eCommerce Report's eTailer of the week - BigBrownBox.com.au 
This week’s eTailer of the week is BigBrownBox.com.au.
Launched around 6 months ago, the online store offers name brand electrical appliances from companies such as Sony, Apple, Panasonic and the like.
Peter Krideras is the general manager of BigBrownBox.com.au which is wholly owned by listed company, RR Australia Ltd.
“Most of the others are concentrating on their traditional bricks and mortar operations. We’ve taken the concept online so that everything you’d expect to find in a retail electrical appliances store you can find at our site, online.”
“We stock all the big brands, buy direct from the manufacturers instead of through a wholesaler or importer, and offer free delivery.”
Krideras said that BigBrownBox.com has around 700-800 products available on the site and was doing good business.
“Hitwise stats suggest we’ve had half a million visitors to the site in the first six months,” he said.
“People are increasingly ready to look and shop online for a good deal.”
He said the BigBrownBox had proved particularly attractive to customers in regional areas, with 40% of customers from outside metropolitan centres.
Internal sales data also suggested that close to half of BigBrownBox customers are aged over 45.
He said that economic forecasters are predicting a big future for online retailing with US company, eMarketer, recently suggesting total online retail sales in Australia could be as high as $31.1billion by 2010.
BigBrownBox has its own warehouse in Arncliffe in Sydney, said Krideras.
“Most of the others are concentrating on their traditional bricks and mortar operations. We’ve taken the concept online so that everything you’d expect to find in a retail electrical appliances store you can find at our site, online.”
“That’s where we stock all our small-box items, such as digital cameras, notebooks, iPods and the like,” he said.
For bigger box items like fridges and TVs we have an arrangement with freight company, Allied, to either deliver direct from the manufacturer, or via one of the 65 Radio Rentals stores around Australia.
He said that BigBrownBox shares some staff and services with its parent company, and has its own marketing team.
“There are around 12 people who work exclusively for BigBrownBox,” he said.
The business has advertised heavily on TV, but Krideras said BigBrownBox is also actively marketing online.
He said the business spends a lot of time working keeping up its organic search ranking and also has paid advertising campaigns with Google and Yahoo.
The business is not yet running any other paid search campaigns, and nor is it yet providing data feeds to any of the comparison shopping sites such as Getprice or Shopping.com.
“We’re talking with the comparison shopping sites but haven’t signed up yet” he said.
For online payments, Krideras said BigBrownBox accepts all the major cards through a bank portal, but does not accept Paypal.
As to the future he said the electrical appliances industry is worth $10billion in Australia.
“If we can grab even a modest share of that I’ll be happy,” he said
For more information go to
www.bigbrownbox.com.au
www.shopping.com.au
www.getprice.com.au
www.emarketer.com
www.radio-rentals.com.au
For more information go to
www.topbuy.com.au
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