Yeah, We Discount Online

The Executive says, and I paraphrase here:

• "It's almost like our customers don't want to shop from our catalog. We track orders we think were caused by the catalog, and even when we mail a catalog our customers seem to prefer shopping online without catalog attribution. I don't get it."

So, I dig into the information. Here's an interesting trend.

• Call Center Orders = $54.87 average price point, 29% of items sell below their historical average price point.
• Online Orders, Catalog Attributed = $47.03 average price point, 41% of items sell below their historical average price point.
• Online Orders, No Catalog Attribution = $45.25 average price point, 50% of items sell below their historical average price point.

I asked the Executive why this happens? Why do call center customers buy expensive items, while online non-catalog-attributed customers purchase items more than nine dollars cheaper, with half of the items selling below their average historical price point?

The Executive says, "yeah, we do a lot of discounting online".

And when you do that, you change customer behavior.

Those of you in the catalog world, folks who love to opine about the myriad benefits of an integrated omnichannel approach, well, you should think how integrated the approach is when you offer financial benefits to respond in one channel but not another.