The omnichannel successes of Nordstrom and Macy’s come as no surprise to Scott Galloway, professor of brand strategy and digital marketing at New York University and founder and chairman of digital benchmarking and education firm L2. “Frequently dismissed as dinosaurs and outmaneuvered by digital players, department stores can not only survive the dramatic fall-off in foot traffic seen over the past few years, but will ultimately fare better than pure play e-commerce,” he says.
Macy’s is so committed to pushing beyond bricks-and-mortar that it opened an Idea Lab in San Francisco and is building another fulfillment center in Tulsa, Okla. The retailer also recently introduced an image-search extension to its mobile application, and Macy’s 300,000 followers can shop directly via Instagram. Robert Harrison, Macy’s chief omnichannel officer, says consumers are at different stages of adoption; more than half the time, they will research before buying something, frequently using different channels along the way.It's no longer bricks-and-mortar versus e-commerce — omnichannel is the path to success. Consumers have myriad ways to shop, and retailers are #
The key, Harrison says, is “the convergence of digital and store, particularly for information acquisition.” The whole process is “an evolution,” he says. “We hope that with one single view of the inventory, we have one single view of the truth. [Omnichannel] will enable the collective merchant teams and marketers to make better decisions because there will not be artificial demarcations” among channels. (SH)
ALCHEMPro News Desk – India
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