Retailers Still Trying to Solve the Omnichannel Challenge

The term is thrown about at random, but what does it really mean for a retail organization to be "omnichannel," both from the perspective of consumers as well as the retailer itself? In a session yesterday at the eTail East conference in Philadelphia, a panel of retailers — Jessica Coogan, online marketing director, The Container Store; Brian Witherow, director of customer loyalty, Lovesac; Cricket Whitton, director of marketing and e-commerce, Design Within Reach; and Sara Onken, digital marketing consultant, Steelcase — attempted to answer that question.

Container Store's "Click & Pickup" program has integrated the online shopping experience with the company's brick-and-mortar stores. The program now accounts for almost half of all of Container Store's online sales. While stores get credit for these sales, that doesn't matter to the online team at Container Store. We don't care where the credit goes, Jessica Coogan said. All of the sales are going to the bottom line.

Omnichannel manifests itself at Design Within Reach in a couple of ways, said Cricket Whitton. For one, the retailer maintains a single source of inventory for its e-commerce site and stores. Second, pricing is consistent across all of Design Within Reach's channels. You won't see a sale online unless that same product is discounted in-store, Whitton noted. Finally, Design Within Reach bridges the online-to-offline shopping experience with an online appointment scheduler that enables consumers to set a date and time to meet an in-store sales associate. The program has been a big win for Design Within Reach. Consumers who use with the online appointment scheduler convert at a higher rate and spend more, on average, than customers who don't.

Evolving Consumer Behavior
The growth of e-commerce and rising adoption of smartphones has led to a shift in the way consumers shop. For example, consumers are using multiple channels to research products before making purchase decisions.

We've seen an uptick in customers bringing their smartphones in-store ready to show the store associate the piece of furniture they're interested in, Lovesac's Brian Witherow said. Conversely, Lovesac is trying to bring the offline shopping experience online. One way the retailer is doing that is by offering live chat on its e-commerce site. Furthermore, to help it better market to transient customers, who may look at Lovesac's website before going in-store to see the product in-person, the retailer maintains one ERP and CRM system which provides a master data source to draw from.

Steelcase uses a login system to track customers across channels and devices — e.g., desktop, tablet, smartphone. While this type of data is valuable to Steelcase, the customer doesn't care about the channel. They want — and expect — a seamless shopping experience no matter which channel they interact with your brand, said Sara Onken. Our focus is on personalization to give customers the seamless and relevant shopping experience they're looking for.

To help it better capture data on its customers and reward them for their purchases, Container Store launched POP! (Perfectly Organized Perks), a customer loyalty program in July. We learned that customers wanted more communication from us, Jessica Coogan said. The retailer has done that with content such as blog posts, how-to videos, product previews, etc. While less than two months old, POP! is working. Loyalty members are making more online visits and have a higher average order value than nonloyalty members.

To address consumers’ evolving shopping behavior, and in particular their growing usage of smartphones to shop, Design Within Reach launched a mobile-optimized website nearly two years ago. The retailer had visions of driving sales via the mobile channel; that vision hasn't materialized. We've realized our mobile site isn't a selling tool, said Whitton. Consumers are using it to look up product info, find our stores, and pull up their wish lists in-store. It's a research tool, not a selling tool.

All of the panelists agreed that omnichannel really only matters to retailers. Consumers don't see channels; they simply choose to interact with brands in the ways that are most convenient for them. It's the job of retailers to deliver a great experience in every brand touchpoint.