Does Your Business Have Multichannel Marketing?
July 28, 2009 by Delphine Zhu
Filed under Local Stores
In the early days of online shopping, the big retail chains were slow to invest in an e-commerce channel because they thought it would cannibalize their store sales. Eventually they realized the Internet was not a threat, but an opportunity. Now retail chains account for a sizable share of total online sales.
Multichannel retailers (with retail chains or catalog/call centers) accounted for 56% of the Web sales generated by the Internet Retailer Top 500 Websites, and the magazine estimated that the sales of the 500 largest Websites represented 74% of total sales by online retailers in 2008.
Retailers covet multichannel shoppers because they spend more than single-channel shoppers.
Today, many retailers conduct business in multiple channels—brick-and-mortar stores, Websites, catalogs and call centers—but few are adept at coordinating these channels.
The Multichannel Retailing enables retailers to offer a superior shopping experience and gain more loyal customers—and more profit.
