As the holiday season quickly approaches, retailers both in store and online are developing and implementing their holiday strategies. (By the way, if you’re interested in what they are planning for this season, take a look at our Holiday Predictions Survey).
In this cartoon from Tom Fishburne, he highlights another retail merchandising mistake: not tracking the effectiveness and profitability of all of your holiday campaigns, regardless of channel, holistically. This particular cartoon brings a retailer’s fear to life. A shopper receives an offer online and arrives at the store to fulfill it, only to find that the physical store no longer exists! This adds frustration and regret to their shopping experience, a retailer nightmare.
Fortunately, Tom is a good comedian and there is an easier way. Retailers must be sure that promotions are effective both in store and online and that one isn’t cannibalizing the other. Many retailers start by creating a consistent platform – a website or an app that is device agnostic and is designed for use by everything from laptops to smartphones. This gives shoppers a choice and the ability to toggle between their preferred devices, improves the customer experience and in some instances, can reduce web costs for retailers. The next step is to use a mobile analytics solution. According to Forrester Research, only 46% of retailers use mobile analytics to understand and assess this channel’s revenue and profitability. If you are doing 10% or more of your ecommerce via mobile or if your mobile channel is growing fast, now is the time to deploy an analytics solution to help you understand profitability in this channel. Retailers who take these steps now, are likely to avoid misadventures such as this one.
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