Salmat Digital Services has launched Lasoo.com.au, a website that aggregates offers advertised in traditional retail catalogues and press ads, and brings them to life in a fully searchable website.

Lasoo lets shoppers search retail offers online by individual product, retailer, category, suburb and price. Once a product is selected, the user is taken to the retailer’s online catalogue, which features product information such as dimensions, colour availability, technical specifications as well as the expiry date of the product offering. Customers can also browse by catalogue.

Paul Marshall, CEO of Lasoo and executive director of Salmat’s DigitalForce division, says the website helps traditional retailers successfully compete in the online market, already heavily dominated by e-tailers. Lasoo will allow them to reach the millions of Australians who are already using the internet to make pre-purchase decisions.

“Our research shows more than five million consumers each month are using the internet to research products and compare prices before they buy, and this number is rapidly growing,” he says.

“Lasoo connects retailers’ brands, their products and their offers to new customers. And because Lasoo will carry content from bricks and mortar retailers, it will turn web browsers into in-store customers.

“By extending traditional marketing and media to online, retailers can amplify their marketing voice and increase sales with minimal expenditure. Their offer-based advertising will be discoverable online….

“In addition, Lasoo enables our retailer partners to find out more about their customers and competitors using sophisticated online measuring tools to track their behaviour. Our analytics packages offer retailers the chance to access customer data they’ve never had before,” says Marshall.

Retailers that subscribe to the site are provided with reports on the relative performance of their offers, including reports on the most popular items or categories searched in their own catalogue or across all catalogues, allowing retailers to keep track of the market and modify their own offers accordingly.

Other information available to retailers includes most popular consumer searches by postcode, price or store, allowing retailers to track the performance of their offers by price point, region or individual store.

The consumer data can be updated daily and will enhance retailer knowledge of what is in demand and identify sales opportunities. Over 41 retailers, including Myer, Target, Big W and Betta Electrical, have signed on to Lasoo. The site is exclusive to bricks and mortar retailers and only current catalogues are live on the site.