Consumers Want More Cross-Channel Retailing

A recent survey in the U.S. gives an insight in to customer attitudes to multi-channel retailing.

by Helen Leggatt

The survey, involving 1,000 adults, was carried out by Sterling Commerce earlier this month. The results suggest U.S. retailers are not meeting customer demands and expectations when it comes to cross-channel retailing.

80 percent of respondents said it was important to have the choice between shopping online, by telephone or instore. Similarly, being able to return goods bought on the internet to a store, or vice versa, was important to a huge majority – 90 percent.

So could this lack of coordination between off- and online business units be costing companies in sales revenues? It seems so. Of those surveyed, 55 percent stated they were likely to spend time browsing a store for a replacement item, and 78 percent said they might well buy additional items when returning the goods.

"Achieving cross-channel excellence is the next evolution in multi-channel retailing, and is a difficult process to execute well because it often crosses internal organizational and process silos," said Steve Poplawski, retail industry executive at Sterling Commerce.

Blockbuster recently introduced a multi-channel returns service for online rentals enabling customers to return products rented online to any nearby Blockbuster store.