With reference to the '60s flick, a great Forrester analyst once quipped, it's a mad, mad, mad multichannel world (it was Paul Sonderegger, our resident customer experience expert, in 2002).

It is a mad multichannel world, but is it overhyped too? Nope. Our research shows that 65% of all online consumers have researched a product online, then purchased that same product offline. Once in stores, these people spend an average of $458 on the product they originally researched online -- plus another $154 on whatever must-have widget catches their eye when they're there.

Wouldn't it be great if that were the end of the story and all retailers would automatically get rich off of these people? That's just not the case. Half of cross-channel shoppers buy from a different retailer than the one that they started their research with. So that thunderous sound you've been hearing is most likely shoppers running to your competitors, not escaped circus elephants stampeding through the streets. (I know, that's not funny, people get hurt by those crazy elephants all the time.)

So what's a retailer to do? We went straight to the source to uncover multichannel best practices. At Forrester's Consumer Forum last week, we heard great multichannel success stories from many companies -- including Best Buy's work to create more than 200 circular versions that shoppers can look up online, and Limited Brands' 13-month effort to envelop shoppers in its brand and products and lock in sensational holiday sales by synchronizing its televised fashion shows with catalog and online campaigns and promotions.

We found even more multichannel best practices in our research: Circuit City, J.C. Penney, Staples, Lowe's, and Borders came out on top. There's one common thread among all of these multichannel stars: They all focus on the unique needs of their customers, not on ticking off multichannel tactics for the sake of doing so. For example, Borders doesn't accept in-store returns of online purchases, but how many people really need to return books? Instead, the company focuses on buyer needs for immediacy, offering shoppers the ability to reserve items online for in-store pick up.

These are just a few examples of multichannel best practices, but I know that there are hundreds of retailers working furiously to create consistent, compelling multichannel experiences. We'll keep working on multichannel research throughout the fall. Look for my next report that will attack how to integrate the right people, processes, and technologies to get multichannel retailing right. Your task? I'd love to hear from you about great -- or ghastly (just in time for Halloween!) -- multichannel experiences that you've had with retailers or that you offer to your customers. Email your stories to me at carriejohnson@forrester.com.

Thanks,


Carrie Johnson
Senior Analyst, Retail

Research Referenced In This Issue Amazon.com's A9: Search With A Purpose (35488) Cross-Channel Scenario Design (11198) GS1 Global Registry Data Pool Interoperability (35452) How To Get To Multichannel Merchandising (33210) Multichannel Retailing Best Practices (34575) Retailers: Get Past General Conversion Rates (35405) The US Consumer 2004: Multichannel And In-Store Technology (34696) The US Consumer 2004: Online Retail (34695) Who Uses The Buy Online, In-Store Pickup Feature? (34462)

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