Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from the Retail TouchPoints website.
Digital channels influenced up to 50 percent of all in-store retail sales in September 2014, up from 36 percent in September 2013, according to a study commission by L2. This coincides with the growing number of shoppers who showroom (72 percent) and webroom (78 percent).
Also boosting the trend is mobile's influence on in-store purchases, increasing nearly four-fold from 2012 to 2013 and now accounting for over half of digitally influenced sales.
The 2014 Omnichannel Retail report, done in partnership with RichRelevance, examined omnichannel data across 100 retailers and investigates retailers' efforts to drive customers into stores.
Despite a greater emphasis on omnichannel retailing, only six brands provide real-time inventory visibility online, while an additional six brands offer in-store pickup. As many as 62 percent of retail executives cited that customers already expect omnichannel capabilities, and 55 percent believe their competitors have already made investments in technology to enable these seamless experiences across all channels.
Ensuring inventory visibility across all channels can have a tremendous impact on consumers' buying processes as it allows them to commit to a purchase before entering a store. In fact, 42 percent of consumers noted that they are "very likely" to visit a store when they confirm inventory availability online, with an additional 31 percent reporting that they would "likely" visit a retailer under the same circumstances.
All seven of the big box brands spotlighted in the 2014 Omnichannel Retail survey offer real-time in-store visibility, while 75 percent of department stores provide this detailed access to information. These figures drop off significantly for the next highest category, sportswear retailers, in which 40 percent offer visibility through every channel.
Retailers have different strategies for crediting omnichannel sales, preventing them from completely settling on an accepted best practice. Up to 31 percent of retailers credit the e-Commerce channel for a sale in which a customer buys online, then picks up the order in-store, while 21 percent of retailers fully attribute those sales to the physical store. Thus far, only 16 percent of retailers have a single profit and loss (P&L) report that spans across all channels.
There are multiple challenges for retailers wanting to join the omnichannel fray: Half of the respondents noted that they are limited by their company's business model, while 40 percent said they were limited by a lack of in-store associate training and had difficulty integrating back-end technology across channels.