eCommera, linked by Isobar, the specialist commerce services business, announces the results of its independent UK research.
The research, collated from interviews with 100 top-tier retailers, highlighted that, despite the rapid progression of omni-channel, with an average of 3-4 services being offered by each retailer and a further 2-3 due for roll-out, retailers only gave themselves a 6 out of 10 on performance.
Of the retailers that felt their omni-channel offering was below average, a lack of vision was cited as the biggest issue, alongside a lack of investment, lack of leadership and the inability to prove return-on-investment benefits. What does this show? Eric Fergusson, Head of Retail Services commented, “The lack of confidence held by retailers in regards to their omni-channel offering is refreshingly honest, but illustrates the home-truth that for most there is a long way to go in reaching the true fulfil from anywhere model. As a concept, omni-channel is well known and, in part, widely adopted, yet it’s interesting to see the uncertainty that many retailers still face in successfully executing the full end-game.”
However, lack of confidence isn’t causing retailers to simply follow the big players; only 37% of respondents cited their competitors’ behaviour as an influencing factor in their omni-channel decisions. For example, despite John Lewis’ recent decision to charge £2 for click-and-collect orders under £30, only 16% of respondents are charging for their click-and-collect services and only 15% are considering doing so. Interestingly, 69% of retailers are absorbing the cost and will continue to offer the service free of charge, despite the lack of ROI.
In light of this, 64% of retailers acknowledged that meeting customer expectation was critical to their omni-channel decisions. However, jumping in head-first in order to appease customer demand may not always be in the best interest of retailers, with 24% indicating that they didn’t typically understand ROI before they embarked on an omni-channel activity.
Nevertheless, 70% of the retailers surveyed agreed that omni-channel is important enough to warrant further investment. However, only 25% claimed that they could see a strong return-on-investment today, suggesting that more work could be needed in order to make omni-channel a success. Eric Fergusson continues, “It is concerning that retailers still aren’t looking at the bigger picture and calculating where money should be made, and what can be changed to bring out the best of their omni-channel strategies. The full cost of these projects is very sizeable, and the current vogue of delivering small initiatives around the edges can only be optimal by accident.
Retailers nowadays are so diverse, with different customers, products and pricing, so it’s important for them to realise that a one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t work. Retailers must start to think realistically about which services they should be offering to their customers, all with profit, ROI and customer experience in mind.”
