Multichannel Customers

This week's news that J. Crew multichannel customers spend twice as much as single channel customers, coupled with the fact that 49% of their customers are "multichannel" (source = Associated Press via Paul Stuit's weekly newsletter) suggests that a "brand" better have a sound multichannel platform to succeed.

Here's a question for those of you who advocate multichannel strategies, products or services.

Based on your analytical studies (and if you're a multichannel retailer that is worth your salt, a reputable research organization, or a multichannel vendor, you've already studied these factors before talking about the importance of being "multichannel" in a public forum, right?), where does being a "multichannel customer" fall on the value chain, compared with the following statements?

• Customers who visit your website multiple times a month are worth "x" times more than customers who visit your website one time a month.
• Customers who purchase from multiple stores are worth "x" times more than customers who purchase from just one store.
• Customers who purchase from multiple merchandise categories are worth "x" times more than customers who purchase from just one merchandise category.
• Customers who purchase in multiple months are worth "x" times more than customers who purchase during only one month.
• Customers who have multiple items in their order are worth "x" times more than customers who have just one item in their order.
• Customers who order multiple times a year are worth "x" times more than customers who order just one time per year.
  
• Customers who ship merchandise to more than one address are worth "x" times more than customers who ship merchandise to just one address.
• Customers who use multiple payment methods are worth "x" times more than customers who use just one payment method.
• Customers who purchase from multiple store employees are worth "x" times more than customers who purchase from only one store employee.
• Customers who purchase full price and promotional items are worth "x" times more than customers who only purchase full price or promotional items.
• Customers who use multiple search engines are worth "x" times more than customers who only use one search engine.
• Customers who click on multiple links off of your homepage are worth "x" times more than customers who only view the homepage.
• Customers who respond to e-mail marketing, catalog marketing, portal marketing and search marketing are worth "x" times more than customers who only respond to one style of marketing.
• Customers who shop your outlet stores and full-price stores are worth "x" times more than customers who only shop one price channel.
  

In other words, rank order these statements in terms of true incremental value to your business. Is being "multichannel" important, or is it the only metric you actively measure?

We studied statements like these at Nordstrom ... "multichannel" customers were not the most valuable among all the customer types listed above.

You think about your business differently, once you assign value to each aspect of customer profitability.

Your turn --- how important is being "multichannel", compared with the other statements listed in this post?