Speaking of Omnichannel Theory

Have you ever purchased something from Apple?

Apple are Visual Merchandising experts. You might buy a lightning cable and you instead get a Tiffany's style presentation of your overpriced cable. That's the power of Visual Merchandising.

I ordered a rug from Home Depot. They outsourced delivery to a third party ... and the third party appears to have outsourced delivery to another party - a dude driving a Penske Rental Truck. I was supposed to sign for the item ... nobody rang the doorbell, I didn't sign, and as a consequence I didn't see what arrived until I saw the Penske Rental Truck pulling away from my home.

I opened the front door - and I was greeted by the image featured here.

The rug might have been dragged down a freshly paved road.

You can have the best omnichannel strategy on the planet ... but if you fail in any of the three key areas, your omnichannel strategy is utterly feckless.

1. Merchandise. Yup, that's what customers actually purchase.
2. Visual Merchandising / Creative. Does the rug above pass the Visual Merchandising test?
3. Execution. Home Depot outsourced their execution to a third party that couldn't have cared less about executing properly. Which means that Home Depot isn't going to sell me any rugs in the future.

If you have great merchandise, and if you present the merchandise in a compelling manner, and if you execute well, you'll sell stuff. If you adhere to the omnichannel thesis and fail at merchandise / visual merchandising / execution, you have problems.

Focus on what matters for your business, ok?