The Omnichannel Index

I like to create what I call an "Omnichannel Index". The index measures the percentage of demand that is likely to happen, in stores, in the future.

Take a look at this image.

Notice that the vast majority of the customer base is going to "transact" in stores. You can say all you want about omnichannel strategy, but for this business, the vast majority of the customer base has an 80% or greater chance of spending money in stores next year.

Does this mean that the business is not "omnichannel", whatever that word means?

No.

It means that the strategy employed by the marketing team is fundamentally different than the strategy employed by many marketers. The marketing team must drive customers into the store.

1. Emails should be personalized, obviously, but the core email message is a store message.
2. Home pages and landing pages facilitate the in-store experience. Yes, customers will transact online. But the customer, by and large, wants to transact in a store.
3. Online, the strategy is to acquire a customer. If the customer is acquired online, the goal is to make it as easy as possible for the customer to migrate to store purchases.
4. Mobile becomes more important for this business than for an e-commerce centric retailer.

If you are a cataloger, remove the word "store", and plug the word "catalog" in. You'll get to see what your omnichannel index looks like.

Contact me (kevinh@minethatdata.com) for your own, customized, omnichannel project.