In today’s InternetRetailing newsletter we’re reporting on retailers from across the IRUK Top500 index who this week shared their strategic approaches to multichannel retail. Among them are John Lewis and Waitrose, Next, Dunelm, Morrisons and Habitat.
These are stories of already-mature retailers investing in the things that make a difference to the customer experience. For Dunelm, it’s multichannel retailing and delivery, facilitated through its purchase of Worldstores, for John Lewis it’s about content and exclusivity, for Next it’s about improving personalisation and relevance, while for Habitat it’s about enabling convenience through click and collect and for Morrisons it’s about the local. Today’s newsletter, then, is about how retailers are looking at their customers’ needs, about the way they shop to what they want from the brand, in order to devise new and often incremental ways of boosting the experience and, at the same time, sales. That’s important – for the thing that many of these retailers have in common is a perception of the retail environment as challenging, as a result of Brexit and the weakness of sterling. The focus has moved to making the experience as convenient and as easy as possible. That’s something worth remembering in the no-doubt turbulent times ahead.
Today’s guest comment comes from Danny Crowe of TwentyCi on understanding customers – and their approaches to life events such as a home move.
Webinars
Find out more about upcoming InternetRetailing webinars and register for free on the InternetRetailing webinar page. You can also catch up with past webinars on the page: recent sessions have come from IBM Watson on using AI to improve the customer experience, and from SmartFocus and The Entertainer on using social to reach digital customers.
