When times are tough, retailers are usually the first to feel it. And Irish retailers have been getting hammered, with the market shrinking by 20% since 2007, according to IBEC.
So you would imagine that hard-pressed Irish shopkeepers are working hard on their multichannel strategies, eking additional revenue from their websites and offering an integrated, all-round better service to keep their customers loyal and engaged?
Well, maybe. As our office is a stone’s throw from Grafton Street – Ireland’s preeminent shopping strip – I visited some well-known Irish retailers to see just how “integrated”, if at all, the Irish retail sector has become.
What was I looking for? At a basic level, I was expecting that shops would be promoting their websites wherever possible, placing their URLs on windows, packaging and even till receipts. Beyond the basics, I was hoping that retailers would be actively pushing people to the online channel, with promotions or even strong calls-to-action. Finally, I was hoping – but not expecting – to see signs of innovation: QR codes, in-store kiosks, anything out of the ordinary.
Meteor
First up was Meteor, a mobile phone operator that competes gamely against heavyweights O2 and Vodafone. The interior design is great – living up to the company’s funky, challenger brand. But despite the many calls to action around the shop (“Try it out”, “Talk to the experts”) there wasn’t one prominent URL or prompt to use the Meteor website.
Meteor's interior design is funky but lacks URLs
This is a missed opportunity, particularly as Meteor’s target market is young and web savvy. It’s especially disappointing given their tagline is “Your Social Network” and they have a vibrant Facebook presence with almost 50,000 likes. Could do better.
A-Wear
Next stop was A-Wear, a women’s fashion chain. A-Wear has a fantastic e-commerce website, but you’d be hard pressed to know it when visiting the shop. The big sale signs on the window don’t display the URL, despite the fact that the website is running a parallel free delivery promotion. Ouch!
A-Wear's window sign doesn't promote it's website...
...which is running the same sale with a free delivery promo
At least the URL is displayed on their bags (unlike Meteor), but other than that, the website is virtually invisible to shoppers.
Brown Thomas
BT is the doyen of of Irish department stores, with branches in the main cities and a glittering brand. But it doesn’t have an e-commerce website, so its reach doesn’t extend beyond the major urban areas. Not surprisingly then, there’s virtually no attempt to promote the website in-store. All I spotted was a discrete little notice promoting gift cards, which are also available online.
What’s going on? Both A-Wear and Meteor have obviously invested money in their websites, A-Wear particularly so. So why hide the websites from their in-store customers?
As a series of blogs from the guys at Forrester shows, Irish retailers aren’t alone. Strong multichannel plays are the exception rather than the rule. The explanation probably lies in poor coordination and communication between the web and retail arms of the business. Or else a kind of turf war with the website considered a threat to retail sales
Whatever the explanation, Irish retailers are missing an opportunity to bolster their performance just when they need it most.
June 27, 2011 at 11:06 am
The lack of in store promotion by the retailer is not that surprising as each individual store manager is probably not that enthusiastic about driving potential sales away from their store and into the online site. There is probably significant internal resistance from the traditional retail side of each business against the promotion of online shopping within the store environment. The potential to drive down their potential in store sales by promoting the online store with no bottom line appeal for the individual store is probably holding the organisations back from an overal sales perspective.
June 27, 2011 at 8:15 pm
For the smaller retailers, it’s ignorance, we can’t deliver an experience outside of our store.
For the larger ones, O did a similar walk down
Grafton Street last month (we should talk more).
It’s exactly a turf war. If I’m on salary PLUS commission, why would I send sales elsewhere?
For commission on mobiles or other binding contract products, it’s not just percentage of sale, but percentage of lifetime customer value.
Like pensions, why would a broker ever support a direct to consumer?
On my stroll, I not only discovered “silos”, but active
discouragement of “competing” channels.
The Holy Grail in analytics is mutitouch attribution, but when factions emerge, then compete, forget about it.
Lar
July 18, 2011 at 2:21 pm
No salesperson, store/area manager will get a bonus/commission based on driving customers to the e-store alternative. Whats strange is that BTs doesn’t have an e-store yet there is no synergy there. Strange that promos that would feed customers to the store are not promoted by the stores.
July 21, 2011 at 12:01 am
Is it really necessary to have URLs plastered on things these days? They were always an awkward and ugly thing to have to communicate at the best of times.
Nowadays, surely most people — and especially those “young and web savvy people” — simply *expect* retailers to have a web presence, and will find them by using Google (or Facebook search, or whatever) rather than memorising and typing in clunky URLs.
July 21, 2011 at 9:59 am
I suppose URLs are a statement of intent. If Meteor, for example, was really joined-up in its approach to multichannel, it would be actively encouraging customers to use online. URLs are the most basic way of doing it. More proactive calls-to-action would be even better. Using neither is a missed opportunity.