Has the internet changed the nature of the way shopping occurs in stores these days? more
The concept of session metrics is well known in ecommerce. For example Amazon.com does the analysis of the click-stream behavior of its customers so it knows what pages on the site you visited, what products you looked at even if you did not buy, and how long you spent on their site. It then customizes the site for each individual based on the click-stream analysis or session metrics of other.
In theory, a 360-degree view of a customer is created by capturing all customer interactions across all channels frequented by any given customer. This translates into capturing every touch point and every interaction, which when multiplied by thousands of customers is terabytes of information.
In reality, the ecommerce channel is well set up to do just that and works beautifully for this type of approach. But if you look at the best day we’ve ever had on the internet for ecommerce, it accounts for only 7% of total retail sales. Amortized over a year, this is still not more than 10 % of retail sales at best, with brick and mortar accounting for the lion share, or the other 90%, of retail sales.
Yes, we have come a long way, but not far enough! Because the capture of retail interactions and the leveraging of that information to create competitive advantage at the retail level just isn’t happening, yet!
In the e-tail environment, every thumbnail you click on, every SKU you look at is captured. Your profile is then customized to your shopping history and presented back to you when you log in the next time. This is very useful for the marketing team to suggest cross-sell and up-sell opportunities, as well as suggestions based on other buyers’ habits.
But none of this data is captured at brick-and-mortar stores. At best in the retail store, the data-gathering happens only at the point of sale. Unfortunately, this is too little, too late. Too little, because very little knowledge of your past buying habits have been used to influence your in-store shopping experience. Too late, because the first time the retailer recognizes you is when you are standing at the cash register – after you’ve already made your selections.
Paco Underhill, in his famous book Why We Buy, studied and documented back in the late 1990s the appropriate time to approach a customer in a presale situation. Yet very few retailers have adopted the recommendations of this landmark book.
In the same manner that “session metrics” are used and collected on the web, who is capturing session metrics in the retail setting?
• What did the clothing shopper try on?
• What did the shopper look at but not try on?
• What did the shopper return as a Christmas gift that was purchased for him by someone else?
This is the void that desperately needs to be filled right now if you truly want to have 360-degree view of a customer. By my calculations, at best you currently have about a 45-degree view of the customer via the web and even less when you look at physical sales register receipts.
If you want your organization to truly be all about exceptional customer service, you need to capture all the interactions and touch points of your customers – both online and offline – and not just their favorite stops on the website.
