Top Operational Challenges To Multichannel Retailers, November 2012 [CHART]

Chart - Top Operational Challenges To Multichannel Retailers

The “seamless brand experience” across channels is an ideal among multichannel retailers, but one that is hard won, according to RSR Research in a November 2012 report. Asked to name their top 3 operational challenges, 59% of retailers surveyed pointed to coordination with other channels to create a seamless brand experience. Next most-common (52%) was optimizing inventory deployment across all channels, while understanding and accommodating how different consumer segments engage was third (49%).

Interestingly, the most successful multichannel retailers suffer the most pain in this area, reveals “The Multi-Channel Retailer’s Reality in a Post-Amazon World.” 71% of “Double-digit Winners,” whose annual year-over-year growth is 10% or higher, identified channel coordination as their leading challenge. By comparison, only 47% of laggards (growth under 3%) cited the same challenge. As the researchers posit, “this dramatically underlines how much Winners understand their multiple channels can be leveraged as a real and differentiating strength from online-only powerhouses – providing they can one day execute.” Read the rest at MarketingCharts.