Bigmouthmedia senior retail strategist Finlay Clark will tell an invited audience of senior executives at the 2nd Annual bigmouthmedia Retail Summit this month that UK retailers are set to face fresh challenges as ecommerce consumer habits keep evolving rapidly. According to Clark, retailers face multiple opportunities and challenges posed by a shifting approach to the market, a raft of new technological developments and the entry of new players from overseas will have a major impact upon the sector in the coming months.

“With increased competition coming from various angles, retailers are about to face some of the biggest challenges in their history. Big overseas competitors are coming to the UK knowing consumers are sophisticated online shoppers, and the likes of Best Buy will be aiming to make its mark on an increasingly competitive consumer electronics market in 2010. Similarly, in fashion we have seen a shift with the likes of Ebay become clothes shopping destinations in their own right, whilst Amazon has allowed big high street brands to retail on their own platform,” said Clark.

“Nowadays independent fashion designers are launching exclusive collections on Ebay – far removed from the second hand and grey market sales that they made their name on – and in many ways they’re now a direct competitor to the retailers themselves.”

Clark will be joined by a panel of industry-leading online retail experts speaking on a range of themes including current consumer trends, cross channel shopping habits, the shape of UK internet advertising and the impact of social technologies upon web retailing.

Taking the podium at the Bigmouthmedia Retail Summit will be Benjamin Ensor, VP research director at Forrester Research, Google Retail Industry Leader Peter Fitzgerald and Tony Stockil, CEO of Javelin Group. Hitwise research director Robin Goad and Enders Analysis Founder Claire Enders will also join Clark on the rostrum.

In a presentation designed to identify the 10 key events set to hit Ecommerce over the course of the next two years, Clark will also highlight the challenge presented by the growth of online applications. Although a relatively new phenomenon, he predicts that retailers will be forced to place increasing focus upon keeping up with rapidly developing new marketing technologies.

“Some of the best content in the future will be delivered through applications like those found in Apple’s iPhone Apps Store. Retailers are only beginning to get to grips with the value of applications at the moment, and ensuring that theirs stands out and can be found easily by consumers will be a crucial challenge over the next few years,” said Clark.

“We’ll also see a lot more made of mobile marketing, which is only just beginning to make an impact upon retail, and expect there to be much greater correlation with the way retailers are able to market to consumers based on location-aware technology. Operators like Debenhams are already experimenting with such systems, but we are likely to see rapid developments in the field over the next 24 months.”

The bigmouthmedia Retail Summit takes place in London on March 25th and is a free event aimed at senior marketing and ecommerce executives. Places are limited, but those wishing to attend can register at http://www.bigmouthmedia.com/signup for an invitation.

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A bigmouthmedia survey has identified the UK Finance sector’s biggest users of online social networking tools and confounded many expectations by revealing that the Finance sector has embraced the social media phenomenon more readily than those in other established industries. Some 74% of the leading executives surveyed regularly engage in the use of tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, a statistic which demonstrates the extent to which a normally conservative sector has adopted the latest working trends.

Their performance compares extremely favourably with that of leading executives in the FTSE 100. In a bigmouthmedia survey earlier this year, of the FTSE executives sampled only 25% actively engaged in social networking, compared to 85% of business leaders representing companies from the Sunday Times Fast Track 100.

“The evidence clearly shows that the Britain’s financial businesses are rapidly coming to terms with the social media revolution. However, there is still over a 10% gap between the use of social media by finance execs and those in Fast Track companies,” said Chris Cathcart, Senior Finance Strategist at bigmouthmedia.

“I believe it is key for finance execs with a focus on digital marketing to understand the social sphere more. A targeted and strategic social media campaign can not only help build better brand relations with customers, but can also highlight easily fixed customer based issues and create greater brand loyalty, not to mention a beneficial impact on organic search results.”

While the social media has been one of 2009’s most hyped phenomena, little evidence exists as to what extent businesses are deriving benefits from the plethora of available services. However, bigmouthmedia’s survey indicates that leading industry players are increasingly using social networking as part of the essential business toolkit.

The research revealed that former Lloyds TSB Head of Innovation James Gardner is the finance sector executive who has most readily adopted social networking as a means to communicate with colleagues and the public. Gardner, who recently moved to the Department for Work and Pensions, uses LinkedIN, Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo and a blog to reach out to past, present and future customers.

Gardner emerged as eventual winner in front of a field that included Martin Peterlechner at Tesco Personal Finance, HBOS head of banking Mike Regnier and Stephan Daquaire of Swiftcover.com.

LinkedIn emerged as the finance executive’s networking tool of choice, with 76% of those surveyed using the service.

Linus Gregoriadis, research director at internet marketing research and training company Econsultancy, said: “It’s great to see financial services company executives really involved with social media. This sector has historically been quite slow to engage in new digital channels but, in recent months, there are some great examples of financial services brands who have been really dynamic.

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