Merchants step up multi-channel holiday marketing, Shop.org says
Most retailers have already launched their online holiday promotions, and more of them are also promoting their web sites in stores compared to last year, Shop.org executive director Scott Silverman says.
56% of retailers launched their online holiday promotions last week, and 75% will have done so by the end of this week, Silverman said in a Nov. 2 news media conference call. He based his figures on a survey of 116 e-retailers and 2,700 online shoppers conducted by BizRate Research for Shop.org and shopping portal Shopzilla.com between Sept. 26 and Oct. 8.
The study also found that 76% of e-retailers are optimistic about holiday sales this year. One reason they expect to do well, Silverman says, is a stronger focus on multi-channel promotions. “More retailers are promoting the web in their stores, collecting e-mail addresses and providing in-store kiosks,” he says. Kiosks, by allowing shoppers as well as store clerks to go to a retailer’s web site, are helping to expand customer service while helping to process sales of promoted items that might not be in stock in a store but available online.
Merchants are also stepping up other marketing efforts to coincide with specific needs, Silverman says. As the online marketplace matures with a slower rate of increase in the number of new buyers, for example, many retailers are relying more on e-mail marketing to support a shift to customer retention from customer acquisition. The market is also experiencing a resurgence of print catalogs as an effective multi-channel marketing tool. “Retailers see a surge in online traffic when a catalog mails,” he says.
More multi-channel retailers are also beginning to offer in-store pickup of online orders as well as offering online customers the option to return purchased items to stores. 12% of retailers in the survey say they’ll offer in-store pickup this year, up from 7% in last year’s survey. Bringing online shoppers into stores usually results in incremental store sales, Silverman notes.
“Retailers know that the customer who buys in multiple channels spends more,” he says. But multi-channel shoppers also expect consistency in retailing across channels, he adds. “That challenges retailers to be consistent from channel to channel,” he says.
Back...
