Chain Store Age: Cognizant’s Retail Consulting Experts Write About the Competitive Advantage of In-Store Experiences as the First Step Toward Omnichannel Capabilities

Retailers must judiciously apply bricks and mortar to their competitive advantage, assert Steven Skinner, Senior Vice President of Retail and Consumer Goods Consulting, and Karl Swensen, Assistant Vice President of Retail Consulting at Cognizant, in an article assessing the competitive advantage of in-store experiences.

“Immense opportunities exist for brick-and-mortar retailers to use their physical world strengths by focusing on retailing fundamentals, providing informational consistency across all touchpoints throughout the shopper’s journey, and empowering associates to make the physical world experience as good as or better than the online one,” they write.

According to the authors, a brick-and-mortar store allows shoppers to interact with products in ways that can’t be matched by the capabilities of online retailers. “The tangible, physical aspects bring value to the in-store experience, but also mean fundamental store operations must be highly functional and efficient to overcome any pricing advantage found online.”

To mitigate this risk of the shopper leaving empty-handed, the authors say that retailers should get the price right in the first place, offer a meaningful assortment that is almost curated to the shopper’s needs and desires, and keep adequate inventory in stock by using predictive modeling.

“With the advent of smartphones and tablets, “showrooming” has reached epidemic proportions,” the authors note. “We all know many shoppers browse at a brick-and-mortar store before purchasing online. Retailers can combat this by seeing the shopper’s journey as non-linear, and making themselves accessible and available at all touchpoints.”

It’s important that retailers provide consistency across all channels, the authors aver. “Shoppers want a seamless shopping experience—both in and out of store. Doing so can greatly influence their final purchase. Shoppers increasingly expect personalized in-store experiences.”

They add, “Brick-and-mortar stores can turn this negative into an advantage by arming their store-level associates with greater product and service knowledge than can be gleaned online…Retailers should train and provide associates with the proper resources needed to fulfill shoppers’ immediate needs. When an associate has enough knowledge to either price match against a competitor, find a product in-stock without asking a manager, or leverage direct fulfillment capabilities to ship customer orders, the selling process becomes more efficient. In turn, it also provides a better in-store shopping experience, which increases loyalty.”

The authors suggest, “Retailers must first take stock of how to delight the customer and then gradually build key omnichannel capabilities. This will allow them to carefully work through the retailing fundamentals needed to deliver a seamless omnichannel shopping experience that compares favorably with competitive retailers—whether online or not.”

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