Robert Spector - Video

Dear reader,

Just a short evening publish with the author Robert Spector.

He did a video (also advertising for his speaks business) that in a 19:31 minutes summarizes major part of his book – The Nordstrom Way.

Enjoy, and have a nice evening

Hear the inspiring speak by Robert Spector

What is multi-channel retailing

What is multi-channel retailing

• IS: Operating a single retail organisation that has multiple touch points
• Clear benefits in offering more integrated channels to the end-user.

And only the future will set limits for the number of touch points. Meaning that inventions will create new ways of communicating with customers, making business and doing fulfillment - for an even more convenient and integrated shopping experience.

Today the two major channels are physical retail stores and PC browser based Internet shopping and browsing. Customers can easily be browsers on the web and purchasing customers in the retail store. Then the web in influencing the purchase – which will be reality for 38% of all retail purchases in 2012 regarding to Forrester.

Besides the primary browsing and purchasing touch points resides in store eKiosks and mobile devices as well as mail-order catalogues. The printed catalogues are today used as online purchase drivers with nearly 70% of all orders coming from catalogues being typed in online (meaning huge reduced callcenter costs). eKiosks are used in stores for inspiration to marketing material and for purchases. Mobile devices are primarily used for customer service follow up and fulfillment – “Your online ordered parcel has now arrived to your local store” and so on.

Denmark is so tiny

Denmark is so tiny in traffic volume

Just stumbled over a fresh Danish list over top media sites measured by fdim.dk.

A lot of the commercial traffic is not there. Large eCommerce sites and corporate sites are not mentioned.
Wonder why Danish commercial sites sometimes suffer from volume alone driven from the web? – No not anymore.

Have a nice Friday.

Nr	Site name	Visitors	Visits	Pageviews	Cookies
1	dr.dk	1.900.854	18.178.999	111.867.370	4.437.936
2	krak.dk	1.654.107	6.966.125	42.702.098	2.918.591
3	tv2.dk	1.526.009	16.322.671	148.548.776	4.195.998
4	ekstrabladet.dk	1.291.455	20.561.285	90.172.115	4.347.179
5	msn.dk	1.253.698	23.642.263	73.085.141	3.686.649
6	eniro.dk	1.155.947	11.117.446	43.969.819	2.788.130
7	degulesider.dk	1.145.233	4.538.493	21.723.071	1.900.316
8	jubii.dk	992.865	11.070.301	91.774.726	3.320.503
9	tdconline.dk	769.292	8.683.417	57.387.161	2.001.200
10	rejseplanen.dk	763.542	2.128.478	9.906.509	1.128.278
11	bt.dk	727.528	8.834.448	35.719.803	2.089.119
12	dba.dk	727.316	4.582.079	81.814.207	1.791.959
13	dmi.dk	692.248	6.034.841	23.326.961	1.610.025
14	politiken.dk	594.054	6.508.250	23.221.191	1.565.131
15	jp.dk	528.467	5.944.242	18.090.704	1.420.597
16	qxl.dk	463.230	3.287.786	69.775.181	1.242.445
17	arto.dk	460.509	11.270.648	655.644.115	3.849.507
18	berlingske.dk	425.284	3.344.094	10.385.331	940.690
19	edbpriser.dk	407.560	1.397.710	14.764.468	690.172
20	epn.dk	383.016	1.993.477	4.897.362	739.049

It's all about brands - not channels

Where is retailing heading …

The days where an entrepreneur could make the foundation for a store chain, by opening just one good store – providing excellent customer service - would probable always be here. I very much hope so. There several good examples throughout the history of retailing, of good businessmen and women doing store openings and becoming successful – I mentioned Nordstrom earlier one.

I wrote an e-mail to Robert Spector, the author of the Nordstrom book yesterday, and said to him that hearing the story from a ‘close to mouth horse’ always could be interesting. And stated that it’ll be interesting to hear about a Scandinavian gold digger – here’s the reply: “Greetings from Seattle. Thank you for your e-mail. Your line about the "Scandinavian gold digger" made me laugh out loud. I'll have to tell it to retired chairman Bruce Nordstrom”. This is only funny if you read the book!

Maybe we should set up an event in Denmark about “Customer Service Excellence” – not so few times have I went to a Danish store and got really bad customer service. Sometimes it’s like good customer service totally disappears with the presence of a desk – and a title of sales. But every salesperson know what it is being in the customer role!

We should start practicing humbleness – I say to my team every time we use a “dollar”: “Remember it’s earned by selling clothes piece by piece to real customers”. Despite the fact that many customers of ours are wholesalers and retail stores – no end customers no stores.

The future of retailing – multi-channel

Today’s consumers are more demanding than ever when it comes to expected levels of service and how they interact with a retailer. Whatever you like it or not – we’re forced to deliver only customer service excellence.

Every consumer wants to shop whenever and however they please, through any channel, without making any sacrifices. Ultimately, consumers buy from retail brands, not retail channels.

For them, the distinction between brick-and-mortar stores and online, catalog or telephone shopping is irrelevant. They expect to be able to get the same product information, services and inventory availability from all channels. And they want flexibility and convenience: An order taken over the Web should be available for delivery or pickup at the local store.

This leaves every standalone retailer with an issue – how do I fund this operation. The answer is very simple – join somebody that masters that discipline. Right now it seems like art to some – but in 5-7 years time in mainland Europe this will be level zero for competition. And if you don’t do it – you’ll lose the game. And the game is again back to being the best salesman, providing good customer service throughout every channel. But also delivering business excellence - within every aspect of online marketing. As well as multi-channel marketing with contact points like e-mail, sms and mms and other interactions with mobile devices.

More to follow on this subject …

One Customer - and Customer Service Excellence

There are only one customer. There's not an online customer, a retail (offline) customer, a callcenter customer based on a printet magasine - there are only one customer. The customer selects it's touch points based on convenience, selection and price (no. 1, 2 and 3).

If you don't focus on serving the customer right in front of you - you're overhauled by your compeditors. Nordstrom knows how to do customer service right. In facts they besides worldclass in this lifegiving exercise. No apparal retailer has such a high retention rate like Nordstrom.

I hope every serious retailer will read the book.


Br.
Kim



About the book - from an online bookstore:

First published in 1995, The Nordstrom Way is a classic guide to great customer service. This new book replaces The Nordstrom Way with an even more practical guide to becoming the Nordstrom of your industry.

Designed for customer service managers and trainers, as well as business owners, its an invaluable resource for designing your own programs and initiatives. The authors not only explain the principles of the worlds best customer service company, they also show you how to implement them in your own organization.

The Nordstrom Way to Customer Service Excellence will help your business make customers its number one concern, and help make your business number one in your industry.

My work

For the last year I been working at Bestseller - a danish fashion company with brands like ONLY, Vero Moda, Jack & Jones, name it, Vila and a couple of other apparel brands.

Together with the team - we've built Bestseller Online, an online division taking care of all consumer related online activities.

Right now we're working on implementing multi-channel retailing and marketing.

This blog will consist of various links, whitepapers, personal experiences, professional experiences, facts and figures about the business and relevant litterature for the subject of the blog.

Bestseller is an amazing family own company. The company is built upon honesty, humbleness and acting profesionally and securing any trading as a win-win situation. Bestseller is own by the Holch Povlsen family. Visit www.bestseller.com to read more - and read about vacant jobs :).

From a management perspective I belive in: "People who feel good about themselves - produces good results".


Happy reading, and thanks for joining,

Br.
Kim