Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
merchandizing; in-store service and after-sales; client traffic, data collection
and management; as well as sales performance, targets and forecasts.
The progressively important phenomenon that a dual retail channel has
brought about is that of reconciling client data of an increasingly international
clientele. It is now common for a luxury brand to have a client (let's call him
John Smith), who shops from the brand's stores at different locations, say
London, Milan, New York, Singapore, Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong as well as
online. John may also have triple nationality (which is common these days) and
possess two different passports which he may use alternately to identify himself
in the stores. He may also own four different credit cards which he could switch
during his purchases in the stores and online. John could also own apartments in
New York, London and Hong Kong, meaning that he has three addresses which
he could also use during his shopping depending on where he is. John spends
an average of $1 million annually on luxury items, which means that he's an
important client that should be retained at all costs. During a recent visit to Paris,
John decides to do some shopping in the same brand's store. At the payment coun-
ter he is asked his name and, upon keying it in, the sales representative realizes
that there are over two thousand John Smiths in the database. John is asked for
his passport number and he gives his British passport number, which he last
used to shop in Hong Kong the year before. Upon keying in this number, John's
record is retrieved and indicates that he lives in London and spent $75,000 in
the last year in the brand's London and Hong Kong stores. He makes his pur-
chase and leaves. What the brand's database failed to capture is that John makes
purchases from the brand's e-store on an average of once every two months
and that he has spent nearly $1 million on the brand's products shopping online
and from the different stores around the world, mainly with his American and
Brazilian passports and several credit cards. Since the information against
John's records doesn't reflect his high expenditure, the brand fails to include
him in the VIP database and therefore do not treat him as one. John remains a
gold mine that is yet to be tapped by the brand and could potentially walk away
one day without the brand realizing it.
The opportunity of luxury e-retail can only be optimized if the systems
that man the store retail are integrated with that of e-retail and interconnected
with all the brand's stores around the world. To further tap into the wealth of
data amassed through these channels, the brand must foster a spirit of soli-
darity among the sales ambassadors responsible for the different stores and
for Internet sales. It is not uncommon to find sales representatives of differ-
ent stores and sales channels competing with one another for the same clients
and sales turnover. While the spirit of competition encourages store results,
this should not be to the detriment of the brand's overall performance.
Channel integration also extends beyond store services to include aspects
of the after-sales services such as returns, exchanges, refunds and repairs. For
example, a product purchased online should easily be returned exchanged
offline. Also clients should be able to reserve items in a store from the
