With an estimated 94% of all Americans living or working within five minutes of a RadioShack store, store penetration figures significantly into RadioShack’s web strategy, David Goyne, senior vice president of web operations, tells Internet Retailer.
“Our geographic convenience for most of our customers is a marketing strength. They can buy on the web, but because of nexus laws, we charge sales tax just like our stores do, so there is no financial incentive to buy online, then there is the delay in getting the product. So they find online that RadioShack does have what they want, and they shop at the local store where they get to touch and feel the product and talk to one of our in-store experts,” Goyne says.
RadioShack does not break out the percentage of its sales transacted online versus in-store, but Goyne does say many customers, aware of the close proximity of their local store, use the web for product search before completing the sale at a store. To ensure that prices and offers displayed online match what’s available in-store locally, RadioShack.com’s home page has a Shop by Zip code feature.
RadioShack runs different programs in offshore locations such as Hawaii and Puerto Rico than it does on the mainland. Local offerings also may differ based on competitively driven price optimization or local restrictions and regulation. The state of West Virginia, for example, does not permit the use of radar detectors, so the fliers displayed online for West Virginia residents, like the fliers distributed offline in that state, would not offer that product. “Because we don’t know where you as a web customer are, we ask you to give us your Zip code as a way to make sure that the products and prices that are given to you online are consistent with what you would find at the local store,” says Goyne.
Though it did not break out web sales, RadioShack Corp. this week reported total fourth quarter net income of $127 million compared with $109 million for the year-ago quarter. Sales for the quarter at $1.5 billion were largely flat compared to a year ago. For the year, the company reported net income $298 million on sales of $4.6 billion versus net income of $263 million on sales of $4.57 billion the previous year.
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