Discuss four technological advances that enable omnichannel and multichannel retailing.
1. Omnichannel retailing relies on a number of underlying technologies.
a. List four technological advances that enable omnichannel and multichannel retailing.
b. For the first of the four technologies you listed above, explain how it is used to create an omnichannel experience and provide a specific retail example of this technology being used.
c. For the second of the four technologies you listed above, explain how it is used to create an omnichannel experience and provide a specific retail example of this technology being used.
d. For the third of the four technologies you listed above, explain how it is used to create an omnichannel experience and provide a specific retail example of this technology being used.
e. For the last of the four technologies you listed above, explain how it is used to create an omnichannel experience and provide a specific retail example of this technology being used.
3. Omnichannel retailing is one avenue that retailers are using to drive growth by increasing market share in mature markets.
3 a. What are three reasons that a retailer’s management could decide that this is not the right strategic direction for their organization?
b. Describe a specific situation where a multichannel retailer with stores and a website would opt for a multichannel versus cross-channel or omnichannel model? Why is multichannel the better option in this situation?
4. Many omnchannel retail visions focus on creating and implementing a digital strategy that connects their digital touchpoints and in-store activities to create a seamless purchasing journey. This connected experience allows customers to look up features, pricing, discounts and reviews, visit a store to confirm their research, make a purchase, and arrange for delivery – all with minimal friction.
But there is another side to omnichannel – what happens in a retail store, how shoppers behave and purchase, can be used to transform the digital relationship between the shopper and the retailer.
One way to drive digital sales from a store location include fulfilling orders for merchandise not stocked in stores (endless aisles, customized products, and so on).
What are three OTHER ways that shoppers’ actions and behavior in a retail stores can be used to increase digital sales? Describe each strategy completely.
4 a. What is the first strategy? Describe it fully.
b. What is the second strategy? Describe it fully
c. What is the third strategy? Describe it fully.
5.Omnichannel is intended to help merchants increase revenue and customer visibility. In reality, it causes many retailers to lose millions of dollars each year. One recent study found that in 2016, 45% of merchants and suppliers have lost more than $1 million in revenue due to cross-channel commerce challenges, and more than one in ten lost more than $3 million.
Omnichannel is a complex, multi-faceted challenge for retailers, and many retailers are not equipped to execute. Keeping this in mind, applying a multi-faceted approach to bridging the gaps in omnichannel seems to make the most sense — while also keeping a sharp focus on customers, who ultimately determine if a omnichannel strategy works or not.
There are at least three operational requirements (systems and processes) for success in shifting to an omnichannel model.
List and describe the first of the three requirements below
List and describe the second of the three requirements below.
List and describe the third of the three requirements below.
7. Amazon and Whole Foods
In a September 12, 2017 Harvard Business Review article, Hermann Simon, chairman of the consulting firm Simon-Kucher & Partners, wrote that with the Whole Foods acquisition Amazon has essentially bought itself a laboratory, in which it can run live experiments on price points, shopping experience, delivery options, and more – that this acquisition “provide[s] Amazon with insights it can cash in on in other retail sectors.”
You might enjoy reading the article, but you do not need to read it to answer this question. Link to article: https://hbr.org/2017/09/whole-foods-is-becoming-amazons-brick-and-mortar-pricing-lab
7 a. What is one way that Amazon could use Whole Foods as an Innovation Lab to develop ideas to use in other retail categories? Be specific and provide a very specific example in your answer.
7 b. What is one way that Amazon could use Whole Foods as an Innovation Lab to develop ideas to use in digital sales channels? Be specific and provide a very specific example in your answer.
8. Shopping Journeys
Bridging offline and online shopping journeys – connecting with consumers seamlessly to help keep them on their path of purchase – required two different integration efforts:
8 a. Which of these two integration efforts is more difficult for a retailer to execute?
8 b. Why is this more difficult? Be specific and support your answer.
10. Retail Reinvention
All retail business models move through stages of growth, maturity, and decline. Some retailers never succeed in overcoming that period of decline and cease to exist.
10 a. What is an operating retail company that is in decline and not likely to survive for 10 more years? Why do you believe this company will fail?
10 b. What is an operating retail company that is in decline and is highly likely to be reinvented in the next 10 years? Why do you believe this company will succeed?
10 c. What strategy do you believe the likely-to-reinvent retailing could best use to reinvigorate its business and grow sales?
11. Frictionless Payment
Frictionless payments, simplifying the payment experience and enabling faster purchases, is essential to meet customer expectations and drive purchases. Mobile payments and digital wallet offerings from Apple, Samsung, Google, Mastercard, Visa, etc. are becoming more widespread.
On September 11, 2017, Amazon’s patent for “1-Click” ordering expired, ending its exclusive use of this business process that allows returning shoppers, who have already entered billing and shipping info, to purchase items with just one click of a button. This opens up the potential for all companies to implement similar digital checkouts. By integrating digital and POS systems, companies can extend the omnichannel experience and further simplify transactions. Note: Apple licensed “1-Click” from Amazon which is why you can pay with one click in Apple commerce sites.
11 a. How could a traditional retailer (physical store) use “1-Click” to improve the customer experience?
11 b. What strategy could Amazon use to continue to “own” the idea of “1-click” in consumers minds even though the company no long legally owns the business process?
13. Snapchat’s Innovations
Connecting online advertising and promotion to offline consumer behavior is critical to creating a seamless, omnichannel discovery, shopping, and buying experience. On August 1, 2017, an AdWeek article about Snapchat described three initiative that the company was launching to increase its appeal to online advertisers. Here are the relevant portions of that article:
While Snap’s stock price has continued to slip and the company has been under fire from investors uncertain that it can keep up with Facebook and Instagram, the company’s measurement game is expanding to arm advertisers with sophisticated metrics that helps Snapchat compare itself with all other media.
