Abandoned Baskets

As a matter of fact, one of the least talked about statistics on web sites are "abandoned baskets". Unless you are a grocery store, you may have never heard of this statistic. In a grocery store we look at how many customers came into the store, filled or partially filled a basket and then abandoned it before they reached the Point of Sale. Often, if this number of abandoned baskets is high it is a pretty strong indicator that our lineups were too long at POS and the customer got frustrated and left. Now, this is not the reason for every abandoned basket, some are due to genuine emergencies that customers have (such as forgetting their wallets!). The same statistic is tracked on the web. In this case, it is the measure of how many customers filled their shopping baskets and did not complete the order. In the case of the web, abandoned baskets are not felt to be caused by "long lines" but rather by sticker shock when the customer sees the delivered price after shipping and handling has been added. In supermarkets if you had ten percent abandoned baskets you would have a serious problem, on some web sites abandoned baskets can approach 30% or higher. Clearly showing a real problem with that Point of Sale.

Multi Channel vs Pure Play

Despite all the hype about web retail and virtual retailers the reality is that most business is still being done by "brick and mortar" retailers. For most categories, even in the next five years, web retail will not exceed 15% of total sales. What we are seeing is that the slow-to-web brick and mortar retailers are now beginning to adopt a multi channel approach. This approach is widely believed to be the one that will win more customers than pure virtual retail or pure brick and mortar. The multi channel approach is very simple, it is saying to the customer, "Any way that YOU want us to serve YOU, we will." This means that the customer can shop in our store, call us on the phone to order products, browse our catalogue (if we have one) and visit our web site to shop there. We are available in one way or another twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.

Smart money is on the retail store brand names that customers recognize because they see them every day and are available for quick shopping trips when necessary and also available to deal with returns and adjustments. It has been noted that when the CLUMPS (Computer literate upwardly mobile professionals) no longer dominate web purchasing, as they do now, and middle America begins to trust and shop the web, that the majority of customers will choose stores that they are familiar with. Don’t you think that it will be more likely that a customer will remember Sears.com or Wal-Mart.com and not wehaveeverythingintheword.com?

Where It All Happens - Point of Service

As we noted in the beginning of this article, today we have to be where our customer wants us to be and provide the service that they require. There is probably no more demanding space than the last three feet in the store, when we consummate the transaction with the customer. Have you ever stood in a grocery store line, or a line at the Gap or Toys R Us? Most of us have, and what we notice is that most of the time the process moves relatively quickly. What we often fail to notice is that one of the reasons for this is the hardware that these companies use. POS hardware is often the most overlooked and under planned component in almost all independent retail businesses. Often the owner or manager selects a PC based POS system and then makes the mistake of believing that one computer is the same as another, and price becomes the determining factor.