Is Communication the Key to Success in OmniChannel Retail?

I just finished reading Paul Murphy's blog post over on Fourth Source and he raised a few excellent points about the costs, concerns and challenges facing retailers who try to go omnichannel. While the article is focused on the UK, who have long been ahead of North America in online shopping, he raises some points that enterprises on this side of the pond could pick up on and use to win.

According to his post, 56% of John Lewis shoppers chose collect their orders in the store. Providing the inventory count is correct, it shouldn't be a big issue right? But shoppers are impatient people, so it's now on the store to know who the customer is when they get there and have the order somewhere that it can be picked quickly and easily. This would also be a great opportunity to personalize the experience, as you know a bit about the customer when they come to get their items.

Paul also points out that email may not be the best way to reach a potential customer to re-market to them or let them know their order is ready.

email open rates for the retail sector currently are 23.6%, making them too unreliable for this application. SMS by comparison has an open rate of over 95% and is available

 With the advent of cheap cloud messaging services like Twillio, SMS or MMS is a viable & cost effective way of reaching consumers. The key here though, will be to ensure the messages are timely, useful and written in a way that they feel personal. The text message stream is more sacred the inbox in my opinion.

Fashion Business for the "I want it now generation"

I was just reading this article over at Apparel Magazine where they just labeled the kids the "I want it now generation". While I think that Kevin is taking some liberties to try and make a good headline (because who doesn't want it now?) some of his thoughts on where the business side of fashion needs to move are quite on point.

If you follow business supply technology, you'll already know that omni-channel is the buzzword de jour. It refers to the ability to view your entire business and it's distribution systems through one platform. Great in theory, hard to implement and maintain. Without laser accurate inventory, it's very possible that your omni-channel strategy will result in customer dissatisfaction.

Some stats from Kevin's Article:

50 percent of all consumers consider store pickup options important when shopping online, and 41 percent would like alternative delivery options available upon request....only 23 percent of retailers have a buy online, pickup in-store program in place and just 20 percent have implemented a reserve online, pickup in-store program.

So people want it, but most companies aren't there yet. Not surprising. Consumer technology moves a lot faster than corporate infrastructure a lot of the time. To run a truly omni-channel fashion business you'd want to have a great ERP system for apparel companies.

How long will it take before omni-channel is truly adopted? It's hard to say. Big companies are starting to make the switch. Ann Taylor has done it, and it has come at the cost of some of their physical stores. Macy's is trying to do it but has had issues making it work for customers.

It's not easy.

But as more fashion companies and large retailers take the leap they will iron out the wrinkles, which will trickle down to smaller apparel and non-apparel businesses.

Wearable Tech: Is it fashionable and do we need it?

I was browsing my morning newsfeed and this article on wearable tech came up. High fashion has begun to embrace the future and big companies like Apple, Google and Samsung have rolled out watches & augmented reality glasses, but do we really need it?

From the Telegraph article.

"The key to good product design is having a need for something, not creating something because you can," - designer Sean Miles

This is a quote I completely agree with, then I saw the bags he designed and wondered if he actually understands his own words. Check them out:

I guess it is kind of a pain to have to take your mobile device out of your bag, but this is the best we can do? It's kind of like Google's foray into face computers that resulted in major public backlash. Maybe we're not there yet.

On the pure fashion front there is some interesting stuff happening, like this hat designed by Phillip Treacy:

Futurey, huh?

It's actually a light on a string helicoptering around, so while it looks cool it remains in the world of completely unwearable fashion. When will the two merge? Drop a comment below and let me know what you think.