Retailers - improve your pick-up strategies for the holiday season

No, this isn't advice for the office Christmas party, instead it's a peek into what retailers are and are not doing to maximize sales via the cross-channel experience they offer to their customers.

by Helen Leggatt

As online shopping continues to become an integral part of people's everyday lives, the ability to weave online activity in with offline activity becomes more in demand. This is something that retailers need to focus on to ensure they get the biggest share of wallet possible from customers.

The e-tailing group focused on this topic in their recent study, "The Web as the Cross-Channel Hub: 5th Annual E-tailing Group Cross-Channel Shopping Survey". It found that while retailers are making progress in offering shopping services across channels, many aren't using the activity to increase sales, instead preferring to concentrate on purely customer service options.

"Many retailers are not taking full advantage of online or in-store opportunities to sell and service the cross-channel customer," commented e-tailing group president Lauren Freedman, who authored the study.

One cross-channel goal is to facilitate the movement of consumers, almost seamlessly, in both directions between channels - web-to-store and store-to-web. To do this retailers must educate store staff to cross- and up-sell to online shoppers when they arrive in store to pick up orders, keep marketing and promotions consistent across all channels and equip stores with the facilities to specifically deal with Internet customers either in person, or online.

Previous research by Accenture found that over half of consumers (58%) locate items online before purchasing offline and 67% prefer to research online and buy from a bricks and mortar store.

Tags: cross channel marketing, cross-channel, customer service, e-commerce, retail, sales strategy