How retail chains are growing their web strategies

Although many have been slow to capitalize on the web as a selling channel, retail chains are starting to use their web sites as part of a coordinated multi-channel selling strategy, Retail Forward analyst Mary Brett Whitfield says.

“Retail chains have been experimenting with the web since the advent of online retailing, but what’s different today is that store-based retailers are trying to be more strategic online,” Whitfield tells Internet Retailer. “At first all retailers were rushing to get online, but now they thinking about what their online business can do better or differently than their stores.”

Whitfield, who is a senior vice president of Retail Forward, will speak at the Internet Retailer 2006 Conference in June in Chicago on the topic “Internet Retailer Profit Survey: How Retail Sites Stack Up on the Bottom Line.”

Whitfield cites several examples. Nordstrom Inc., with fewer than 200 stores spread across 27 states, can reach only a limited number of buyers for its designer fashions, Whitfield notes. So it recently began leveraging the web to broaden its customer base by featuring fashion merchandise in a new Designer Collections micro-site linked to the home page of Nordstrom.com. “With its new Designer Collections, it’s bringing more designer goods to consumers who don’t have easy access to its stores,” she says.

Neiman Marcus Group Inc., she adds, is using NeimanMarcus.com to broaden its market for niche products like maternity collections. “It’s carrying maternity products online not offered in its stores, because it’s hard to justify targeting the small percentage that makes up the maternity market in any given store location.”

In the home improvement market, Whitfield adds, Home Depot is using the web to expand further into services and b2b sales. A new b2b Contractor Services site linked from the home page of HomeDepot.com, for example, is broadening its base of contractors in both private industry and government agencies.