Research Paper On Omnichannel Retailing

Companies need to provide an omnichannel experience to their customers in order to keep them. However, with the huge variety of retailers and brands, it is becoming harder and harder to maintain customer loyalty. Another problem may arise from the fact that currently the U.S. legislators are enforcing laws on making online retailers to collect sales tax. Up until now, the law has been enacted in at least 12 states.

This is an inductive research where quantitative methods have been used. The quantitative analysis consists of stock price data acquired from the New York Stock Exchange and the results of audit regarding company 's internal control over financial reporting required by the Sarbanes Oxley Act.

Consumers are always satisfied with good customer service. When it comes to retail store customer service and satisfaction it is important because department stores are large in size and finding help can be difficult. Colloquy, a company concerned with building customer value, released a survey and asked 3,000 consumers across five geographical areas to rate their personal experiences with retailers. Macy’s was ranked number one in the department store category, with the most loyal customers. To keep up with technology advances Macy’s has invested time and money into developing a more efficient online shopping site, Macys.com and Macysweddingchannel. This investment cost nearly $300 million in 2006-2008 is being used to scale-up these fast-growing businesses through improvements in delivery efficiency, online site functionality and customer service. To enhance the shopping experience at Macy’s 100 stores in 2007 experienced remodeling and began introducing the most advanced POS registers and systems to the sales floors nationwide. Macy’s passion is product and people. There continuing pursuit is to have unique fashionable merchandise ready for customer satisfaction. Macy’s promise is to always carry the best brands and the most-wanted items. They also believe in hiring the right employees. With the right employees, there will be a sense of motivation and helpfulness. The American Customer Satisfaction Index covers 200 companies’ products and

Just what is omnichannel? Why is it important? Omnichannel is giving retail customers multiple avenues to access the company (Rigby, 2014). Being an omnichannel retailer

Diamond Cluster Entertainment is trying to build a solid relationship with their loyal customers. For the past few year customer satisfaction have declined

3.How these strategies are related the performance of these companies over time? Why? What is going on in terms of industry competition and markets that makes one strategy outperform the other at any point in time?

To better understand a firm and its placement of its strategies, we must conduct an analysis of factors that might affect its selection of strategies.

The first steps that managers must consider when developing and employing an online business strategy include the ways in which information, goods and services and communications are exchanged in the web-based operational model. In essence, they must realize that technology and digitalization is key to fostering customer-centric user experiences, so as to support transactional, order fulfillment, and information exchange. In addition, an

With the implementation of Omni-channel retailing, Cabela’s customers have full access to the company’s global inventory of products. Therefore, customers are no longer limited to product availability by location or shopping channel. Customers can order online or by phone and have their orders direct-shipped from any location or they can choose store pickup. In-store customers can carry their purchases with them or have it shipped to the location of their choice. Cabela’s primary shipping locations include the U.S., Canada, and Japan, but the company will also ship orders worldwide on request. In-store customers can shop non-store inventory at in-store kiosks and at in-store catalog desks. Cabela’s Omni-channel retail model also means

The bargaining power of customers is high. First of all, the customer size is tremendous globally, which also has an accelerating growth rate in recent years. Customers’ leverage is strengthening as a result of this. Another inevitable factor is that with countless retailors online, there is low switching cost for customers to find other alternative companies that suits their desire to conduct purchases. Moreover, consumers today are more sophisticated. Consumers are less commit to impulsive-buying, yet are more willing to study about product features and evaluate their options before purchasing online. Their purchase pattern can also be hard to learn too.

Today’s customers are more aware and empowered, and have more bargaining power due to the exponential increase in competition – direct, indirect or substitute. In retailing, they want hassle-free shopping, have less time at their disposal to locate the shop and the merchandise and are reluctant to keep waiting. The modern format retail stores are doing their best to anticipate the customer’s demands and are going all out to redesign their store interiors, offer more choices in varieties and assortments, and are giving as many services as feasible.

All business needs to take action which helps them keep good position on the market. Before taken any action analysis has to be made. Answers and data which were obtained during analysis can help chose strategies, which help achieve objectives.

Excellent customer service is a way to set the organization apart from its competitors. Differentiation can be achieved through fast and correct execution of product ordering. To improve on the order process it is important to have the correct information provided in a timely fashion to all divisions. For integration to be successful information must be available throughout the entire supply chain.

Streamlining of operations: Since there are multiple channels of fulfillment & multiple teams working towards customer order fulfillment in any traditional supply chain, it is a herculean task to realigntheir priorities and ensure organizational coordination which is supremely essential in an Omni Channel Supply Chain.

Omnichannel retailing is a bigger challenge for food retailers than general merchandise retailers because it takes a cost and complexity. If a customer needs to change their delivery and they won’t be home, retailers need to have technology to ensure that the driver can easily reschedule and redeliver the items. Packaging will cost as well. They must have a packaging to stay food fresh and