M U LT I C H A N N E L The pillars of seamless e-fulfilment To create a seamless e-fulfilment experience that delivers on the demands and expectations of today’s customers, you’ll need a unified system and the data flow to support it. E-commerce sales are expected to continue skyrocketing over the next few years, with a recent projection suggesting they will reach up to $4.9 trillion worldwide in 2021 from a projected $3.5 trillion in 2019. The projection adds that e-commerce, at its current trajectory, will have a 17.5% share of all retail sales in the world by 2021.1 One consequence is that the lines between online and “bricks and mortar” shopping behaviour will continue to be blurred, and shoppers will increasingly use multiple channels to buy what they need and want. A recent study showed that 74% of US consumers on occasion make purchases online after seeing the product at a retail store while 15% do it regularly.2 Multichannel fulfilment is firstly about understanding customers’ behaviour – what, where, when, why and how they purchase products. Secondly, it is about creating a system that makes the shopping experience seamless. THE CUSTOMER IS KING 2.0 You are buying shoes online. You find the right pair, but you want to try them on at the store. You go to the store, try the shoes on and buy them – but later you regret your decision as the colour is not quite right. So, you send the shoes back after having made a returns case on their website. All those steps are expected by the customer to go smoothly. If they’re told on the website that a certain size is available, they will be disappointed to find that size out of stock when visiting the store. If they can’t use the website or app for returning the shoes, of if they contact your customer service and don’t get the right information – you may never see that customer again. The adage of the customer being king is doubly true now. They know what they want, and they know when they want it. Any mistakes will not be quickly forgiven. CLARIFYING COMPLEXITY A large part of the multichannel fulfilment exercise is about managing data. You start the process of breaking down the complexity by analysing the data flows to and from 36
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