Can Amazon be Beaten With a Good Omnichannel Strategy?

I was just going through my newsfeed and I came across this article on Multichannel Merchant. The points all come from a talk by Jason Goldberger, president of Target. One point that stuck out to me was the speed in which data is becoming obsolete for retailers. Goldberger recounted the launch of their Lilly Pulitzer line, which overwhelmed their web properties and backed up their fulfillment centers. All because the projections were made off data that was 6 months old.

You can’t attend a tech conference without hearing one speaker talk about the glories of failure, and we failed very publically - Jason Goldberger

While your company might not be the size of Target, the lesson can still be adapted. Make your decision based on the latest data or, where possible, in real-time. The environment changes dramatically in 6 months. Also, test your website(s) to know how much traffic the infrastructure can handle and have a plan in place for how to manage it if something goes wrong.

Goldberger also outlined how Target was taking omni-channel to the next level with their free shipping. They've lowered the threshold from a $50 spend to $25 in a bid to make their competitively priced items more attractive than Amazon. This might now be an option for a lot of smaller brands, as they would most likely be taking a lost on low margin products as a way to instill customer loyalty.

Target also took an interesting approach to the showrooming issue that concerns so many stores. In their Denver area stores they set up patio furniture and allowed customers to see the sets that were only available for purchase online. To keep their stores happy, they received credit for sales made in their area. While this is still a crude way of accounting for sales, Goldberger noted that they sold 3x more furniture than prior seasons.

The main take away from this article, to me, was that retailers who are willing to take risks and try new approaches will eventually find their sweet spot in the shifting omni-channel market place. For brands with less cash or leverage to experiement, you can piggy back on the research being done by big retailers like Target.

What do you think?