Snapchat is launching a measurement program today that specifically addresses marketing mix modeling, or MMM, with four data companies: Neustar Marketshare, Nielsen, Analytic Partners and Marketing Management Analytics. The new program adds to Snap’s existing 15 measurement partners that vet the app’s impressions, reach, targeting and viewability metrics. The goal is twofold: Increase the likelihood that big brands will buy ads on Snapchat and also attach those campaigns to third-party measurement that confirms the results of a campaign.
Snap backs up its new measurement program with one big stat that’s sure to get marketers’ attention: During the second quarter of 2017, 55 percent of every dollar spent on advertising included some type of third-party measurement. Such third-party partnerships include programs with Moat, DoubleClick, Millward Brown and Oracle Data Cloud (formerly Datalogix) and are typically included in ad packages for the brands who spend the most on advertising.
The new measurement program aims to make Snap more competitive with Facebook, Google and Twitter, which all offer similar MMM measurement efforts that aggregate all of an advertiser’s media channels—including TV, print, digital and out of home—and then zero in on one specific channel to measure how effective advertising was in driving sales.
To that end, measurement partners are now measuring sales lift and return on ad spend (or ROAS) on Snapchat—two key metrics that advertisers use to make big, broad decisions about their advertising spend.
Snapchat has been pushing hard into location-based advertising lately. Earlier this year, Snap acquired Placed, which is already showing some intriguing revenue potential and Snap has its own proprietary tech called Snap to Store that lets advertisers track how many people went to a specific store within one week of viewing a Snapchat ad. Within that program, Snap is now slicing up data by ad format. Instead of solely analyzing Snap Ads or lenses, advertisers can now measure how Snap Ads and lenses drove foot traffic, for example.
Snapchat is also adding new audience data. It’s upping the number of Snap Lifestyle Categories that brands use to target ads based on what content someone watches from 60 to 90 groups. For example, advertisers have been able to target travel enthusiasts within the app for a while. Now they can fine-tune the targeting to home in on family travelers or frequent travelers.
13 a. What is the purpose of MMM and why would an advertiser offer this service a part of an advertising package? (3 points)
13 b. Which of the three Snapchat initiatives listed in the above article do you believe is most important to retail advertisers? (2 points) Why?
14. The App for Everything
WeChat has been described as the “app for everything” because it is used to accomplish so many different kinds of digital tasks, communication, connect, and entertain.
14 a. Why do you believe WeChat was able to achieve this broad, multi-function status in users’ lives?
14 b. Is it likely that WeChat could successfully penetrate the U.S. market? Why or why not?
14 c. Could a new or existing U.S. company replicate WeChat’s model and launch a similar app in the U.S.? Why do you hold this opinion?
15. Retail Model Evolution
While many stores are closing locations and enhancing their digital presence, some digital-first companies, such as Amazon, Warby Parker and Adore Me, have expanded into physical locations to create multi-channel retail models.
15 a. What are three reasons why a digital-first retailer would move offline?
15 b. Some retailers, such as Bonobos, have created showrooms and full e-commerce operations. What is the financial advantage(s) of a showroom-website retail model?
15 c. This model captures some sales occasions traditional retail models miss but also results in lost sales opportunities. Why does this happen?
15 d. Retail pop-up shops and other alternatives to traditional retail stores are rising in popularity. What forces are driving this trend?
16. BOPIS
Beyond integrated marketing across channels, many retailers have instituted cross-channel methods such as ship-to-store, endless aisles, buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS), ship-from-store, digital in-person appointment scheduling, and social commerce, to serve customers in many sales channel. BOPIS is particularly appealing to shoppers and retailers. For example, during holiday 2016, 69% of shoppers that visited a physical store to pick up a digital purchase made additional in-store purchases. The key to executing BOPIS is rethinking processes and reimagining the customer and employee experiences to make sure that the commitment of BOPIS can be fulfilled.
There are two major issues with BOPIS:
16 a. BOPIS has great potential to drive sales growth for retailers particularly during the busy holiday season. What methods and/or processes could a retailer use to eliminate the three most common issues executing BOPIS: missing items (1 point), wrong items (1 point), and not being ready on time.
16 b. BOPIS Abandonment results in increased costs for retailers from the loss of a sale, needlessly reserving inventory and the waste of associates’ time. List three ways a retailer can reduce the effect of this destructive consumer behavior while upholding their current customer service, return, and customer care policies? Be specific
17. AI: Artificial Intelligence
AI (artificial intelligence) will radically change retailing. It is being applied across retailing: informing design of merchandise, forecasting orders, to telling employees and robots when to restock shelves, and prompting employees and bots with the next best action to take in a sales environment.
AI combines three distinct capabilities:
It is easy to see the potential benefits of using AI in retailing, but there are also major risks.
17 a. What are three important risks to a retailing in deploying a major AI initiative in a retail store environment?
17 b. What are three important risks to a retailing in deploying a major AI initiative in a digital environment?
17 c. What can a retailer do to minimize these risks?
18. Seamless Shopping Experience
For all the discussion about creating a seamless shopping experience where customers can freely move between channels and retailers can maximize the return on investment in their retailing operations and inventory, can this vision be fully realized? Support your answer. Note: be concise but answer the question fully and thoughtfully.
Answer in long sentences/paragraphs.
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