The past decade has brought with it a massive increase in digital marketing platforms and technologies, giving marketers the ability to focus on multichannel like never before.
This has fundamentally altered the way brands plan and execute marketing strategies and given us new insight into how customers are using those channels.
Everyone knows that click and collect is a hugely popular delivery option among shoppers, but it seems that some retailers have failed to adequately prepare for the Christmas rush.
Tesco has already suffered a fulfilment disaster after failing to deliver loads of Black Friday click and collect orders on time.
Cycling has become a hugely popular sport across Britain in recent years, thanks largely to the nation’s success in the Olympics and Tour De France.
Bike retailers have obviously been among the main beneficiaries, as any new bike purchase also requires the customer to invest in a load of expensive accessories.
In a previous interview Adam Tranter, editor of Cyclosport.org, told me that Wiggle and Chain Reaction are two of the most prominent ecommerce sites in the cycling world, so I thought I’d conduct a site test to see what they’re getting right.
I’ve also included Evans Cycles as that’s where I bought my current bike from.
As a trendy London hipster (the only true part of that description is that I work in London) I’m well into fixie bikes, so for this user test I thought I’d try to find myself a new single-speed model.
Read on to find out how these three retailers stack up, and if cycling is your thing then get involved with Econsultancy’s Marketing Cycle.
Stage one is from London to Brighton on Thursday 9 October, an 85-mile route that’s so leisurely even I’ll be joining the peloton.
Or if you’re up for a bigger challenge, join Econsultancy CEO Ashley Friedlein on the three-day London to Paris ride.
Will Lockie is Multichannel Head at Evans Cycles, responsible for helping a 90 year old retail brand bridge the gap between online and offline.
He’ll be presenting at our JUMP event on October 9, on the subject of identifyng drivers for multichannel shopping behaviour to improve multichannel experience.
Here, Will talks about the company’s approach to multichannel retail, the value of a physical presence, click and collect, using QR codes and more…
The high street’s struggles with ecommerce and the digital age have been well publicised in the past 12 months as a number of previously dominant brands have gone to the wall.
And in general the brands that have thrived are those that were quick to adapt and integrate digital technologies in-store, such as John Lewis and House of Fraser.
In our report How The Internet Can Save The High Street we detailed some of the new tactics and strategies that retailers should be trying to take advantage of, such as click-and-collect, mobile search, apps and QR codes.
QR codes are a much-maligned technology – particularly by us – however they can be used in-store to allow customers to access additional product information and reviews.
The recent demise of once-dominant high street brands has highlighted how important it is for retailers to have an effective multichannel sales strategy.
Businesses need to be taking steps to track their customers across all touch points, which means collecting data in-store as well as online.
We previously reported data from an ExactTarget study which found that 44% of the top 95 US retailers asked customers for an email address at the checkout in-store, while 32% asked for a zip code and 27% asked for a phone number.
The value of asking for an email address was recently demonstrated to me when I bought a new bike from Evans Cycles. The cashier asked for my email address so they could send me an electronic receipt, but I have also received several marketing messages as a result.