Is trade ready for omnichannel retail? Omnichannel retail done right
According to a Swiss online survey, 55% of all online retailers surveyed also have high-street stores, which means they are following a common trend. But how well do these different channels combine?
One result of this survey of online retailers, which was carried out by the University of Lucerne in cooperation with Swiss Post, was that half of all businesses surveyed also have high-street stores.
High-street trading and e-commerce are two completely different animals, so to speak, so it is well worth asking whether these retailers actually manage to coordinate their processes, and how.
A few weeks ago, I needed new brush heads for my electric toothbrush. As we all know, these are far from cheap, so I ended up doing what most consumers would do: I searched online to see where I could get a good deal on them. One of the cheapest places was an online retailer that also has a high-street store, and it sells brushes in its online store for 15% of the price of its high-street store. This was a no-brainer, so I ordered the product and had it delivered to my nearest branch.
I had no problems with my order and just two days later I received confirmation the item was ready to pick up from my nearest branch.
So I was pretty surprised when I was actually given a padded envelope in the shop containing the set of two brush heads (worth CHF 9.30). I figured the order must have been sent by A Mail from the central warehouse to the shop. The question, however, is: why? If the item was available on site, why did they even bother with the process chain? This meant the retailer lost out on profit, and it cost them more money. Good for Swiss Post, but not for them.
Is high-street trading ready for online retail?
I assume the retailer did not have any other choice in the matter and that they were simply not ready for omnichannel retail. As a result, they are carelessly missing out on an enormous opportunity where they could convert whoever is collecting the order into a customer that could potentially buy something else.
Omnichannel retail requires deciding what the best and most sensible way is of making the most of your direct contact with an online customer. The customer is in the shop − now is the time to seize this unique opportunity!
To get the most out of this touchpoint, it might be an idea to ask yourself a few key questions:
- Does my sales team even know what goods are collected?
- Did they receive training on how the goods collected could be used to generate additional sales?
- Are these value-added services rewarded appropriately?
- If we already know what the customer wants from the shop, could I potentially carry out their order through the shop?
- How do we avoid deliveries from the central warehouse if the products the customer has ordered are already available in the shop itself?
Retailers willing to take these questions seriously and to come up with suitable answers to them are sure to see an increase in customer satisfaction and turnover. If e-commerce and high-street trading are viewed and treated as a single entity, this will also contribute to high-street retailers coming to accept online retail.
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