Sooner or later you will need to fight the Vikings!

The history bit:

In the 9th century, Britain was under constant attack by bearded foes that we have come to call Vikings. The Saxon inhabitants of Wessex and Mercia were able to defend themselves by retreating to their burhs, fortified structures across the land that served as commercial centres and fortresses in times of attack. This provided significant safety for the nobles and common folk alike and so life went on and for the most part leaders preferred to put up with the Northman menace, rather than run the risk of taking the battle to them.

However when Northumbria fell to a great army of Danes, King Alfred needed to act he and his brothers rallied support from all of the burhs and formed alliances with other nobles, they raised a great army and marched against the invaders. They marched north and met the Danes at Ashdown, in 871. In the resulting battle many were lost on both sides but it was an important victory for the Saxons against a powerful foe. The conflict for rulership of England waged on for another 200 years when the Vikings were finally defeated at the battle of Stamford Bridge 1066AD. The Saxons had secured rulership of England, just weeks before they were utterly defeated by a new unforeseen foe from Normandy.

King Alfred, is the only ruler of England to have the honorific "the Great" added to his name. His exploits show us one eternal truth, when you are under attack, there is no hiding behind stone walls, sooner or later you will need to fight the vikings!

The new vikings:

In our times, established businesses are under a lot of economic pressure from formidable invaders from across the sea, Amazon and eBay are powerful competition both for the establishment, Tesco etc. but also for smaller companies who find that whatever product they are offering, there is always a cheaper online alternate.

For too many years, the good years - when there was enough money to go around, most traditional businesses did little to take the fight to the digital newcomers. Instead they stuck to what they knew, increasing the number of stores, extending open hours and diversifying through new product lines. This approach did have the effect of keeping them safe for a while but it was only a mater of time until the invaders wore them down and some started to fall.

Last year retailers were hit hard, following the raft of insolvencies in 08 and 09, there had been relative calm although there were a steady trickle of failures, including the occasional big name until 2013 when the year kicked off with 3 very high profile failures: HMV (the last high street music retailer), Jessops (the UK's only national camera retailer) and Blockbuster (who had for years, denied reports that they were struggling in the face of "on-demand" services).

In the aftermath of this, there has been a rally, retailers have in vested a lot more in growing digital teams, newer platforms and social media activity. Do you remember in 2008 when no one knew what to do with Facebook? Damn this industry moves fast! In general the state of e-commerce offering from the major retailers has improved and shoppers are becoming more used to buying online and visiting brand websites for a more complete range of products than what is available in stores.

This improvement has come just as another digital threat has arisen. The Mobile horde!

Retailers are facing a new threat from mobile armed shoppers who can compare prices, specifications and reviews of products they find in store. In some cases this has lead to people visiting a store to have the touch and feel experience but complete the purchase with a cheaper retailer online.

These challenges need to be met and soon if we are not to see another wave of retail failures. The mobile audience is growing rapidly, about 1 in 3 visits to every website is now from a mobile device, this is set to increase as devices become ever more powerful.

Technologies that can really help retailers compete in the mobile space are:

1. Responsive design - This technology enables a website to be viewed on a mobile, a tablet or desktop computer; offering a seamless and unified experience to all visitors.
2. Location services - Apps can push messages to phone users in store, alerting them about offers or encouraging them to view a larger range online.
3. Online price matching - Many retailers offer a price match at the checkout but the ability to match any online price via an in store app would provide a powerful sales closing tool.
4. Social media - This provides shoppers with the ability to access customer service and live information about offers, in real time.
5. Loyalty apps - Apps provide the opportunity for big brands to give customers a boutique service, tied in with good CRM, app users can be very loyal and worth rewarding.

Things are tough right now for the big retailers but they are making good progress, however it's no time to get complacent, mobile is huge and its here. Let's ride out and tackle it head on.

To read more of my thoughts on web design and digital marketing please visit my company blog here: Fast Fwd blog