Multi channel retailing

Multi-channel Retailing

Implementing Omni-channel in Your Company

In this presentation from eTail 2013, Brett Trent, VP of Ecommerce at American apparel retailer Dress Barn, lays out a plan of action to increase understanding of and implement best practices for multi-channel retailing. Trent starts by laying out what omnichannel really means for your business and proceeds to detail step by step how to overcome objections internally and get all members of the C-Suite on the same page with regards to this important trend.

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Transcript excerpt:

...Definitions and mission statements can be good as a starting point in the process that we’re discussing today. And the basic definition is straight forward. This is the definition that we use at Ascena: empower the customer to buy from us what she wants, interacting with us when she wants, where she wants, and how she wants it. It’s pretty basic stuff, and my guess is if your company has a statement of Omni-channel, it looks a lot like this. Call it a day, let’s go home; we’re done. Not quite, because if you’ve been to this, and I can see in some of your faces that you have, you know that all of the really interesting questions are in constructing the bullet points that are underneath this. And I won’t show you all, because they are of course proprietary, but I can tell you they were debated spiritedly. And they are bullets covering things like branding, priorities, truly what is more important than what.

I’ll give you an example. Does Omni-channel mean homogenous? Does Omni imply consistency? You’d be surprised the different stories you will read if you can get your executive to write their definition down. I mean they’d give you a point of view. People should experience our brand consistently across all channels, and so when we run a promotion as an example so one of the most basic things we all do that is 25 percent off this particular stretch of days that when someone sees that available on store signs, they should also see that when they go to the website. They should also see that in their SMS, and on tablet, and on mobile, and on social—it’s a very reasonable point of view, isn’t it? Extremely reasonable. Next, go up and see your marketing group and say, “Do we want our customers to engage with us in as many channels as we possibly can?” Well, absolutely. Thank you for visiting us from the Island of Duh. Yes, we want people engaged in as many channels as possible.

That’s a reasonable idea. The problem is that in practical application, those two very reasonable ideas are in conflict with each other, because as a customer, if I see the exact same message in store signage as I see on the website, as I see in mobile, as I see in social, as I see in texting, then why would I possibly engage you in all of those channels? There is no incentive for me to do so.

If we’re committed to consistency, are we really committed to consistency? Are we really committed to only doing things that we can do in all channels? I don’t know if your stores ever do this, my stores run with what’s called a try on event, right? Come in and try our new pair of denim, we’ll give you $5 off your next purchase. Well, it’s wonderful as my digital technology is. I cannot run a try on it online. Well, then we just won’t run that one online. So we’re committed to this, but not in this case. Well, we’re committed to this, but not in this case. I call this being committed up to, but not including the point of inconvenience, and I would question whether that was truly a commitment...