Retailers Need to View Stores as Extensions of E-Commerce, Says Oracle
The retail industry is going through a “transformational period,” with e-commerce disrupting the segment “like nothing has before,” but most retail transactions still take place in brick-and-mortar stores, said an Oracle white paper on future-proofing retail businesses. To compete for the future, retailers need to start thinking like consumers “who don’t view separate channels,” said the report.
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To remain competitive, retailers need to invest in technologies that blend physical and digital shopping experiences and to develop strategies that help innovate and futureproof stores, it said. The in-store experience can’t leave the consumer with the feeling that visiting the store was “a waste of time, and that they would have been better staying home and browsing online,” it said.
Stores must now be a “point of inspiration,” with a testing lab, a servicing site for orders and returns, a help desk and a shipping center, said the report. The physical store has become an “extension of the ecommerce experience,” where consumers can easily return things they bought online, and see, feel and try a product before they buy. Stores should be able to “pick up where a shopper left off online,” it said, where sales associates re-engage with conversations around abandoned carts or wish lists in an effort to complete a purchase.
A modern information technology infrastructure is essential for the next-generation retail operation so the e-commerce platform and the in-store system communicate a consistent message about order histories and stock availability, it said. Buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) fulfillment, return anywhere, ship from store and endless aisle capabilities require a unified cloud commerce platform that connects e-commerce and in-store point of sale (POS) systems to order management, inventory, merchandising, marketing, financials and customer service, it said.
A reliable, 360-degree view of customer order and inventory data is the foundation for outstanding customer experiences, it said. When data lives in more than one place, it’s likely to be inconsistent and retailers “won’t realize it until it’s too late and the customer receives a fractured experience.” A “single version of truth” is critical in delivering a next-generation customer experience, it said.
Logging all preferences, interactions and transactions to create rich customer profiles will help provide consistent customer service and support personalized marketing, merchandising and targeted promotions across all channels, said Oracle. It gave the example of a customer walking in to a store and being greeted by an associate who pulls up order history or a wish list from the store’s online site. “This type of access gives the associate unprecedented insight into the customer’s favorite brands, colors and sizes,” it said, making customers feel like the sales associate “knows them and can be of value -- and not just trying to sell them something.”
Transparent product inventory across channels -- including among stores -- enables stores to be fulfillment centers where BOPIS, return in store, order in store, and ship to home experiences can take place. An end-to-end view of inventory across the supply chain also lets retailers better optimize inventory levels according to unique store profiles and needs.
Integrated POS and order management enable omnichannel buy-anywhere, return-anywhere and fulfill-anywhere services, said the report. With real-time visibility into orders across the supply chain, merchants can optimize business decisions and impress customers by avoiding the mistake of overselling available inventory, it said. In a seamless omnichannel shopping experience, customers pick and choose where they order, receive and return products, it said.