As retailers move closer to an omnichannel strategy we need to see what we can learn from the ecommerce channel and apply in stores to increase revenue and profitability.

As retailers move closer to an omnichannel strategy we need to see what we can learn from the ecommerce channel and apply in stores to increase revenue and profitability.

A very useful source of research about ecommerce is a benchmark report from RSR called ‘Ecommerce 2012 - Back to the Future’. In this report RSR identified what retailers thought were the top opportunities to increase ecommerce revenues. At the bottom of the list of opportunities were third-party deal offers such as Groupon, deals of the day and embedding more social capabilities into ecommerce sites.

It’s interesting that the retailers identified as “laggards” all regarded these opportunities as more valuable than the retailers identified as “winners”. The winners have moved on. They see a bigger picture which is less ecommerce specific and more focused on the overall business and improving the service to shoppers.

So what was the number one opportunity to increase revenue for the “winners”? The top opportunity for the winners was providing richer product detail information, including photos and videos for products sold on theirecommerce sites. 

Surprisingly rated higher than areas such as improving the fulfilment and payment processes. I suspect that the laggards would like to have selected the richer product detail opportunity too but they had more fundamental issues to resolve first.

So, if the winners in the ecommerce channel regard providing richer product detail information as a key opportunity, it makes sense to look at applying a similar approach at the shelf edge in physical stores using promotional tickets that sell.

What is a promotional ticket that sells? My definition is simply a ticket that has an appropriate set of information which encourages shoppers to make more buying decisions at the shelf edge. In addition to priceand legal requirements it might contain an offer, reasons to buy, product pictures, specifications, customer recommendation scores and access to video and further information via a QR code. 

Retailers are starting to see in-store promotional tickets and signage in a new light. It’s become increasingly important because they have seen added value information increasing sales on their ecommerce sites. It’s therefore much easier to justify implementing promotional tickets that sell in their stores. 

But sometimes, as in the ecommerce world, the challenge is organising and managing the data to be able to produce those tickets that sell. This is changing. For example, we are working with some retailers to trial tickets that sell in concept stores using a bounded service that can be quickly rolled out later. Other retailers are implementing major IT infrastructure changes to make managing the data more straightforward in the future.

It would be great to see all retailers capitalising on the experiences of ecommerce sites and growing revenues in stores by implementing promotional tickets that sell. To me it’s just one example of what omnichannel is really all about.

  • Malcolm Wicks, marketing director, Pierhouse Business Solutions