Omnichannel

Ikea's new kiosk-based loyalty program IKEA FAMILY has already attracted more than 1.6 million members since its launch a few months ago. IKEA FAMILY offers special offers and benefits to customers, as well as program-branded merchandise and promotional events, Diane Zoll, manager of IKEA FAMILY US, said in a company press release. "Not only are there now millions of members, but members are highly engaged and spend more when they visit Ikea," Zoll said. The membership journey begins in-store at the FAMILY Shop, which features unique FAMILY-branded merchandise that members can use every day, from backpacks to bathrobes, with members-only prices.

American Eagle’s latest campaign for its aerie label is a great example of using mobile to drive traffic to the brand’s social presence. To celebrate reaching 1 million “Likes” on Facebook, aerie sent a text message with a free shipping offer to encourage even more consumers to become fans of the brand on Facebook.

The use of smartphones is proliferating at a rapid pace. In turn, showrooming — i.e., the practice of researching merchandise in a retail store then purchasing it elsewhere — is also increasingly common. It is, understandably, a thorn in a retailer's side. Whereas the internet has engendered huge shifts in the way media is consumed, mobile technology is causing big changes in retail shopping behavior.

To help guide online retailers on their quest to make meaningful metrics less elusive, we've put together "A Merchant's Metrics Playbook" to guide the development of a forward-thinking strategy that takes into account the right metrics and methodologies for running your business.

Limited Brands, parent company of Victoria's Secret and Bath & Body Works, will pilot cross-channel returns beginning this fall. Customers who buy an item via the retailer's online or catalog channel will receive credit and be able to complete a store transaction in September, with plans for a more complete rollout in spring 2013. "We are focused on really putting the power of our $2 billion internet and catalog business and the store together, actually taking returns in-store," said Victoria's Secret megabrand and intimate apparel CEO Sharen Turney during a recent conference call. 

Retailers are using multiple channels to establish more direct connections with consumers, according to the findings of a recent survey from global cloud commerce solutions provider Digital River. Consistent with the shift to multichannel strategies, the survey indicated respondents are increasingly connecting with customers via multiple touchpoints. Nearly 80 percent of respondents said they were currently using transactional websites, followed by social commerce (55 percent), app stores (50 percent), in-product commerce (50 percent), subscription sales (48 percent) and mobile commerce (48 percent).

The real challenge for retailers is in bridging the virtual world with the physical one, the digital/e-commerce world with brick-and-mortar shops. Their ability to connect these experiences and complete the consumer journey, thus successfully combating the “Amazon effect,” is essential in order to stay relevant to the modern, digitally enabled consumer.

The hybris Multichannel Shopping Survey found that over 80 percent of U.S consumers said they're more likely to become loyal customers to retailers that provide an integrated shopping experience across channels. The study also found the importance of online and mobile strategies continues to increase, with more than a third of respondents (39 percent) saying that they make more purchases online than in-store.

The retail marketer's toolbox is filling up with new platforms, gadgets and slick technology faster than you can say "pin it." Over the last year, we've seen social and mobile grow in importance for retailers, leading to lots of questions, but also lots of room for creativity. And since May is Marketing Month, we wanted to get a chief marketing officer's perspective on where this social and mobile wave is taking us. We turned to Jay Dunn, chief marketing officer for Bare Necessities, to find out.

CEM and other innovative business intelligence tools significantly contribute to what's now known as a brand’s “social influence.” This means that brands are no longer talking ‘at’ individual recipients, but instead disseminating information through interactive social media platforms.