Consumers Punishing Physical Stores For The Sins Of Their Online Counterparts
Written by Evan SchumanRetailers have for years argued that their online and offline operations should be seen as one. A recent survey suggested that the persuasion was working and that some retailers may regret it.
The survey by Gomez, an internet performance tracking company, shows that many consumers who have a bad online experience are now avoiding the in-store experience from that same retailer. In some instances, that truly is a Catch-22 situation. Nordstrom, for example, has a reputation for delivering extremely personalized and attentive customer service for people visiting their stores. That high-touch attribute is quite difficult to replicate online, setting themselves up to disappoint online visitors. Those disappointed unhappy online visitors would then potentially punish the brick-and-mortar locations as well.
“Retailers have been very slow to understand that, to the consumer, it’s one brand,” said Paula Rosenblum, a retail technology analyst for the Retail Systems Alert Group. “They’re not structured for it. They’re not compensated correctly for it and, in many ways, their technology isn’t set up to accommodate that.” To read the full story, please click here.
-Dan Stiel
November 7th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
As a consumer, this is extremely frustrating. I found some items on line at Dicks Sporting Goods, but when I went to the store to try to buy them, I was told, ‘oh, another company just USES our name on line, we don’t carry all of the same products or even at all the same retails.’ They won’t be getting any of my business going forward.