The Web: Great for retailing, even better for brand promotion

Why did so many pure-plays fail in web retailing and why did so many established retailers and catalogers succeed when they followed them to the Internet? The failure of the virtual merchants to fulfill orders efficiently and effectively is often cited as one reason. The dot-coms were also blamed with failing to understand and applying proven merchandising techniques. Still others suggest that they spent extravagantly on frills simply because, in the beginning at least, they had the Wall Street money to fund such expenditures. But perhaps the biggest factor was the pure plays lacked an existing brand and felt forced to spend heavily to create one, while well established retailers and catalogers could leverage strong brands as they began competing in cyberspace.

In addressing e-retailers attending last week’s Shop.org Annual Summit in New York, Kelly Mooney, president of Ten/Resource, an interactive marketing consulting firm, reminded her audience not to overlook the importance of using the web to create positive customer experiences that extend the power of their brands. “Marketing in a multi-channel environment can no longer by linear,” Mooney declared. “You can’t market within the silo of each channel, because segregation is the death of the brand.”

She gave her audience several examples of companies using the web to strengthen the customer’s positive vibes toward their brands. Apple, she observed, uses its web site to connect visitors to its new collection of advertisements focusing on testimonials from real but ordinary customers about the ease of using Macintosh systems. Not only can visitors see and replay the ads on the site; they can access and download detailed information on how they can and why they should switch from PCs to Macs. “Two-thirds of retail web sites have no prominent connection to the brand advertising that drives people to them, and that’s a huge missed opportunity,” Mooney said.

Similarly, Mooney observed, Sprint’s web site now allows consumers to check how many minutes have been used thus far in the month and how many remain under their call plan, a customer information feature that directly confronts consumer frustrations with the mind-boggling array of calling plans that the telecoms have introduced. Lands’ End enhances the trust that consumers feel toward its brand by proclaiming in bold type on its web site that satisfaction with all sales is “Guaranteed. Period,” and it communicates a similarly unconditional guarantee that its customer’s e-mail addresses will never be sold or rented to others, ever.

Some time ago, Mooney noted, Starbucks “convinced us to prepay for coffee,” and now it has 4 million cardholders who load money in their cards with cash prepayments made at the store. But, she said, Starbucks also “stayed with their customers, reacting to their needs as those needs changed.” As a result, the coffee chain recently introduced a feature on its web site that allows customers to transfer funds from their credit cards to their Starbucks cards, a transfer that is completed with the customer makes her next Starbucks purchase.

The web is not in the center of these multi-channel customer relationships as Mooney sees it. “The customer is in the center,” she said, “but the web is the connector. The Internet is just one piece of the (retailing) pie, but it’s the only piece that connects the retailer to the customer experience and the only one that makes the customer experience in each channel better.”