shop for mainland Chinese where they are doing kinda like Facebook, Instagram and a payment wallet all in one,” he told news.com.au.

“You technically follow different accounts and different individuals, and you use it essentially as a WhatsApp version between your friends in terms of messaging, but then you also follow different brands and it’s similar to a really immersive email.

“It’s basically a full immersive ability to shop directly from incredibly immersive posts … and you can follow everyone from Louis Vuitton, Coca Cola, Estee Lauder to Dior.”

Stream more business news live & on demand with Flash. 25+ news channels in 1 place. New to Flash? Try 1 month free. Offer ends October 31, 2022 >

For David Jones, many of his followers are part of the Chinese community living in Australia and the bulk are aged between 25 and 36, Mr Holloman revealed, which has given the retailer “massive growth” from younger shoppers.

One of the department store’s big moves has been around Singles Day, an unofficial holiday and shopping event held on 11 November every year in China, that celebrates people who are not in relationships.

“Last year during the Singles Day shopping event, which is almost the biggest shopping day worldwide and it’s bigger than Black Friday, we did our first live stream,” Mr Holloman said.

“It’s the equivalent of shopping television where we had an hour and a half of fully engaged viewers watching our life stream of all of amazing products and key specials happening over that day and we had 13,000 viewers watching that on WeChat.”

For the Lunar Year in February, they introduced the little red packets which are a traditional gift of money, and allowed people to send them virtually to friends from their account.

Influencers have also been key to the brand’s success, I added.

Mr Holloman said mainland Chinese are important clients for buying premium goods, with a report from consulting firm McKinsey revealing that 50 per cent of the global luxury goods will be purchased by the Chinese by 2025.

“It’s a very hot market for the stuff that we sell,” he added.

“Secondly, there is an audience in Australia that want to be communicated to. There are 1.2 million Chinese born Australians so that’s a huge proportion as it’s almost 5 per cent of the Australian population.

“We want to talk to our clients in the language and way they best feel most comfortable in… and understanding and engaging in and on a platform that they feel most comfortable in.”

This approach has also been translated into stores as well with sales associates who speak fluent Mandarin, he added.

WeChat recently praised David Jones’ SS20 Beauty campaign as a part of a global showcase of best-in-class activity and it was the only international retail store featured on the list.

The beauty campaign, themed Full Bloom, included video, imagery, emails, in-store visual merchandising, a 36-page print booklet and shoppable article pages.

“With clever use of shoppable product display functions and rich graphic design elements, the campaign achieved a click through rate of more than double that of industry benchmarks,” WeChat said.

Another “incredible success story” for the China market has been landing Kim Kardashian’s popular Skims line, Mr Holloman said.

“She can be polarizing, but it’s been a commercial success and from what we hear from customers, they are excited to have such exclusive brands across our network,” he said.

The retailer copped fierce backlash when it announced it was stocking the star’s products, with loyal fans of the store accusing the world-famous influencer of diminishing the retailer’s “class” after DJ’s shared a video to their Instagram page of Kim promoting the brand.

However, despite its investment in WeChat, David Jones has no presence on another social media platform that has been blowing up – TikTok – which has over one billion users.

“We are incredibly strong on Instagram and on Facebook, we have in excess of 400,000 followers on Instagram and 600,000 on Facebook,” Mr Holloman said.

Queensland University of Technology retail expert Dr Gary Mortimer said David Jones’ use of WeChat is a “great strategy”.

“They are taking advantage of a growing middle class affluent Chinese market that does often look for Australian brands and often international brands and David Jones has the ability to provide those brands to that particular audience,” Dr Mortimer told news.com.au.

“When you look at what they are doing in that space they would be aligning themselves with Chinese influencers that connect really well with that Chinese market.

“They would be leveraging really large online promotional events like Singles Day that runs on the 11 November every year and it gets bigger and bigger.

“Singles Day is a bit like Amazon Price day but it turned over about $US85 billion ($A122 billion) last year. The Chinese market is a very valuable and viable market for Australian business and brands.”

Dr Mortimer said China’s population of 1.3 billion compared to the “tiny” 26 million living in Australia also showed it was a lucrative field to play in.

“Trust is huge issue for the Chinese population who are concerned about counterfeiting, so working on a Chinese platform gives legitimacy for David Jones in that market,” he added.

“Woolworths is playing in that space as well.”

In 2015, Woolworths opened its first overseas flagship store on the Tmall website and has also partnered with supermarket 7 Fresh since 2020 offering WeChat as a payment system.

.

Categories
Business

RBA interest rates: Westpac decreases fixed rates as three big banks pass on full 0.50 percentage point rate hike

Westpac Bank has made a surprising move, choosing to spare some customers from escalating price hike pain.

The big bank has announced it will be decreasing its four-year owner occupied fixed interest rate by one per cent, down to 4.99.

Westpac is the third of the big banks to announce its rate changes following the Reserve Bank of Australia’s decision to increase the official cash rate by 0.50% per annum (pa) on Tuesday.

