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Bridging the gap between e-commerce and the store experience

Raj B. Shroff , founder and principal at Pine Strategy & Design, offers insight on the void between a retailer's website and it's in-store experience and how to close it.

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July 29, 2020 by Raj Shroff — Principal, PINE Strategy & Design

Ever searched a retailer's website while in store only to find out that the online price is different (usually less) than the one you are staring at (at the same retailer)? Ever visit an e-commerce site and find it dull and boring to shop, not resonating with the store side of the brand?

In either of these situations, you don't have to be a retail expert to wonder, why the void?

It would be easy to spend the next few paragraphs beating up retailers for failing to bridge the store-ecommerce site gap. But, I'd rather take time to explain how we got here and what we can do to close the void.

Ending the void is more important than ever; now is not the time to frustrate shoppers! We should be doing things to better serve our shoppers and to maximize affinity, near and long-term sales.

How we got here

To understand how we got to this divided world, this void, you have to think about the evolution of retail and the expertise needed to build out retailer teams. For years, it was all physical. Schools taught physical design, designers designed physical things and experienced the world that way.

Even students at many design schools only learn very tactile design strategies; cross-discipline learning and collaboration is limited. Store design, fixture design and printed graphic signage, and on the merchant side, very linear business strategy, often heavy quantitative.

In the 2000s the web got popular and we went out and hired all these digital folks. Web designers, developers, and e-commerce experts all live in this digital world. They went to school and learned only online tactics, and most often, started their careers outside of retail.

Suddenly these two groups were working together but coming from different worlds, but they were not speaking the same language. Even today, being in the room with them can feel like you're at a middle school dance.

Just 10 years ago, Fortune 100 retailers like Target used Amazon to design and manage their e-commerce site. They didn't have the expertise in-house and likely realized the potential for e-commerce. Amazon offered an affordable platform. The downside is that Target (and others) were slow to build the right in-house expertise because of Amazon's turnkey solution. Only when the threat of Amazon became crystal clear, did they pivot to building out their in-house capabilities.

If you want to bridge the divide, you have to get these groups talking to each other before they can start to dance. And not just in meetings and on zoom calls. You need them to teach each other their views of the world so they can find common language. And even mix and match them onto teams in your organization to tackle projects side-by-side.

Setting goals and KPIs

You'll want to know what success looks like. Setting goals for them and with them is a great place to start. What does bridging the gap look like? What is that ideal shopper experience with your brand? How will creating that lead to achieving business goals?

What we've often found in our work is that one huge barrier to this are the incentives tied to the KPIs. The behavior you incentivize, is the behavior you get. So your incentives should be tied to mutual gains, the best shopper experience and collaboration for the benefit of the shopper. There are many examples of the wrong incentives which lead to gross inefficiencies in all facets of the retail business.

Everyday task force

You can build cross-functional teams or collapse everything into one group and make them report to the consumer. Then, with your goals in hand, start to envision the optimal for your business. What is your achievable dream scenario? And what is holding you back from that dream? Do you have the proper insights to understand current performance? Do you understand what gaps exist between today and dream?

If you don't, start by having your team read shopper complaints and reviews. Run some surveys across your business to understand the shopper journey, cross shopping behaviors, expectations and reactions. Run some mock shopping tests and have your team observe them and make sure someone on your team is astute enough to translate what is happening.

If you are lucky, you might have a few folks on your teams that have backgrounds in both worlds. They can act as translators to find some common ground.

Another big step you can take is to have your teams work together in a store. Observe how shoppers are shopping; how are your policies helping or hindering the experience for them at checkout, at BOPIS, in returns, etc.

If I had to pick the most important for physical retailers it would be to get staff working in the stores on a regular basis. And interview store associates who live with the shopper daily. They answer questions with the shopper, often navigating online orders with them.

Getting it right

Retailers know this is happening, we are in meetings where their teams openly complain about the challenges. However, there are retailers getting this right. Best Buy has been a leader in BOPIS, in-store use of digital and price matching. Home Depot created a brilliant app that is clearly based on shopper insight, closing the pain points of most Home Depot shopping experiences. Starbucks is another example of a closely connected team, all reporting to the coffee drinker.

When in-store and online teams collaborate, the consumer experience is vastly enhanced. Open communication, common KPIs, the right incentives, and deeply understanding your shopper can help your company make great strides.

Raj B. Shroff is founder and principal at Pine Strategy & Design