Retailing Strategies Multi Channel And Omni Channel Strategies

During the past decade, retail markets have undergone many changes in their processes, services, and formats. The last part of distribution of the market strategy, retailing serves as a bridge between the final consumer and the mass producers of products. Retailing has reached every corner of the globe, and Wal-Mart has been eying areas where the

This video discussed how to manage multiple marketing channels. The first step is to determine heals and budget. Then define channels to reach the goal. You need to have a channel strategy to make sure the brand is there for the right customers.

Regardless of current channel, single channel businesses are becoming multi-channel businesses. Retail only are expanding to online services as

Multipliers retailing is usually referred to as a multi-channel retailing. It’s an approach to operating a retail in which you offer products to customers through multiple retail channels. Brick-and-mortar stores, catalogues and the Internet are three primary multiple channels used by many retailers, but other, smaller retail formats exist as well.

“Retail is the business of selling goods made by others to individual consumers. It is a huge industry, dominated by Wal-Mart, which touches every corner of the globe. Due to the decline in the global economy, the future of many retailers is uncertain as consumers begin to spend less. The retail industry is the last step in the process of getting products to customers efficiently, and should not be confused with the wholesale activities which precede it. The difference between the two is that wholesalers are companies that sell their products to businesses, whereas in retail, the goods are sold

Apple Inc. has been dedicated to innovation ever since the company was first formed. Apple's recent breakthroughs were a result of a new technologies convergence upon the "digital hub" strategy (Mortensen, 2010). This strategy has served Apple well; especially during the last few years. The iPad, iPod, and iPhone were all born from this strategy. Furthermore, producing these innovative, user friendly, and design oriented products has earned them a considerable amount of customer loyalty.

A channel of distribution is a network of organisations that, combined, perform all the functions required to link producers with consumers. Retailers need to offer right product at the right place at the right time. If the product that a consumer wants is not available then 31% of consumers will buy from a different store, 26% will buy a different brand and 24% will delay their purchase, or not purchase at all.

With the monumental success of the iPod, Apple expanded in this industry by becoming one of the largest purchasers of flash memory in the world. There was also the development of complementary products lines such as headphones, docking stations, cases, etc. Though Apple was already superior to competitors, nothing gave them a bigger advantage than the creation of Apple’s iTunes store. After its launch in 2003, sales shot up to 733,000 units and continued to explode (Yoffie & Kim, 2010). Customers thoroughly enjoyed the ease of use as well as music selection allowing iTunes to sell 10 billion songs and become world’s largest music catalog.

While many consumers know the physical products Apple offers are those of high quality, the company has made it a point to “manage the evidence,” and “tangibilize the intangible.” In doing so, Apple had to create stores that have a clean layout, in which traffic flows steadily, have employees that are busy, but they can still manage the workload, have equipment that is state of the art, have a symbol that suggests quality in both product and service, and finally, has a reasonable price for service. We already know that Apple services are offered for free, the company’s logo is iconic, and that the equipment is top notch. So, Apple’s stores had the main focus of a clean layout and employees readily available, yet still busy. When a customer walks into an Apple store, the aesthetics are clean and well thought out. Each product is on display for

Apple Inc. has prided itself on product innovation since the company was first founded. Apple's recent breakthroughs were a result of a new technologies convergence upon the "digital hub" strategy that has been in play for many years now (Mortensen, 2010). This strategy represents the core of Apple's success over the last several years. In fact, it was this strategy that ultimately led to the development such as the iPad, iPod, and iPhone. Furthermore, Apple has also carved out a unique market niche by creating products with innovative and user friendly designs. The combinations of these factors have created some of the most loyal customers in the entire business world.

With the shift in the external marketing environments, Apple has also shifted its marketing strategy. It personalizes marketing through experiential marketing and relationship marketing. “Experiential marketing promotes a product by not only communicating a product’s features and benefits but also connecting it with unique and interesting consumer experiences” (Strategic Brand Management, P. 181). Customers can easily experience a sense of community every time they walk in into the Apple stores. The layout of the store itself is well thought of. The reason that every Apple stores have basically the same layout with the numerous displays of products is because Apple knows that the sampling of products is the key to purchasing decisions. I personally enjoy walking into the Apple store even though I may not plan to purchase anything. The vibe of the store is so welcoming that customers feel comfortable walking in and out of the store even when not purchasing anything. The Apple store employees are present in almost every table, ready to provide any information needed by the customers.

According to this case, and concerning about the strategy that Best Buy has created, retailers can similarly create a retailer-led product strategy to leverage their customer knowledge for product differentiation and to understand what the needs of the customers are; they must discover what satisfies the customer and what not. In addition, the retailer can seek for news partnerships, new stores, new countries and new categories and services in order to increase their net sales and their share market. It’s very important invest in marketing study aiming to discover what the other companies are doing. Besides, with the time, the smaller retailer can increase significantly even more than the

The developed definition of the use of multichannel in the retail market has been branded towards the opening of multiple channels to communicate towards the customer (Zhang et al., 2010). The importance of multichannel selling strategies has significantly grown with the rise of new business channels emerging into the market (Stojković et al., 2016). In view of this growth, a dominant approach of retailers combining classical (store) channels and electronic (website) channels has shown extensive successes for most of the world’s leading retailers (Stojković et al., 2016). In addition to this potential success for the retailer, the benefits can also be passed onto the customer, which will be discussed, then simply using the selling strategy to communicate with the

This paper presents a case study of Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is a technology based corporation with emphasis on computer software and hardware (MAC and Apps), tablets (IPad), smart phones (IPhone), and mp3 plays, (ITouch). Apple Inc. has grown tremendously over the years and ever since 2001 has expanded its brand and retail stores to over 375 stores/outlets globally. The business has seventy two thousand eight hundred employees in thirty eight countries. Apple Inc. has truly become one of the most efficacious corporations within its field behind or competing with Microsoft and Google Inc.

Describe three techniques retail merchants use to integrate their online and offline sales channel beyond having an online store.