Cross channel integration progresses, but obstacles remain
Seamless cross channel integration, tracking and marketing remains retail’s Holy Grail, with opportunities and successes still being offset by the challenges and obstacles of making it all work tougher, a panel of retailers told attendees at the Annual Catalog Conference in Chicago this week.
Big and tall men’s apparel retailer Rochester Clothing, which added a web and catalog direct channel to its store operations in 2002, is seeking to integrate its store, catalog and web operations as much as possible. “We want to develop multi-channel customers. Our research tells us they buy more and are more loyal, so we advertise each channel in all channels,” says Jay Allen, marketing director.
Ross-Simons, which started with one jewelry store and now has 14 stores, a major catalog operation and direct sales through home parties, launched a web site in 1996 and takes a different approach to multi-channel strategy. Catalog promotions focus on the catalog and web promotions focus on the web. “There’s some overlap, but in a sense we are managing the channels independently,” says John Buleza, catalog marketing director.
That’s partly because inventory differs slightly across channels. The catalog, for example, doesn’t offer the high-end watches available in the stores. For that reason, Ross-Simons stores don’t accept catalog and web returns. Buleza also notes that Ross-Simons customers tend to skew older, with greater resistance to supplying credit card information online. As a result, some of Ross-Simons` greatest cross channel activity is in customers who shop on its site but place orders on the phone using key codes supplied online to secure web promotion pricing, he says. Buleza adds while 14% of Ross-Simons customers shop both the catalog and the Internet, a very small percentage – 0.3% -- shop the three channels of web, catalog and store.
GSI Commerce’s J.P. Werlin, director of online marketing, notes that one key cross channel success in recent months, among the 60 online stores now supported by GSI, is the bridal and gift registry at client Linens ‘n’ Things. Shoppers can now register online and friends and family can pull up those lists online or at a store kiosk. “The key is getting that information from the web registry into the store POS,” says Werlin. “There are benefits from a sales and customer acquisition standpoint. The bridal registry customer tends to be loyal. Shoppers have a finite amount of time, Werlin adds, noting that “With anything you can do to drive more interaction by opening up more channels and taking up more of that interaction time, the brand wins.”
Among cross-channel issues they’re still working to resolve, the retailers cite giving call center reps more visibility into the online customer’s shopping basket during a live session, assigning credit for a sale to the correct channel, how to market strategically across channels, and the limits of current technology in integrating cross channel data effectively.
“Cross channel is about coordination,” said panel moderator Alan Rimm-Kaufmann of consultants the Rimm-Kaufmann Group. “When marketers pull it off, it looks easy, but it really isn’t.”
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