Results Count ... everything else is conversation.: Webrooming - How retailers must fight back against Amazon

Reports of the death of traditional retail have been greatly exaggerated

Image: Stuart Miles; Freedigitalphotos.net

In our last post, we highlighted how Amazon continues to innovate for competitive advantage. While Amazon is certainly not the only successful online retailer, it has become the persona of e-commerce. Some pundits have gone so far as to predict the death of traditional retail. To paraphrase Mark Twain, those predictions have probably been greatly exaggerated. Especially in light of Accenture research, which shows that consumers are just as likely to "webroom" as showroom. If retailers can't stop showrooming, they must fight back by leveraging webrooming and other means to engage today's "omni-sumer" when, where and how they shop.

Webrooming is actually more pervasive than showrooming

The headlines are replete with stories of consumers "showrooming". Showrooming is when consumers stand in a retailer's store aisle and use their smartphone to shop and purchase a better deal online. Webrooming is a term for the reverse of showrooming. It is when a consumer has shopped online, but makes a trip to the store to purchase a product. Said another way, it is when a consumer uses Amazon to research products and read consumer reviews, and then goes to Best Buy to make their purchase. OUCH … but touché!

Does webrooming really happen all that much? According to research by Accenture, consumers are still enamored with the store shopping experience. A full 94% found in store shopping to be "easy", versus only 74% for online, versus only 26% for mobile. There are even more compelling stats from the Accenture study:

73% of respondents indicated that they had participated in showrooming
But 88% said that they had webroomed, purchasing in store after browsing online
65% said they would webroom versus 62% who said the same for showrooming

Clearly, Accenture's research indicates that traditional retail is not dead just yet. Indeed, it has the opportunity to thrive … but that is only an opportunity IF retailers understand and adapt to the changing behaviors and preferences of today's omni-channel consumers.

Today's best customers are increasingly "omni-sumers"

Image: Stuart Miles; Freedigitalphotos.net

I doubt if most of us would describe ourselves as "omni-channel" consumers. Omni-channel is not a consumer term we identify with, but it certainly describes our shopping behaviors and patterns. When we are in our home office or at work, we often take a "break" and go check out products online using our computers. While relaxing watching TV, we are likely to browse online using our tablet or smartphone. And, who hasn't checked out websites or product prices on their smartphone while shopping at the mall?

And yet, we aren't giving up the store experience any time soon, especially for significant personalized purchases. There are certain things like fashion and electronics that we want to touch and feel. If the retailer is on top of their game, they will do things in store that Amazon can't … especially engaging consumers in "test drives" and imagining what their life will be like if they could take this solution home with them today. The key for traditional retailers to survive is understanding that today's consumers have changed their habits, preferences and shopping behaviors in profound ways … and they're not going back.

What consumers really want from retailers … "their way"

Traditional retailers are definitely "not dead" … yet. But, they should not take too much comfort in Accenture's research showing that consumers are just as likely to webroom as showroom. Accenture's research clearly shows that consumers are now in control of how and where they shop. If the there is one overarching theme, is that consumers want it "their way". Regardless of where consumers originate their point of shopping, they want their experience with a retailer to be "seamless", very easy to use, and personal.

Remaining competitive in today's omni-channel world is not a passive process of harvesting traffic that makes it to stores. Rather, it is an aggressive process of innovating how to engage consumers in every step of their journey, where ever they start. To become valued, traditional retailers must invest in delivering a personalized experience, which is seamless across the web, store and mobile. This is a very tall order for many traditional retailers who lack infrastructure, as well as a corporate mindset of making it all work together. Today's consumers expect:

To be able to see online which products are carried by which stores
Being able to purchase online and pickup in store
Being able to shop and purchase in store and ship it home
Competitive, if not the same prices in store as online
Being able to also do it all from the phone or tablet

Results Count – Retailers who invest are realizing huge payoffs

Many traditional retailers remain store focused. The fundamental key to capitalizing on webrooming is to engage omni-sumers where they shop … and it shifts for different kinds of products at different times. Let me underscore some amazing stats from a very traditional retailer who has transformed their business to take advantage of webrooming, showrooming and everything in between.

Image: Stephen Richards; Wikimedia Commons

John Lewis is a classic case study. They are the penultimate high street department store in the UK. Experiencing the onslaught of e-commerce, they strategically created multiple ways to make their customers' experience seamless, compelling and easy. Their results are simply astounding and show that retailers do not have to roll over and die in the wake of Amazon and the multitude e-tailers competing on price.

John Lewis amazing results from harvesting webrooming and becoming seamless:

Over 60% of consumers research online before going to the store … webrooming
More than 20% purchase online and pick up in store … online to store traffic
40% use their phone to interact with John Lewis while in their stores
Omni-channnel customers spend 3.5 times as much as consumers who just shop John Lewis just in store or online

Webrooming is necessary, but not sufficient for traditional retailers to survive. It is both a blessing and a curse. For those relying on webrooming as a crutch to survive, it is only temporary at best. Like John Lewis, today's retailers must transform and create ways to personalize consumer experience through both webrooming and showrooming in order to both survive and remain profitable.

Darwin surmised: It's not the strongest or the largest that survive,

it is those which are most adaptable to change.

Traditional retailers need to use webrooming as a springboard to adapt to their consumers… not a crutch to get by on sales for another quarter.

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Sources:

Accenture: Accenture Study Shows U.S. Consumers Want a Seamless Shopping Experience Across Store, Online and Mobile that Many Retailers are Struggling to Deliver, April 15, 2013
RetailCustomerExperience.com: Accenture study finds webrooming tops showrooming, October 17, 2013
Omnichannel Search Images: Stuart Miles; Freedigitalphotos.net
John Lewis Image: Stephen Richards [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons