Retailers: Kill the buzz words, let’s go back to basics.
Stores. Catalogues. Customers. Products. Websites. Mobile. Multichannel. Omnichannel. Customer Service.
Look at the list above. Which word sticks out the most? Which is the most fabricated? If you answered omnichannel, you’re right.
In a world of rapid ideation, continuous delivery and highly informed customers, new words spring up at an alarming rate. Buzzword bingo, many call it. New businesses and ideas are quickly being created and evolving, so they actually need a new word or phrase to describe them. Examples include the Internet of Things (IoT), or the On-Demand Economy.
Omnichannel is less useful.
Omnichannel came from the word omnis, which means simply all, or universal. In retail, it indicates a seamless customer experience across all channels. People can’t even decide how to spell it Is it Omni-channel? Omnichannel? Omni channel? Frankly, the word is one of many that has added unnecessary complexity in a world where retailers need to get back to basics. Multichannel is a bit better — one business can have multiple channels, and customers are savvy enough to recognise that — no one expects the online experience to mimic the store one, for example. In fact, the paradigm is shifting. Businesses that started out as pure-players, such as Warby-Parker, Bonobos, or Birchbox are turning into multi-channel by the use of Guideshops or Showrooming.
Retailers have over-complicated retail
Before buzzwords, the customer was the primary focus. Imagine a simple scenario. A retailer stocks umbrellas, and it starts raining. What to do? A savvy retailer would immediately put the umbrellas in the front of the store in a visible place and cater to obvious customer needs.
Retail’s complexity has increased, but so has its opportunity. Businesses can now get their customers what they want in varying ways, thanks to multichannel retailing. Today, successful retailer’s are about allowing people to shop on their own terms. Imagine three different shoppers and their ideal umbrella shopping experience:
· Mark, Shopper 1: He Prefers shopping in store, so he’s more than happy to head in store to pick up an umbrella when necessary.
· Olivia, Shopper 2: Tech-savvy, hates shopping in store and avoids it at all costs. Her weather app warns her that it will rain tomorrow, and suggests an umbrella in her favourite colour. She clicks buy and it’s delivered home in an hour.
· George, Shopper 3: Fussy when it comes to umbrellas, and a bit of a fashionista. He likes to inspect before he buys, so reserves one he saw on Instagram a few days earlier from his Mac at work and collects it on his way home.
A good multichannel retailer will offer shoppers a frictionless shopping journey, regardless of their preferred way to purchase. Customers might use one channel, or many, for everything from research, to social sharing, to curating, right through to purchase and recommendation. The word encompasses new additions to the ever-growing shopping journey — from the “Buy” buttons on Pinterest, to digital magazines that allow you to purchase directly from their pages. The most important thing is that that each touch point is seamless and doesn’t feel disconnected to the customer. They all need to offer an easy shopping journey, however the customer chooses to buy. Matthew Woolsey, Executive Vice President of Barneys (a high-end American department store) put it nicely “For one million users, we want to have one million different site experiences”.
Collecting data aids in this quest; smart companies use their customer data to make each interaction with a customer targeted and relevant.
Forget the buzzwords.
To offer an excellent customer experience the real shift needs to occur inside a business — how they are structured, how they think, how they operate, and how they determine their success. The customer has made the shift — they don’t think the way retailers do, they think and experience all they do online in a fluid journey. This is creating a chasm between customers and brands. There really isn’t a digital divide at all — whether you want to call it omnichannel, or multichannel, or cross-channel — it is simply commerce, and customers power it. Retail is the same as ever. It’s about getting shoppers what they want, when they want it, where they want it.
We live in a world where everyone is always online — In the UK, the average person spends 8 hours and 41 minutes on an electronic device that can be online. That is 20 minutes more than the average Briton spends sleeping. In America, it’s even higher — the average American spends 11 hours per day interacting with electronic media. We live in a world where everyone is online.
Customers expect to be taken care of by a company or a brand regardless of how they choose to shop. Throughout the day they move from a smartphone to a laptop to a tablet to streaming video or music; they just don’t realise that in retail there are divisions. In 2014, desktops, laptops, tablets, and mobiles influenced 49% of all in-store retail sales. The line is blurring to a point where it is becoming hard to even be able to attribute a sale to a channel. Yet many retailers cling on resolutely to the idea of channels.
What does this mean for retailers? Stop looking at sales, conversion rates, footfall, market penetration and all other metrics by channel. Customers shop in a fluid journey, unique to them, that is in their mind free of channel restrictions. Structure analytics to reflect the entire shopping journey.
Time to kill the buzzwords, and focus on the customer. They expect a company to take care of them, understand them, value them and make their lives easier — full stop. Retailers that understand this will be the winners, those that don’t will be fighting for survival. It really is that simple.
Kristine is Anglo-American; Brooklynite by birth, British citizen by choice who resides in digital land. Would medal in talking if it was an Olympic sport. Loves talking about game-changing ideas, wine, and sleep. Ecomm/retail geek. Sports mad. Wants to be in Cornwall, and in her next career, an F1 driver (or will happily retrain to be a F1 driver) or Serena Williams. Loves feedback, so drop me a line-kristine.kirby1@icloud.com
