Sorted by Tag: Supply Chain Management
How to Select the Right Multichannel Retail Systems
Selecting the right point solutions to execute your multichannel retail strategy is difficult. You must evaluate eCommerce platforms, enterprise resource platforms (ERP), and point of sale (POS) systems. And, it’s complicated to figure out which ones will work together to support your multichannel business processes.
For example, if you want to list different pricing for your B2C website versus your B2B website, does your ERP support that? How about your eCommerce system? More importantly, how will those systems communicate to make sure each has the right price displayed?
Many vendors do not build software that supports the key requirements to building a multichannel business. They built their software in the last decade (or sometimes the last century!) and are trying to milk every dollar they can from it. Some are not interested, others are incapable of making their systems multichannel-ready. You, the multichannel retailer, will feel the weight of that this problem.
But it doesn’t have to be that way! (more…)
How to Use Endless Aisle to Improve Customer Experiences
What’s more frustrating as a customer than when you see the words “out of stock”? When your customers can’t buy the items they want, they’ll buy from your competitor who does. It’s a missed opportunity for a sale. It’s a bad customer experience.
Having readily available inventory that can be shipped to customers is a major competitive advantage in retail. Customers that can rely on you to have the items they need will buy from you again and again. They won’t need to turn to your competitor. They’ll trust you to have it. That makes them a loyal customer.
How do you ensure your inventory is always available to customers? The “endless aisle” makes it possible. In this post, we’ll discuss what it is, why it’s important to customer experiences, and the requirements you need for it. (more…)
Exceptional Customer Experience: How to Deliver Incredible Retail Experiences
(This post was originally published on January 13, 2015. We’ve updated it for accuracy and completeness.)
Customers don’t just buy products anymore. They buy experiences. They buy communities. They buy identity.
That means trying to sell anything less than “wow” (to borrow from Michael Hyatt) will not work. In a market where your customers have all the power, you cannot afford to under-deliver on customer experience.
You need to understand what makes up an exceptional customer experience. You need to understand how to deliver them. Let this post be your guide.
Why Customer Loyalty Programs Don’t Build Loyalty
Enrolling customers in a loyalty program is a common practice for retailers. The value proposition for a loyalty program is simple: the retailer gets to track customer data, the customer gets discounts or some kind of incentive for loyalty. Sounds like a win-win.
But, the reality is that customer loyalty programs are not as effective as most retailers think or expect.
Creating a customer loyalty can be an effective strategy for retailers, but to be successful you need to do more than hand out membership cards. You must focus on customer experience to create loyal customers.
What We’re Reading: Click and Collect, Same-Day Delivery, One-Hour Delivery
As we enter the “last mile” of the holiday season, we decided to take a look at some of the ways you can optimize the “last mile” of your customer experience. This is one of the more complicated parts of running a retail business. It’s also where an effective multichannel retailer can beat out online-only retailers and traditional, brick-and-mortar retailers (no matter how large they are).
