Strategies | Digital Commerce 360

Retailers share ways to make shipping more sustainable

April Berthene — Mon, 05 Jun 2023 17:07:59 +0000

Sustainability is part of Coalatree’s mission.   The performance apparel brand works to make its clothing in a sustainable way, such as designing products with sustainable materials like recycled water bottles and manufacturing its garments in factories that adhere to its standards, such as using a waterless dye method.   So when it comes to getting that […]

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Expert quick take: Keeping curbside pickup effective

Abbas Haleem — Mon, 08 May 2023 16:58:15 +0000

Emily Pfeiffer, principal analyst at Forrester Research, says large retailers that struggle to create a great curbside pickup experience should stop offering the service. 

However, large retailers that struggle to create a great experience around curbside pickup should stop offering it.

“It’s not worth creating bad experiences,” she says. “And it’s not worth pulling resources away from in-store experiences if that’s the choice.”

Kohl’s discontinued curbside pickup, and more retailers are considering canceling the omnichannel service. Retailers scrambled to launch curbside pickup during the pandemic. But now that many consumers resumed in-store shopping, retailers must determine if offering curbside is still worth it.

She offers six steps to retailers to create an effective curbside pickup experience.

Pfeiffer’s 6 steps to make curbside pickup effective

Communicate curbside as an option as early and clearly as possible during the shopping process online.
Allow consumers to filter products by fulfillment options.
Let consumers add items to cart by fulfillment option — for curbside, for in-store, for shipping — so that all the way through the shopping experience, the customer is in control and knows exactly what to expect. 
Make it abundantly clear in the cart what the various fulfillment methods are. Make it really obvious, especially if there are multiple.
Communicate very well via text or email or apps. Have options, and make sure the customer can say they’re on their way. They can check in. They can describe their vehicle. 
When the customer arrives at the store, it should be extremely clear where to go. When they arrive, make it obvious where they should park, what they should do, and what the status is.

Pfeiffer says if retailers struggle to staff enough employees for curbside pickup but still want to offer the service, they can try making pickup only available at certain times of day when shopper data shows a store will be less busy.

This expert quick take is part of a larger story on retailers deciding whether to commit to curbside pickup.

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Committing to curbside pickup — or breaking up with it

Abbas Haleem — Mon, 08 May 2023 16:37:06 +0000

The pandemic forced Daniel’s Jewelers to change its sales approach. Daniel’s Jewelers, founded in 1948, was almost entirely an in-store retailer in 2019. 0.001% of its sales came from its ecommerce website that year, says Sam Sarullo, head of ecommerce and marketing.  It launched a new ecommerce website in early 2020, just two weeks before […]

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Is offering cryptocurrency at checkout worth the reward for retailers?

Gretchen Salois — Mon, 24 Apr 2023 15:11:37 +0000

“I’m not a cryptocurrency trader. I don’t want cryptocurrency on my balance sheet,” says David Kaplan, chief operating officer of luxury watch reseller WatchBox. But, he adds, it is worthwhile to offer cryptocurrency as a payment option to customers. This holds especially true for the retailer’s international customers, he says. WatchBox noticed an increase in […]

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BNPL is a low-risk option for attracting new customers

Mary Meisenzahl — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 17:32:34 +0000

Recently, Overstock.com Inc. shoppers have used buy now, pay later (BNPL) for orders as low as $10, says CEO Jonathan Johnson.   But Johnson isn’t worried, even as some critics say using BNPL for smaller purchases is a sign of debt risk. Johnson is excited to see BNPL become a bigger part of Overstock’s business. […]

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Why some retailers use — and avoid over-using — stores as fulfillment locations

Gretchen Salois — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 12:00:05 +0000

How long a shopper is willing to wait to receive a HomeDepot.com order may be the reason a shopper makes a purchase or not. Home Depot is adapting its fulfillment strategy to meet the evolving demands of today’s hybrid consumer. “You may not have wanted to wait three days for something. But, if we can […]

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Will alternate package pickup points take off?

April Berthene — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 18:49:33 +0000

Less than six months after implementing alternate package pickup points, more than 16% of PerryEllis.com’s orders are fulfilled with this option, says Jay Nigrelli, senior vice president of ecommerce at fashion brand Perry Ellis International. This is a win for the brand, Nigrelli says, as shoppers can choose a fulfillment option that’s convenient to them, […]

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Retailers use data to improve web conversion and improve the customer experience

Abbas Haleem — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 20:04:58 +0000

Sometimes, shoppers already know what they want to buy — and when they want it. A prime example is buying flowers for Valentine’s Day, says Katie Hudson, content director at online flower retailer UrbanStems. UrbanStems sells about five times its typical volume in the week leading up to Feb. 14, Hudson says. During this week, a […]

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Gathering data in the age of privacy

Paul Conley — Mon, 13 Mar 2023 14:41:56 +0000

It was once much easier for ecommerce retailers to market their goods to consumers. Third-party cookies contain an extraordinary amount of data about individual web users. Those third-party cookies even offered data that shoppers had no intention of disclosing, such as lists of the websites they visited, their email addresses and phone numbers, interests/hobbies, health […]

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Will AI power all of fraud management?

April Berthene — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 20:20:46 +0000

Artificial intelligence might be doing Chad Funk’s job in five years, the fraud analyst at BrooksRunning.com tells Digital Commerce 360. “Machine learning and AI are very much the future of this industry,” Funk says. Funk is on a team of four employees on the manual review team at the sports shoe and apparel manufacturer, where […]

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