The big bank has unsurprisingly followed its rivals the Commonwealth Bank and ANZ in increasing its variable home loan interest rates.

The interest rate changes will come into effect for new and existing home loan variable rate products on Thursday, August 18.

Earlier today, ANZ joined CBA in announcing it will be passing on the hike to variable rate mortgages and one savings account by the full 0.50 percentage points.

The major bank said its up-scaled up mortgage rates will come into effect for both new and existing customers from Friday, August 12.

The lowest variable rate will now be increased to 3.69 per cent – ​​just under that of CBA, which pumped up its lowest rate to 3.79 per cent.

Both rates are at three-year highs.

The ANZ decision also included increasing the rate on its new ANZ Plus Save account by 0.50 percentage points to 2.50 per cent for balances up to $250,000, which will come into place on Monday.

The move came just hours after Australia’s biggest bank, the Commonwealth Bank, announced it will pass on the full 0.50 percentage point hike to its variable home loan customers and some savings customers.

CBA will bring its occupier principal and interest standard variable home loans rate to 5.8 per cent.

Uncharacteristically, Australia’s other big banks have been slow off the blocks following the RBA’s decision on Tuesday, with CBA’s competitors Westpac, NAB and ANZ yet to make their announcements.

Mortgage rates for new and existing customers at CBA will rise by 0.50 percentage points on August 12, with investor rates rising to 6.38 per cent.

Research director at RateCity.com.au Sally Tindall said while the CBA’s decision comes as no surprise, for customers who are already feeling the heat, this fourth hike is a “difficult pill to swallow”.

“From next week, CBA’s basic variable rate will hit a three-year high of 3.79 per cent – ​​a huge increase from three months ago when it was just 2.19 per cent,” she said.

For an owner-occupier with $500,000 debt and 25 years remaining, the 0.5 percentage point hike means they will see their monthly repayments rise by $140.

To ease the strain, Commonwealth Bank is cutting its lowest four-year fixed rate to 4.99 per cent – ​​a drop of 1.60 percentage points.

This special rate, which comes into play on Friday, is strictly for owner-occupiers paying principal and interest on a package rate ($395 annual fee) for a limited time.

While Ms Tindall said the “whopping cut” will make it the lowest in its category, she warned it may not necessarily be a good idea.

“People should think carefully about whether they want to lock up their mortgage for the next four years because there can be significant consequences if they decide to break their loan,” she said.

For those with a NetBank Saver account, who will see the full rate hike, the research director said an ongoing rate of just 0.85 still won’t cut it.

“In this market, where we could see ongoing rates over 3 per cent, these savers are still getting paid peanuts,” she said.

But Ms Tindall said there are signs things could be turning around.

“On Tuesday, Macquarie announced it was making significant cuts to its fixed rates and now CBA is following suit,” she said.

“We expect this will trigger further fixed rate cuts from other lenders in response to both evolving market expectations and competition among the banks.”

Read related topics:westpac

.

Categories
Business

Travel chaos: Airline experts warn delays and cancellations will continue for months

An aviation expert has warned travel chaos “pain” could continue into next year as the industry struggles to meet soaring demand after stripping services during the pandemic.

Flight Center managing director Graham Turner cautioned travelers to be wary of delays and cancellations until at least the end of the year as airlines contend with inexperienced and ill staff.

“Bear in mind the aviation industry, and you know travel industry generally, has two-and-a-half years when we had to absolutely cut to the bone everything and now building that back up is quite difficult,” he said on Channel 9’s Today show.

Mr Turner admitted the aviation industry was experiencing a “tough period” and asked travelers to exercise “a bit of patience”.

The travel boss noted the chaos was more manageable for domestic travelers despite the mass cancellations and delays.

On Monday, 40 flights between Sydney and Melbourne were canceled and hundreds of people were left sitting on plans after a computer outage grounded Qantas plans.

“Domestically, our experience is although there are delays, a lot of changes, quite a few cancellations, generally most people are getting away and getting to their destination,” he said.

“It is a bit harder internationally because if you get international cancellations it can be quite hard to get seats.”

Mr Turner said there would continue to be “pain” for travelers for at least the next couple of months as the industry grapples with staffing issues and the effects of the ongoing pandemic.

Happily, he predicts, traveling around Australia will be much easier by the end of the year when “all of this really settles down”.

“Domestically, it will improve and we certainly predict by October/November, assuming the Omicron does settle down, it will be much better off,” he said.

While the news will surely be welcomed by local travellers, those looking to travel internationally have no reassuring timeline for when the dust will settle.

The bleak news comes as Australia’s airports gain international attention for all the wrong reasons.

Sydney’s Kingsford Smith International Airport was recently ranked one of the 10 worst airports in the world for flight delays.

Meanwhile, social media has been flooded with angry travelers reporting lost baggage, delayed or canceled flights and staggering queues.

.