Apparel: Assistant Vice President for Retail Consulting at Cognizant Outlines how Omnichannel is Changing the Merchant

“Historically, merchandise planning and management strategies have been designed with a single channel in mind,” writes Meena Surti Patel. “However, a recent Cognizant Business Consulting survey of 2,500 shoppers in the United States and Canada seeking to understand shopper preferences and expectations reveals that the number one thing shoppers are looking for is consistent service, product availability, and pricing across all channels.”

“In providing consistent service,” Patel adds, “companies are looking to consolidate the merchandising function in their organization. However, many retailers are struggling to integrate the internal organizations that handle these functions of merchandising including, planning, buying, assortments, pricing and promotions to provide a consistent customer experience.”

She adds, “The foundations of retail, upon which merchants have based their businesses for generations, have evaporated and been replaced by a non-linear shopper journey that begins and ends anytime, anywhere. The journey includes a wide variety of touchpoints outside of brick-and-mortar stores and most are beyond a retailer’s control or ability to influence. Against this backdrop, retailers and merchants continue to search for ways to drive profitable growth.”

According to Patel, the path to meet today’s challenges will embrace the shopper’s Web-fueled, digitally powered, non-linear lifestyle. “Retailers and merchants will need to engage shoppers skillfully in every channel and at every touchpoint. Then retailers will need to be ready to quickly adopt emerging technologies as they arrive,” she writes.

Pointing out that retailing is changing on many dimensions and at breakneck speeds, Patel writes: “Customers’ expectations are continually evolving as the shopping journey becomes more non-linear and more digitized. It is best to create a pricing competency that matches your business, not just rely on price matching, and provide focused personalized promotions. Customers are expecting all this and will be persuaded by the retailer that does so...The key is to set the expectation for price and communicate at an overall value proposition that matches that price. The merchandising and pricing teams play a critical role in getting the price right.”

She concludes, “Focusing on these priorities will help position retailers to successfully navigate the changing shopper-driven landscape and make the shift from serving many to serving each individual customer.”

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