There\u2019s online shopping. And then there\u2019s multichannel retailing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs online shopping continues to grow at the expense of store visits, the premium in the future will be on creating unique, brand-defining experiences that keep customers coming back\u2014whatever the channel.\u201d<\/em> ~ PwC\u2019s Annual Global Total Retail Consumer Survey February 2015.<\/p>\n Multichannel retailing, though leading to a real opportunity, is marred by hypes and myths, and it is by no means an easy task for the movers and shakers of the industry to have a seamless growth path.<\/p>\n [Tweet “8 Myths that Mar the Multichannel Industry”]<\/p>\n Like any other industry, Multichannel retailing is also marred with its fair share of hurdles and misconceptions. PwC\u2019s annual global survey of 2013 helps demystify some of the myths, and help brands understand the challenges of multichannel retailing.<\/p>\n Social media is taking the world by storm at a rate of about 2000 apps per day. There are about 1.9 million apps seen in the US App Store, out of which 1.7 million are available for download. Hmm. Cause of worry for the retailers? No. Because, not only almost 65.5% of U.S. smartphone users do not download any new apps \u2013 but rather continue using the one\u2019s already installed.<\/p>\n While people check out a lot of sites, only a fraction \u2013 about 5% – really use them to make purchases.<\/p>\n While it is true that more and more people these days first try to get as much information online about products they want to buy, yet, only about 2% of these people really buy the products only. The rest still prefer to enjoy the experience of visiting and shopping in a physical store. However, there are a few areas where the number of online buyers is increasing steadily are video games, music, books, and movies.<\/p>\n Even though there\u2019s an obvious explosion of tablet devices in the market, and there\u2019s an increase in the number of people who use tablets to shop online \u2013 still there\u2019s a large fraction of people who prefer to use the comfort of using their PCs to shop online.<\/p>\n Though it is usually believed that a domestic brand will always have an upper hand in one\u2019s own country \u2013 the retail industry is playing quite a leveller on this front. Retailers \u2013 domestic, or foreign \u2013 have an equal chance to grow and thrive, provided they have the required assets to beat the other.<\/p>\n Agreed that Amazon and eBay are huge in terms of global online presence. But then, they still are not yet aware of the local flavours across the globe \u2013 in a way the local retail shops are. They are trying, but are still far away from getting into the skin of all the buyers across the globe. It will take time. A lot of time \u2013 especially without having a physical presence.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no denying the fact that consumers are attracted towards buying stuff online as it\u2019s the \u2018in-thing\u2019 and there sure are a lot of very tempting offers online \u2013 but then, a lot of brands and retailers have started their specific retail outlets that offer almost similar discounts, and in addition the comfort of checking the product first physically.<\/p>\n There. Yes, low-price is very attractive and will always make you want to buy \u2013 but then, the above is not something that we have not heard. I\u2019m not saying that this happens always. But, there\u2019re instances that such things happen \u2013 and it is not a good feeling. The retail shops win hands down here. Agreed that in both cases \u2013 online vs retail shopping \u2013 you get an option to exchange. But then, it\u2019s easier to digest the fact that you picked up something that did not fit compared to something that you waited to experience and it came in a not-working condition.<\/p>\n In short \u2013 quality and experience will always win over the price effect.<\/p>\n However, for all this disruption to yield its desired outcome and business benefits for the retail industry, investing in software quality will prove to be the key enabler.<\/p>\n [Tweet “I’m not from a retail background, but I am a shopper. ~ Edward Lampert”]<\/p>\n [Tweet “8 Myths & Facts of the Disruption in the Retail Industry by @cigniti”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There\u2019s online shopping. And then there\u2019s multichannel retailing. \u201cAs online shopping continues to grow at the expense of store visits, the premium in the future will be on creating unique, brand-defining experiences that keep customers coming back\u2014whatever the channel.\u201d ~ PwC\u2019s Annual Global Total Retail Consumer Survey February 2015. Multichannel retailing, though leading to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[744],"tags":[282,283,280,281],"ppma_author":[3736],"authors":[{"term_id":3736,"user_id":2,"is_guest":0,"slug":"admin","display_name":"Cigniti Technologies","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.cigniti.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/120X120-1.png","url2x":"https:\/\/www.cigniti.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/120X120-1.png"},"user_url":"http:\/\/www.cigniti.com\/","last_name":"Technologies","first_name":"Cigniti","job_title":"","description":"Cigniti is the world\u2019s leading AI & IP-led Digital Assurance and Digital Engineering services company with offices in India, the USA, Canada, the UK, the UAE, Australia, South Africa, the Czech Republic, and Singapore. We help companies accelerate their digital transformation journey across various stages of digital adoption and help them achieve market leadership."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigniti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigniti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigniti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigniti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigniti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigniti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigniti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cigniti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigniti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigniti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cigniti.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}8\u00a0Myths that Mar the Multichannel Industry<\/strong><\/h1>\n
Myth 1 \u2013 Social media will soon become an indispensable retail channel.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Myth 2 \u2013 Store will become mainly showrooms in the future.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Myth 3 \u2013 The tablet will soon overtake the PC as the preferred online shopping device.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Myth 4 \u2013 Domestic retailers will always have a \u2018home field\u2019 advantage over the global retailers.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Myth 5 \u2013 Global online pure players will always have advantage over domestic online pure players.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Myth 6 \u2013 Retailers are inherently better positioned than brands, as they are closest to the customer.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Myth 7 \u2013 Online retail is cannibalizing sales in other channels (\u2013 or the <\/strong>Death of Brick-and-Mortar Retail Myth).<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n
Myth 8 \u2013 Low price is the main driver of customer spend at favourite retailers.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\n