Omnichannel continues to unearth new obstacles. Speakers at NRF’s Big Show on Tuesday, including Steve Madden President of E-Commerce Mark Friedman, Revmetrix CEO Hemang Gadhia and Andrea Weiss, founder of the O Alliance, discussed ways brands can turn fragmented consumer data across various shopping channels into information that can help create a consistent consumer experience no matter how and where they shop.
Steve Madden’s business is made up of 80 percent wholesale accounts, but the footwear and accessories company also runs an online site and retail stores, both full-price and factory outlets, Friedman shared. The brand’s data collecting is further complicated by the fact that, in addition to shopping through multiple channels, customers are also using multiple devices, making it difficult for the company to get a complete picture of each customer and their shopping habits.
Friedman said, “The goal is to get a single view of the customers across devices and channels.”
Steve Madden participated in a survey that examined the customer shopping experience administered by Revmetrix, a customer intelligence platform for omnichannel retailers, and co-sponsored by omnichannel consulting firm O Alliance.
Revmetrix and O Alliance conducted the study with data from one of Steve Madden Group’s properties, the Betsey Johnson brand. In studying a customer’s journey to purchasing, Friedman reported that by the time a customer gets to the fifth interaction, they are six times more likely to buy. Friedman added, “I think we’ve proven with the Betsey Johnson data what we intuitively knew: the conversion increases dramatically with each subsequent customer interaction.”
It can, however, be difficult to track where a customer is in her journey because of cross-device shopping. A customer will generally switch back and forth from mobile to desktop shopping. Typically, 40 percent of online purchases involve some cross-device involvement and, on average, 1.7 devices before the transaction.
Friedman said a lot of the data and marketing dollars are currently allocated to the customers who have created an online shopping cart and abandoned it, however, it would be advantageous to refocus. He suggested looking to a wider assortment of people higher in the shopping funnel who have created a lot of intentions to buy.