It Is Time for a “System” Perspective on Retail Channels
Research findings in Retail and Multi-Channel Management
This research was conducted in May 2018.
Retailers often believed, at least a decade ago, that adding more retail channels to their existing channel(s) would be the key to success in a world where online retail was competing with offline formats. But retailers often were less successful than expected, leading them to question the merit of channel additions.
Creating an integrated omni-channel system
This post (in German) explains this result from a lack of integration between the channels. Only when the channel system is treated as a whole concept and fully integrated, can competitive advantages be realized. This is because retailers in an integrated omni-channel system can separately optimize channels for customer acquisition and for conversion.
Because they relax the assumption that every customer has to purchase at the first contact with the company, customer journeys can be addressed as a whole, without channels solely working for their own benefit. In this “system” perspective on retailing, show- and webrooming are not necessary evils, but accepted as necessary for many purchase processes.
After a brief introduction to the different types of retail channel systems (mono, multi and omni channel), this proposes the evolution of the channel system as explanation for a current lack of integration with many retailers.
In his blog, Jun.-Prof. Dr. Erik Maier discusses current challenges of the retail industry. You are invited to subscribe to the news.
Read read more about this topic in his post “Omni- statt Multi-Channel: System vor Kanalerfolg” (in German).
In practical cooperation with companies, we conduct research on managerially relevant issues in the areas of (i) multi-channel retailing, (ii) consumer and technical innovation, and (iii) society and digitalization. In doing so we work in international research teams (e.g. from NL, UK, Sweden) and use state-of-the-art data mining (e.g. crawling) and analysis techniques (e.g. machine (e.g. machine learning).
