This year is a “crunch year” for multi-channel retailing, according to the latest research by Forrester and Zygon, which acts as a multi-channel specialist for catalogue and product information management solutions.
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Indeed, all the UK retailers surveyed by Zygon believe that multi-channel retailing (selling products to customers via multiple routes; in-store, web, idTV, catalogue, SMS) will be “business as usual” by 2003. In total, 20% of companies are implementing multi-channel retailing now, 80% will have it implemented by next year.
The driving force for change, says Zygon, is retailers’ need to attract new, multi-channel shoppers. Marketing departments are driving multi-channel adoption at 64% of retailers (rather than e-commerce, IT, sales or finance functions), as retailers recognise they need a new strategy to capture new consumers.
Stephen Edwards, Zygon CEO, explains: “Consumers today have less time and more money. They need – and demand – greater convenience, speed and choice. Retailers have realised that the best route to capture more high-value customers is through multi-channel retailing and most have committed to getting multi-channel working by 2003.
“If retailers want 2003 to be ‘the Year of Multi-Channel’, they must act now as full implementation can take two years. There are some key things to get right, such as control of product information management; agreeing a clear, integrated brand strategy and optimising cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.”
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By GlobalDataRebecca Ulph, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, advised: “Retailers must not stand in the way of consumers’ preferred purchase channels. Consumers and retailers are not currently in synch, which must be corrected. Retailers want high value customers, but it is all too easy to turn them off.”
What do retailers need to do to adopt multi-channel now?
Retailers continually identify consistent product information management as a key factor in successful multi-channel retailing: 68% of retailers told Zygon that product information is critical for their business, and 96% said that they would be addressing product information, catalogue or information management within the next 12 months. The main difficulty in delivering consistent product information management is too much human intervention (32% of retailers identify this as a problem).
Stephen Edwards concludes: “There should be no human intervention to product information, unless it is to add incremental value. Product information management should be the cornerstone of a successful multi-channel retail strategy, not a stumbling block.”
