Target also identified how valuable the omnichannel customer is, compared to a store-only or digital-only customer. The key then for omnichannel retailers is to make sure the investment pays off by ensuring that customers come back more frequently, to buy more. Without a deliberate, holistic approach to the investments like BOPIS to tie to overall marketing and customer experience, it will erode the margins.

Online profitability has improved, especially as it has become more connected to physical stores. I believe it will improve further as volume grows and more investments are made, particularly in technologies that automate processes.

That said, online fulfillment is – for the most part – more expensive than having people come and shop in the store. Picking, packing, last-mile delivery, and returns, all come with costs attached. But that is simply the price of doing business! If retailers don’t play online, they will lose both sales and, ultimately, profits.

The way to look at this, therefore, is holistically. Online may have pushed up costs, but there are ways of rebalancing that, such as reducing overheads by shrinking down stores that do not need to be as large as they once were. We look at sales in a multichannel way, costs should be looked at similarly.

I’m surprised that in a discussion about omnichannel profitability the subject of returns is not mentioned. I understand the needed efficiencies in supply chain and fulfillment, but surely returns, and the way “free” delivery and returns affects the whole equation, is a big part of the discussion.

The unplanned boom of e-commerce last year left retailers scrambling to get in on the bandwagon with scant regards to cost. As the dust settles, they need to step back and redesign their end-to-end business process to cater to the new normal profitably. They will also need to develop their owned-media programs and membership programs to augment their bottom line.

Of course it can! It is going to require some adjustments to current models. For example, same-day shipping would have to go away; returns cannot be free. If the retailer has to pay for both, return shipping and restocking, the consumer has to pay also. It is not unfair. If retailers cannot make a profit, they will find a way to either do away with parts of it or will find a way to charge the customer elsewhere.

Target have it right. It is not just about margins and if retailers back off from omnichannel activity to protect margins, they will end up with a good margin of nothing. It is about understanding the mix and making sure that each element of the operation is as profitable as it can be. Yes, online delivered to the home is less profitable than selling in-store and BOPIS is somewhere in the middle with curbside just behind.

Retailers can look at how they use the various channels and promote them to their customers accordingly. Is same-day or next-day delivery free of charge necessary? Can they cross promote to drive slightly more traffic in one direction or the other without losing sales? Quite possibly. Do they need to run the same promotions online and in-store? These are all parts of the retail strategy that will need to be considered but do not use margin as a reason for not fully engaging in omnichannel activities. That is the short road to going out of business.

It’s about conversion. Unless someone buys something, you failed. Online returns are huge, costs of acquisition are huge and conversions are 1 percent to 2 percent. The main channel – still – is the store. Yet stores are being starved of associates and those who are there are unable to add value making the whole experience worse and worse. Many retailers are killing themselves with a myopic view of digital only.

Succeeding with profitable omnichannel transactions depends on a lot of factors that all need to be executed flawlessly. It starts with a solid order management system (OMS) that enables enterprise visibility of real-time inventory to make more inventory available for online orders and facilitates profitable inventory fulfillment decisions. Demand forecasting and allocation systems need to integrate demand from all channels for a full picture of consumer demand. Another key ingredient for profitable omnichannel transactions is an extremely efficient process design for BOPIS, BOPAC and ship-from-store.

The path to omnichannel profitability really hasn’t been changed by the pandemic at all. We see it all the time with our clients: profitability requires a careful analysis of both the product lifecycle and the customer lifecycle. First, fulfillment options must be prioritized against the desires and expectations of each unique customer base, and then logistics, inventory and allocation can be aligned to those priorities. The customers must come first, and when we really understand their expectations, then we can optimize our logistics to match.

The focus on e-commerce is driven by the fact that it has been an underdeveloped piece of retail for years, and that neglect came home to roost when the pandemic hit. Retailers have swung the pendulum all the way over to e-commerce to make up for lost time. But remember that 80% of 2020 retail sales still happened inside of brick and mortar, so this pendulum swing to digital came at the cost of profit margins. Finding balance is going to be the next frontier for retail – making e-commerce the transactional center of the business, but leveraging physical stores as the experiential and operational support system, and the prime connector between the business and the community. An important strategy (and tactic) will be to increase physical presence, but in smaller ways that are more affordable to the retailer and more personalized to the consumer. Pop-ups, shop-in-shops, vending machines, temporary storefronts, kiosks and partnerships will all help maintain control over brand experience, offer local placement for BOPIS and micro-fulfillment, and build customer loyalty and engagement… Read more »

Omnichannel can be profitable for retailers as fast as CFOs are willing to look at the business with a view of “total cost to customer.” While cost allocations between online and in-store are often being logically allocated to the origin of the sale or the location/method of fulfillment, the reality is that the customer uses all of the retailer’s touch points. I know that a view of DPP (direct product profitability) is logical and somewhat easy to account for, but the other reality is that selling and delivering to the customer requires efficiency across all retail processes.